(mis)understanding one's enemies: do you think it's EASIER to be a conservative?

It's hard to believe in things, period.

It's easier to not be ineterested in politics than it is to be interested in politics. If you are, it's easier to blindly follow some party line than to take a critical view of your own side. I don't think this differs much whether you're a liberal or a conservative, both ideologies can be easy or hard to live with, depending on yr attitude towards them.

I dunno. Take a look through the Daily Express (actually no, don't bother) - you'd have to be some kind of twisted genius to come up with some of the things they've contrived.

-- Autumn Almanac (ada...), January 20th, 2005.

Attitudes like this are what really annoy me about ILX lefties. It's patently obvious that some of the posters here who prolly did their thesis on Gramsci haven't had so much as a cursory glance at thinkers like Hayek or Nozick, or indeed anything that might both conflict with their worldview and have more thought put into it than freerepublic.

Also, there is no country in the world where conservatives are not in the majority, it just means different things in different places.

Okay, well I'm talking from personal experience, as well as paying attention to public figures who currently support the right. The vast majority really don't want to have to think about things; they're happier going along with their entrenched morality system, without challenging it, and just voting the way their parents did.

For the record, I'm not any kind of 'leftie' -- in my life I've voted for right-wing leaders far more often than left-wing -- but the current state of the world, i.e. scary and shit, is the way it is because of western conservative leaders who think it's noble to stay ignorant and systematically destroy the planet, and remove personal freedoms from those they're supposed to be looking after. In this climate anyone who still supports the right needs to stop and have a look at what's going on, rather than selfishly keeping their head down and coasting through their ignorant bliss.

Both sides do this, of course. The article about Roe v. Wade in the new Atlantic is great. Abortion has been fucking up proper discourse in this country for 30 years. (sorry -- the whole article isn't online yet.)

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200501/wittes

I think the difficulty comes when you take a political standpoint that conflicts with your nature, upbringing or geographical location (i.e.: a Southern, Christian military man who decides he hates the Republicans record for environmental protection and decides to vote Democrat.)

This is so dependent upon where you live it's not funny.

>You should visit planet Canada sometime or perhaps the
>Scandinavian nebula!

I think you'll find Scandinavia is full of conservatives; ie people who want things to stay the same. Canada is too but Canadians don't call themselves conservatives because they can only think an USA-centric mindset. If they weren't conservatives they'd do something about the war their government is waging on workers and native people instead of harping on about GWBush all the time.

Of course we're only talking about the first world here. I'll bet you would find it hard to find many conservatives in Columbia. But they're not in the world are they? No it's another world.

I hate this kind of talk, it's not fun for me as it is for some liberals to get riled up by 'stupid' conservatives (not that my objection to him is his intelligence). I hate confrontation and get very emotional about these issues. However I did manage to mention that a great many corporations are taking much more welfare from us than a few unwed mothers. His response was that these were anomalies and that the government was generally good and trustworthy and doing their job.

This made me think it's not an issue of intelligence. It's mental and emotional and personality issues. This is why facts and debates don't matter. I think many people for their own mental stability have to refuse the government, the people watching over them and controlling their lives, is as corrupt as certain people say it is. It's easier to blame and judge some random people in positions they can't relate to than to admit the bigger system has fundamental flaws. I think it also becomes a class issue. When you have enough money for health insurance, the issue becomes a non-issue. WHen you're straight and married and don't have to deal with complex issues of sex and communication, it's easy to blame fags and sluts for their own problems.

Not that liberals are immune to oversimplification. Some of them also paint things so black and white as to make thinks simple and easy (like the whole victimization thing, ask Tavis Smiley). I admit every feeling I have about an issue is how it will affect me or if I can empathasize with those it will affect. That's how people work!

Is that necessarily conservative? Sounds like he's just a big Froot Loop.

Shoulda asked him what he thought of Social Security and then if he complained noted that the government was doing its job by his own statements. Create feedback loops, much laffs!

Yeah Ned, you shoulda got into it, you actually met both of them. I've known my friend for 25 years and we just don't talk politics. I think we just bond on certain things and know each other really well. I also suspect she's not hugely political since I don't remember argueing about this stuff growing up and perhaps takes on opinions listening to him. I suspect you can't love every aspect of your friends. Everyone has issues. not agreeing with me politically = having issues. heheh.

Ah, lemme guess, yer friend who's the writer and her (to be blunt) jock boyfriend? Amusing. But yeah, that would be a tangled situation, wouldn't it? There's obviously no one answer to that. My sister's best friend from high school essentially turned into a corporate lawyer asshole and while it hurt my sister a bit she also realized that they had grown apart and that it was better to move on rather than pretend things were still as they were.