Conservative? Seems to be a minority, and a rapidly shrinking one. Weep and gnash those teeth!

You are a bad guesser. She’s Democratic through and through, because, and I quote, “that’s hot.�

And still no proof. Look, Cevin, I’ll explain something for you, because you’re just a Conservative and we all know what you people are like ;) : just cuz you say it doesn’t make it true or mean that anyone’s going to believe it. Of course I should also point out that I’m just arguing this for shits and giggles; if some of the proponents of a political belief system happen to be unintelligent or wealthy, it says nothing about the system itself. This is even true of Conservatism, so I wouldn’t hold you, for example, against it as a belief system but would rather judge its ideas on their own merits.

again, I should say that most Republican politicians are self made men, and most Democrats aren’t. Is there a rational explanation for this

Yes, there is. You are wrong. Otherwise PROVE that “most Republican politicians are self made men and most Democrats aren’t.” I will accept as proof a survey of the wealth and the means by which they made it of the entire Congress and the top members of the Bush administration, at least to the cabinet-rank officials. Or you may post your standard of proof, and if I agree to it and you meet it we will then consider the matter proven. Then you can show how it would have some sort of deleterious effect on the validity of Liberalism instead of just being ad hominem. So, have at it!

And no, I didn’t buy your linked book, because any author who claims that he can tell Conservatives are the “real” compassionate folks because married folks, religious folks, and the employed give more (or, based on an interview in which he discussed his research methods, say they give more when surveyed…) is not someone to be taken seriously, unless he also proves that being married, going to church or temple or whatnot, and having jobs are inherently politically Conservative traits that Liberals lack. I know you think that’s the case, but an open mind will find otherwise-you can use your marvelous site to look up all sorts of things like divorce rates, illegitimacy rates, unemployment rates, poverty and welfare rates, among other things. Some of your findings may fit your preconceptions, some will not. As a lagniappe, here is some evidence that blue staters may not be as stingy as you’d hoped.

Your sister in $religious_figure,
tig

I’ve no sympathy at all for people today who don’t understand that islamofascism is trying to destroy the world.

Now there, I suspect, is where you will find most difficulty in convincing the average Sadly,No readers to change their minds. There is the problem, first of all, with the word ‘islamofascism’, which most of us on this end of the spectrum try to avoid, on account of the way it lends itself to circular reasoning. And the implication that there is much of a connection between “crazy islamic extremist bastards” and ‘fascists’, this being something I disagree with, apart from “crazy islamic extremist bastards” and ‘fascists’ both being evil scumbags.

Now if you are using ‘islamofascism’ in the technical sense of “crazy islamic extremist trying to overcome Western civilisation”, then your statement is true, but in a circular-argument sort of way. We are more interested in the question of whether crazy islamic extremists are in a position to overcome Western civilisation. And I’m more worried about meteor strikes and dangling italic tags.

But no doubt the question will arise in future comment threads, so we will have further opportunities to be incivil about it.

Tigress mentioned (with a rowrl!, I might add)

the Hungarian statement wasn’t mine, though, so try to keep up, please.

I shall attempt. But I’m just a hick from Louisiana. Can’t you give me a break? Like the islamofascists you are trying so hard to ‘understand’, we hicks just don’t know any better. You are being way to hard on me because of my racial background. Yes, I’m crying racism. You pick the race, and I’ll cry opression. Or perhaps I’m gay. Or better yet, a woman, trying to raise children on my own, without help from anyone, except of course the government. They owe me… or something. No, I’m part of the bow-tie wearing coalition, and you are discriminating against me because of my bow-tie wearingness! Whatever. You pick the ridiculous minority that I’m part of, and I’ll say you are discriminating against me because of it. Fair enough?

Oh, Paris wasn’t even registered to vote as of 2004, nor did she vote in the 2004 election, so I’m guessing she’s nothing…

You are a bad guesser. She’s Democratic through and through, because, and I quote, “that’s hot.” Still, it is refreshing to hear liberals distance themselves from the crazy elements of their constituency, much like we have to do with our craziest of supporters. Perusing Kos led me to believe that you guys embraced them (Ned Lamont… Good Lord!).

Silly me, I seem to recall the whole thing came up because you claimed “People who are born rich tend to be liberal because they don’t understand things like working to make money� and “The majority of the paucity of conservative rich tend to be self made men. This cannot be said of rich liberals,�

I still claim this thing. I’m guessing you didn’t buy the book I linked showing you who cares about our poorest citizens? I recommend you don’t, since it will be disheartening. Or maybe you should, since it might help to bring you over to the dark side!

…you brought up self-made Streisand and later apparently apolitical Hilton as examples proving your wacky assertions. They don’t prove it anecdotally, nor do the links you provided prove it factually, but you keep swinging, slugger.

I brought them up as examples of the liberal elite who just don’t understand reality, not as examples of the uber-rich who inherited there wealth (even though half of those two did). We can play ‘he said she said’ all week if you want, but the fact of the matter is that the richest people in politics are Democrats, and in terms of total wealth, Democratic polititicians own. Democrat politicians are MUCH more wealthy than their Republican counterparts, yet they tell you that Republicans are just trying to get their friends rich. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Again, I should say that most Republican politicians are self made men, and most Democrats aren’t. Is there a rational explanation for this, other than the rich Democrats are taking advantage of you, filling you with anger at the fall guy (Conservatives) so they can continue to get richer? It’s like a macrocosmic union for Christ’s sake. I’m shaken that you buy into it.

Yet your disdain for Babs and Paris fills me with hope. There may be a future for us yet. So I’m shaken, yet stirred.

Kevin. Mr. Kevin.

Oh, Paris wasn’t even registered to vote as of 2004, nor did she vote in the 2004 election, so I’m guessing she’s nothing, no matter how hot she thinks anything is. I found that via your website while searching unsuccessfully for proof that she finds any party where she doesn’t end up passed out naked “hot.”

No, I brought her up for an entirely different reason. Remember, we were discussing Hollywood and the music industry?

Silly me, I seem to recall the whole thing came up because you claimed “People who are born rich tend to be liberal because they don’t understand things like working to make money” and “The majority of the paucity of conservative rich tend to be self made men. This cannot be said of rich liberals,” and you brought up self-made Streisand and later apparently apolitical Hilton as examples proving your wacky assertions. They don’t prove it anecdotally, nor do the links you provided prove it factually, but you keep swinging, slugger.

Warmest regards,
tig

The list of inherited wealthy in America is insanely long, so a list of five or ten rich families will teach us nothing. I was limiting the discussion of our 500+ main politicians as a microcosm of our insanely rich.

Which is why you brought up noted liberal political figure Paris Hilton?

No, I brought her up for an entirely different reason. Remember, we were discussing Hollywood and the music industry? Try and keep up with us please, miss tigress. And contrary to your previously stated views, she is indeed a Democrat. When asked her views on the Democratic party, she opined, “that’s hot.”

Thanks for the hugs and kisses tigress! Once they are through my de-hatification machine, I look forward to receiving them!

Well, Kevvinn, you did misspeak, and now you are moving the goalposts, and yet you still present NO evidence that the majority of unearned wealth is liberal, nor why that would discount liberal ideas even if it were true.

. The list of inherited wealthy in America is insanely long, so a list of five or ten rich families will teach us nothing. I was limiting the discussion of our 500+ main politicians as a microcosm of our insanely rich.

Which is why you brought up noted liberal political figure Paris Hilton? Look, YOU said the richest of those with unearned wealth were liberals, while a quick perusal of the topmost families in the Forbes list shows that more of the wealthy inheritors give predominantly to the Republican party, Republican individuals and conservative causes. I’m sorry if that teaches nothing to you, but as it refutes your statement I think it should. Of course, as the original question you were attempting to answer was “Are you actually attempting to suggest that the majority of rich people are Liberal?” limiting the discussion NOW to “500+ main politicians” (while ignoring that your own link showed that the majority of millionaires in Congress were Republicans) is a teensy weensy bit disingenuous, isn’t it?

BTW, I find your counsel to me to “lose the hate” pretty funny considering that just about every post you made from your first on (on a jokey YouTube video war thread, for Christ’s sake) was sneering and hostile. But you keep on thinking I’ll come to my senses and become a conservative. Back when I was one I might’ve told someone the same sort of thing. I blame liberalism.

hugs and kisses,
tig

Okay, you are exactly as pig-ignorant as I suspected and I am afraid I have no further interest in anything you have to say.

Look up “Horthy” in the encyclopedia, take two aspirin and go to bed. And sorry for cursing at you. A dollar in the swear-box.

It would be interesting (to me at least) to compare the beliefs of the traditional conservative/libertarianism to liberalism/socialism. Could you guys convince Gavin to host such a study? He’s pretty evil, so I’d bet it would be hard. I suspect, as do most clear thinkers, that we all want the same thing, but we disagree on how to accomplish this.

Sadly [No!], I would not be able to participate until next weekend, but if it’s not a UN style hatefest, I’ll bet we agree on more than we disagree.

I do not care to opine on Hungary, other than to say that hungarians rock, and always have.

“I am a gay man. I am a blue-collar worker. I have read Proust. Go fuck yourself.”

I’m glad that you are a happy blue collar person who’s read Proust. You may stand be the solitary member in that club, except for the other flagrantly happy men. They pretty much dig him. Can I go **** myself? Sadly, No. I can offer some advice though. If you learn to use regular English words and refrain from cursing, people will think more highly of you. Just a FYI.

Barbra[sic] Streisand is some elderly, has-been singer or other who sometimes lends her name to political causes. YOU LOT ARE THE ONES WHO OBSESS ABOUT HER.

Again, you make me happy that you realize she’s an idiot. But much like it is our duty as conservatives to discredit idiots like David Duke, it is your job to discredit Babs, lest you be seen as a supporter of her craziness. Just a head’s up, but you should probably distance yourselves from Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Rosie O’Donnel [probable sic], Maureen Dowd, Pol Pot, Paul Krugmann, Jesse Jackson, PETA, every fool that misunderstands the cause of global warming, Mao, Harry Reid, Karl Marx, etc. The world does not suffer fools for long.

Jade continues:

I don’t know why, but my guess is that it’s because you have no self-awareness, no judgment, and no perspective whatsoever.

How can a speaker be not self-aware? No judgement or perspective? Geez, I’m judging you as we speak! Being that this statement makes no sense, I’m forced to say…OMG, we agree! I don’t know why you think that either! What great fun it is to agree, huh?

When you say, “On the grounds that you think that 50% is an elite”, I’m forced to say, “huh?” I thought my inability to comprehend this sentence was because of your own inability to use paragraphs, but even if I make it part of the last paragraph, it makes no sense. I live in Louisiana though, so liberalism will force you to say, “Oh. Well, that’s understandable then. He just doesn’t know the facts” or something. Liberals crack me up.

Lastly, Jade is a girl’s name. It’s not designed for excessively happy men. If you are indeed flamboyantly happy, you should change your name to ‘sexual jade’, or ‘rock hard jade’, or even ‘the male jade who likes other men’. Perhaps ‘manlike-jade’? It’s just not right to mislead people.

WTF?

I sympathise with Poland who put up a good fight after France and England abandoned them.

WTF???
Care to opine on Hungary?

You had me until the end. Blue collar workers don’t discuss Proust. After all, he’s French. And there’s something else about him that’s significant, but I can’t put my finger on it.

I am a gay man. I am a blue-collar worker. I have read Proust.

Go fuck yourself.

I hope you do the same, and two commenter’s disdain for Babs fills me with hope. After you realize that her arguments are weak (blah blah blah)

WTF??????????

Barbra Streisand is some elderly, has-been singer or other who sometimes lends her name to political causes. YOU LOT ARE THE ONES WHO OBSESS ABOUT HER.

I don’t know why, but my guess is that it’s because you have no self-awareness, no judgment, and no perspective whatsoever.

On the grounds that you think that 50% is an elite.

Do you have some standard for measuring “crazy liberalism�? Is there likewise a metric for “sane liberalism�?

Do I have a metric for the craziness of liberalism? Sadly, No. I can merely offer examples. Cindy Sheehan: crazy. FDR: Not Crazy. The E.R. guy: crazy. JFK: not crazy. JFK’s relatives: crazy. Truman: not crazy. Any liberal who want peace at any cost: crazy. Frank Warner, not crazy (though I disagree with him vehemtnly on most things). I’m unable to put into words the definition of crazy vs. sane liberalism. Maybe, sane liberalism is filled with great ideas that just don’t work, and insane liberalism is filled with ideas that obviously won’t work. I’m not sure that’s accurate, since even communism sounds great on paper. Crazy liberal ideas usually don’t even look good when written down.

…how does the liberalism or illiberalism of Congresspeople[sic] relate to your claim that the majority of rich people are liberal? The entire House of Representatives and Senate is 535 people (plus one non-voting Puerto Rican representative). How does that constitute a majority of the wealthy, unless wealth is way more concentrated in America than anyone, even the most left-wing critics of capitalism, claims?

There are more non-voting Congressmen than that, but interesting question. What does ‘ Representative’ mean to you? To me, it means they are representative of myself. My feelings, my beliefs and my opinions. These are the wealthy people that WE chose to send to congress to represent us. The fact that WE chose these people should tell us something. It tells me something. It doesn’t speak to you?

You are mistaken on all political accounts though, at least from my perspective. The Rockerfellers are not a mixed bag. They are to a person liberal, though some are Republican (like Bush Sr is liberal though Republican) . Before Kohl was 18, he was rich, through no effort of his own. Pelosi and Kerry were born rich, and both married into ridiculous wealth. Graham and Reed had very hard working parents who were not born rich… but they aren’t part of the problem I’m discussing. Their kids are, and they were given wealth. Taking them off the list would be a mistake.

With the exception of Edwards, who made his money taking percentages from the poor (class action lawsuits don’t make the downtrodden rich, they make lawyers rich), and maybe a few others I don’t know about, the richest Democrats in politics were somehow given their wealth without earning it. This is true on the right too, with Bush as a notable example, but it is a magnitude more rare.

Mister Doctor (who also calls Barbara Streisand ‘Barbra’. Geez, why do you coddle these people? Do you also call John Stewart ‘Jon’? You’re not helping them.)said:

Here and in your comments on previous threads, you have been suggesting that the Sadly,Nocracy tend to hold liberal views because of their own sheltered, elite backgrounds (nothing to do with the sheltered backgrounds of politicians, or of the Hollywood illiterati). We can afford to offer condescending, impractical solutions for the problems of the poor, because we have never experienced those problems ourselves.

Ok, so Mr. Doctor gets me, kinda. More below.

So I could look back nostalgically to my earlier incarnation as a printer… would that convince you of my blue-collar credentials? That would involve long paeans of praise to the elegant beauty of Heidelberg sheet-fed presses. For sure, offset printing has its place in the modern world, but I will always prefer the mechanics of letterpress. The amount of brain-rotting organic solvents we were inhaling in those days doesn’t bear thinking about. One smell of methyl-ethyl-ketone brings the memories flooding back; printers don’t need no poncey Proustian madeleines. But I digress.

You had me until the end. Blue collar workers don’t discuss Proust. After all, he’s French. And there’s something else about him that’s significant, but I can’t put my finger on it. MEK does smell good though!

Heh, just kidding. I’ve no doubt you, like many others on the left have worked your way into wealthy/well-off positions, and I salute you. You have reasons for being liberal that we haven’t discussed Being born with a silver spoon in your mouth is not the only way to become a liberal, it’s just one of the ways that is all but guaranteed to do so.

But when you say that I “…dismiss arguments [I don't] like, by saying that the unwelcome arguer was merely a mouthpiece for his or her class consciousness”, I have to disagree with you. I don’t dismiss flawed arguments because of where they come from, Mr. Doctor. I discuss and then dismiss them on their merits, and then try to explain why the person believes the argument in the first place. The first discussion[1] is about the argument. The seond one[2] should be about how the argument came about. Both are worthy of discussion, right? Here’s a great, yet made up example!

Person A: “I hate black people because they are idiots!”

[1] This is an absurd statement, since black people are no different than people of any other skin tone. What kind of fool would say such a thing? After doing some digging, it turns out that [2] David Duke’s kid is person A. Is [2] important? I think it is. We aren’t always offered the opportunity to do this type of analysis, but it seems to me that when we can, we should.

I hope you do the same, and two commenter’s disdain for Babs fills me with hope. After you realize that her arguments are weak (if there is an argument at all. Usually it’s just name-calling), it’s important to realize that she’s kind of an idiot, so her views don’t come to exemplify your party’s views. We had to do that with crazies like David Duke, and still have work to do on that front with Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and that guy from the Moral Majority. Your list is… much longer.

Man, you guys force me off on tangents here. All I wanted to say was check out this hippie video (It’s not really hippies, but I’d hoped that word would entice you to watch it) and mention that Gavin stole my photo (he did steal the photo, but he stole it from the same guy I stole it from… I was hoping someone would notice that), and suddenly we are talking about silver spoons and Proust!

Still, I’d like to emphasize the fact that I believe you guys think clearly, and that’s no small compliment. If tigress can lose the hate, she’ll be an intellectual force to reckon with. Doc already is, and I applaud you.

Sadly for both of you, it’s going to force you to become conservatives! Come over to the dark side Doctor and tigress!

Good Lord, I type too much.

Jesus, for someone whose URI is Google, you’re sure wrong about a lot of shit. Kohl born rich? Google when he was born and when the first Kohl’s opened. The rest may have been born into wealth or may not have: Pelosi seems to have married wealth(as does Kerry-not including his formerly Republican wife’s Republican Heinz family wealth knocks him WAY down the list, and he did sign a pre-nup, you know), Graham’s not even in office anymore but doesn’t seem to have been born into great wealth, in fact his father worked his way up from poverty, a real American success story, and I can’t see Reed on any rich list. So that’s, what, four left out of your original nine? So if we look at the folks who inherited the most wealth support, let’s see… Du Ponts, Waltons? Republicans. The Rockefellers are mixed, can’t tell about the Upjohns, but the company gives Republican, Kochs give Republican, Mars and Getty lean Republican though Getty seems remarkably even-handed, I could go on, but hell, the figurehead of your movement is a trust fund baby, “born with a silver foot in his mouth,” and he’s at least as “smart” as Paris(Democrat? I doubt she’s anything) You might just be wrong about pretty nearly everything. Probably that’s the fault of liberals, too.

It’s ‘Barbara’, but regardless, you have no idea how happy that makes me to hear you say that. I had assumed that this was another koskidz (the ‘z’ is ’cause we won’t bow to theman’s laws of grammar!) type of website. I’m not sure why you expect me to be amazed that you watch smart actor’s movies, because many of them are good actors. I watch hippie actors very often. I just don’t put any weight behind what they say. In Louisiana terms, “they ain’t brilliant, but they are fun to watch.” It’s so important that both sides of the aisle completely ignore everything they say, unless they get a job in politics, like Arnold. At that point you have to take them seriously, because they have slight control on our future.

In the sense that I sympathise with those who are ashamed that we didn’t end Naziism in 1935-1938.

Really? In that case, you’d better stop snickering about the fact that France got occupied.

Au Contraire. France didn’t get occupied, they gave up. I sympathise with Poland who put up a good fight after France and England abandoned them. I have sympathy for the civilians in France who were let down by their government. I have little sympathy for the government that talked sh*t and ran way during the invasion. I have sympathy for FDR who knew this evil b*st@rd was coming, but could not convince liberal America to nip it in the bud. I even have sympathy for those Americans who could not believe that Hitler was a very evil person back then. There is no ‘snickering’ here. I’m just not willing to believe that France will protect us… from anything. We all know they suck, so let’s let them get on with their lives and not enter world politics. Fair enough?

I’ve no sympathy at all for people today who don’t understand that islamofascism is trying to destroy the world. You hear it from al-Sadr’s mouth. You hear it from Ahmedinijihad’s mouth, you hear if from al-qaeda, the taliban, palestine, imams in Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Yemen. And yet you CHOOSE to believe it is bravado. Let me tell you, you chose wrong.

People who are born rich tend to be conservative because they don’t understand how important the safety net is, and that social mobility would be much more difficult without it. And of course trust fund babies love conservatism, because they like the way conservatives make laws that help them inherit money without working at all. There — just as plausible as your version, and with exactly the same standard of proof

Yes, tell that to the Kennedy’s, the Boxers, the Kerry’s, Pelosi’s, the Reed’s, the Kohl’s, the Rockerfellers, the Feinsteins, the Grahams… The list is almost endless. And trust-fund babies? Good Lord, they are the most liberal of all! Look at the poster child for trust-fund babies… Paris Hilton. Oh yeah, she’s smart, and chooses to be a Democrat! Smart people like Paris Hilton ALWAYS choose to be Democrats.

*sigh* I’ll reply to the rest of you tomorrow. I have to take out the garbage and do the dishes now. I blame liberals.

The data being: 40 millionaires among them — 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats? Oh, sure, the handful of the richest are Democrats, but you provide no evidence of insanity. Kerry married the widow of former Pennsylvania Republican senator John Heinz, who was wicked rich(one of the two richest at the time but not obviously insane) so perhaps Kerry’s only crazy like a fox. The people that spring to mind as the “craziest liberals” aren’t on the rich list(survey says Conyers and Kucinich) and the craziest congresscritters sure as hell aren’t on the liberal list(Inhofe, Stevens, Coburn, Cornyn… I could go on, but you get the nutty drift),but are, as you say, strangely rich. In short, not satisfied.

BTW, more up-to-date figures here.

No, I would never suggest such a thing! Liberal media has worked hard to make this idea counter-intuitive, so I’m going to have to prove it. If you are not satisfied with data that shows that the craziest liberals in Congress are also strangely the richest, maybe you could check the data?

Do you have some standard for measuring “crazy liberalism”? Is there likewise a metric for “sane liberalism”? And even if you did, how does the liberalism or illiberalism of Congresspeople relate to your claim that the majority of rich people are liberal? The entire House of Representatives and Senate is 535 people (plus one non-voting Puerto Rican representative). How does that constitute a majority of the wealthy, unless wealth is way more concentrated in America than anyone, even the most left-wing critics of capitalism, claims?

In short, you’ve proven nothing because your evidence is simply not relevant to your claim.

Here and in your comments on previous threads, you have been suggesting that the Sadly,Nocracy tend to hold liberal views because of their own sheltered, elite backgrounds (nothing to do with the sheltered backgrounds of politicians, or of the Hollywood illiterati). We can afford to offer condescending, impractical solutions for the problems of the poor, because we have never experienced those problems ourselves.

So I could look back nostalgically to my earlier incarnation as a printer… would that convince you of my blue-collar credentials? That would involve long paeans of praise to the elegant beauty of Heidelberg sheet-fed presses. For sure, offset printing has its place in the modern world, but I will always prefer the mechanics of letterpress. The amount of brain-rotting organic solvents we were inhaling in those days doesn’t bear thinking about. One smell of methyl-ethyl-ketone brings the memories flooding back; printers don’t need no poncey Proustian madeleines. But I digress.

Anyway… that whole privileged-background-vs.-authentic-experience approach reminds me of the Maoists I used to know, who would dismiss arguments they didn’t like, by saying that the unwelcome arguer was merely a mouthpiece for his or her class consciousness.

I’m not saying that anyone here is going to change their minds if you come up with the right counter-argument, but stranger things have happened.

http://marceau.blogspot.com/2007/01/youtube-rocks.html