Posted on 08/27/2012 4:14:13 PM PDT by Melas
I got the idea from this from a reply, but thought it might make an interesting post on it's own.
Is the Free Republic conception of liberalism accurate? I'd say that my social circle is easily and neatly split down the middle with about half being Democrats, and the other half Republicans. Not to mention that my wife is a lifelong Democrat. I confess, that I don't know anyone personally who claims to actually follow any third party.
One of the things I regularly observe is that conservatives rarely believe what liberals think they believe, and liberals rarely believe what conservatives think they believe. My contention is that the everyman and everywoman is far removed the guys at the top who's views get airtime.
Some observations:
Easily 3/4 of the liberals I know own firearms. Yet the conservatives cling to the belief that all liberals are anti-gun.
The vast majority of conservatives I know personally are against gay marriage, but don't even come close to wanting to re-criminalize homosexuality. Yet, the liberals I know cling to the belief that conservatives desire an American Mutaween peering into every bedroom and hauling folks off to jail.
I've yet to meet a liberal in real life who thinks Obamacare is a good idea.
Honestly, outside of the media and FR, the real differences I see all revolve around money. Liberals are genuinely convinced that Republican policies favor the rich at the expense of the middle class. Conservatives genuinely (and rightly) believe that Democrat policies are all about funding the welfare state at the expense of the middle class. That's the real division I see amongst real people. It really is about the economy, stupid.
They ARE anti-gun, because they vote for the likes of Obama who wishes to completely disarm America. Owning a gun and voting for Obama just shows a total disconnect with reality and common sense.
The country continues its descend into hell.
Thanks for posting this. Yes - not all liberals are walking stereotypes. Most of the ones I know are libs because they were raised by libs; they actually haven’t given it much thought.
And those are the ones who can be converted.
My mother is a liberal.
She is anti-gun, pro abortion, anti church, and thinks that we are mean to gays. To top it off she thinks that Obama is the second coming with Hilary the female version.
She is still trying to figure out how I came out so wrong.
That's what they believe about guns.
BTW, we have the videos of that event and it shows that the cops pulled out their guns and just sprayed everybody ~ total lack of demonstrable fire control and that usually means MORE TIME ON THE RANGE ~ like 2000 rounds a day for a month time ~ until their wrists turn to powdered limestone or they get control!
Abortion: all good, all the time. Death Penalty: Never! Muslims kidnapping and killing Olympic athletes: well, not everything is black and white. Obamacare: wonderful! Free birth control for everyone!
Luckily she is the only one in the family, but she is quickly grooming the loser niece who has worked exactly 3 months since she graduated from high school 3 years ago. The rest of us tell her to get a job and my cousin pats her head and blames her mother.
Liberals are children in adult bodies. They never really left the Peter Pan worlrd of an emotionally driven belief system. If it doesn,t affect them personally, it never happened. They live in a world hoped for but what it actually is nor will ever be. They will eventually get us all killed or enslaved all the while never fully understanding the deliberate slow progression of tyranny.
Liberals are children in adult bodies. They never really left the Peter Pan worlrd of an emotionally driven belief system. If it doesn,t affect them personally, it never happened. They live in a world hoped for but what it actually is nor will ever be. They will eventually get us all killed or enslaved all the while never fully understanding the deliberate slow progression of tyranny.
Perhaps part of the problem is that most ordinary people who might self-describe as "liberal" and many ordinary people who might self-describe as "conservative" are not totally committed ideologues, but each descriptive term carries its own baggage associated with how each term is perceived.
A former Democrat Congressman (Black) from Alabama, who is now a Republican, will speak tomorrow at the Convention in Tampa. He explained yesterday on "Huckabee" how the difference between Democrats formerly described as "liberals" and the Democrats now known as "progressives" who now control the policies and actions of that Party have caused many like him to leave the Party--because he cannot accept the ideas of today's "progressives."
By the same token, there have been folks who called themselves "conservatives" who have moved so far away from policies which would preserve, or "conserve," the Founding Constitutional ideas of liberty that those who held that originalist view are rejecting what they call "Republicans In Name Only" (RINO's).
At any rate, we're all in it together now!! We will either choose liberty, as did the colonists in 1776, or we will choose submission to enslavement by a government too big to do anything but oppress us.
You live in a conservative state so your experience is skewed. You won’t get that reaction in SF or LA guaranteed
That’s really my point. I don’t know any liberals who believe that. Rather, the overwhelming majority of liberals I know believe that bad guys have guns, so it’s prudent to keep a loaded weapon in the house. Not a one believes that shotgun is going to jump up and kill anyone, but they’re damned sure prepared to fire down the hallway if a window breaks or the front door gets kicked in the middle of the night.
Lefties Feel. That’s it. They are a mugging or having ownership of a business away from being conservative.
Granted. Most that I know take him at his word when he says that he doesn’t want to grab guns.
I can see that. My own parents were Democrats, but born in the early 20’s, I wouldn’t have called them liberals. My father especially, being from the South, could not have reasonably been a Republican. There were still people alive who remembered reconstruction when he was born, and as far as they were concerned, it was a Republican deal.
Well said.
Liberals - Believe in feeling good and emotions. Usually with other people’s money. They do not care about RESULTS but about intentions.
No amount of logic or proof is good enough to them because they had good intentions.
The road to hell in paved with good intentions.
Conservatives care more about results. So they are cold and heartless and want to starve kids...
I’m still looking for the pro-Obama liberal. I know a bunch who’ll vote for him because they don’t trust Republicans, but from what I can tell, he’s short on true fans.
I don’t know that I can agree with that. My wife is the single most driven, responsible adult I’ve ever known in my entire life. She certainly puts me to shame. Going joke in the family was that’s she’s a type A+ personality,and I’m somewhere closer to the end of the alphabet.
Post of the day, and spot on. Thank you.
I don't know about the firearms and Obamacare. It looks like you live in a very conservative part of the country.
But it is true that in debate people jump from what their opponents actually believe to what they assume that they must believe.
Very few people entirely conform to the stereotypes which crop up so often in arguments.
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