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Education: The Game-changer in Conservatives' Political Prospects (for the worst!)
New American ^ | Monday, 18 July 2011 | Beverly K. Eakman

Posted on 07/18/2011 4:13:16 PM PDT by MegaSilver

Long-time Washington commentator and columnist Tony Blankley delivered an uncharacteristically flawed analysis of America’s political prospects in a July 12 commentary for the Washington Times. He foresees a likely reversal of the United States' current statist course and a restoration of constitutionally limited government.

Blankley didn’t say precisely when this about-face would occur, but if not in the coming 2012 election, then probably around 2024. That is the year, Blankley predicts, by which it will become abysmally clear to voters that Obama’s math-challenged $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan (combining “$1.3 trillion in taxes and $2.7 trillion in spending cuts”) didn’t even make a dent in America’s economic collapse.

What Blankley left out of this scenario is "Education" — more precisely, the business of educating America's youth — the missing element in nearly all conservative analyses of America’s political future and, indeed, our way of life. To liberal-left statists, on the other hand, education has always been the trump card, the ace-in-the-hole assuring a Nanny State agenda.

Blankley states that until a couple of years ago he “assumed that America was on a slow, irreversible trek to the statist side.” But between the Obama administration’s general ineptitude, a semi-permanent economic impasse in Congress, and recent statements by the likes of his sometime nemesis, Ed Kilgore, special correspondent for the New Republic and frequent talk-show adversary, Blankley sees signs of a turnaround. A defining moment came when Kilgore inadvertently provided, in a piece for the magazine, a new and improved label for “constitutional conservatism” — constitutional restorationism.

The intent of Kilgore’s piece, apparently, had been to bash Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), and others like her, who favor a return to constitutional principles. Kilgore charged that what her ilk really wants is a “radical policy of returning to the pre-1930s view of the Constitution with its strict interpretation of the federal government’s limited powers, [taking] the originist view of individual and property rights and [urging] the removal of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation.” Kilgore implied that this was a regressive, backward stance, completely out-of-step in a 21st-century world. But because he coined a new term for it, “constitutional restorationism,” he ended up giving the idea unexpectedly fresh legitimacy. Consequently, Blankley thinks that Americans actually may reject Nanny State socialism and adopt anew the Framers’ original intent of constitutional principles, if for no other reason than to regain some measure of self-determination, which is under assault across the board.

“The sheer incompetence and, in some cases, mendacity of the current crop of statist politicians in both the executive and legislative branches,” wrote Blankley, “seem likely to bring on an economic crisis that will actually force Americans to decide between a constitutional restoration and a full embrace of statism.” Blankley argues that when the economic fire does finally hit the fan, and America actually begins “running out of money to pay for promised benefits” — Medicare, ObamaCare, Social Security, and other entitlements — the populace could well decide to become the “constitutional restorationists” of Kilgore’s nightmares.

But education is the game-changer in any debate over which side — Nanny State socialism or representative democracy — ultimately wins. At least 90 percent of children attend public (government) schools, where every new class of high-school graduates since 1966 — that’s over 40 years’ worth — has endured a predominantly leftist indoctrination package of K-12 curricula, spearheaded by the National Education Association (NEA) and its co-founded brainchild, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Over the years since 1947, the NEA and UNESCO have plied schools with increasingly extremist propaganda, complete with phony standards, phony tests, and fuzzy instruction in critical subjects like history, civics, literature, and economics, until the sheer capability of sustaining a republic (assuming pupils even know what that term means) is now in jeopardy. Many private (and even some religious schools) contain similar leftist offerings, thanks to compromised departments of teacher preparation in the universities. Every new crop of college graduates, regardless of career path, has been more left-leaning than the last. Classroom debate has long since veered away from “academic freedom” toward mandated “political correctness” — and increasing characterizations of contradictory ideas as “hate speech” — the infractions for which have morphed into suspension, expulsion, and/or “mandatory psychological counseling.” Blankley’s vision of “three presidential administrations and six Congresses from now” — when the U.S. Treasury runs out in 2024 — ignores the realities that 13 more years of educational mayhem will surely impose.

Now-grown children of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s constitute much of today’s “voting public” — when they are not busy watching reruns of Friends and American Idol. The few that avail themselves of more serious fare like PBS’ Nightly Business Report or Frontline and read The Economist do not realize they are still getting a highly condensed, skewed view of the events, often without context — and they don’t have the incentive, even with the Internet, to do the types of in-depth research it takes to correct any misperceptions. While certainly there are alternative programs and publications out there that generate hundreds of thousands of subscriptions and “hits” weekly and/or monthly, these reports and op-ed pieces, no matter how worthy, still require the reader or viewer, in an era of information overload, to compare them with their equivalents in various opposing forums — i.e., publications and presentations having a different slant. Although subconsciously people realize the need to know what “the other side” is saying, those who do not make their living from this sort of activity are simply not going to dissect every story and compare it with five or more other versions. This is especially true of topics which, at first blush, do not appear controversial — even though, in actuality, some topics, such as social issues or “traffic” cameras are arguably more controversial than their foreign policy or economic counterparts because they establish a troubling pattern of government incursion into everybody’s daily life — which is the very essence of “statism.”

Tony Blankley is not mathematically challenged. Nor is he any political ingénue: He helped shape the public discourse as former Press Secretary to U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and he served as speechwriter and political analyst for President Ronald Reagan. He has appeared regularly on CNN’s Late Edition with the liberal Wolf Blitzer and sparred on CNBC’s Hardball with liberal Chris Matthews. He did a brief stint as editorial page editor for the Washington Times.

And he got it partly right: For example, his assertion that even “if the federal government really went after all those billionaires the Democrats snarl about, and confiscated all the property of the country’s 400 billionaires … it would yield only $1.3 trillion — about five months of federal spending.…This pantomime deficit-reduction process is evidence that those in charge have lost their mental grip on the true dimensions of the fiscal crisis.”

But the down-side of long-term immersion in the self-important world of Capitol Hill politics presents a different set of challenges to “mental grip” — the kind that eventually insulates politicos and their staffs from the majority of Americans, which assume the status of pesky mosquitoes that take time away from the more important business of schmoozing and jockeying for position among the “well-connected.”

Blankley sees clearly the time frame Americans have in which to turn things around. But education is the missing link that busts his argument to Kingdom Come.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: education
This is exactly how they snatched them away from their Catholic faith in France: free and compulsory (not really, but parents have been intimidated into believing it was compulsory) LAIQUE education from the turn of the 20th century on.

On this account, George W. Bush can be said to have done as much or more damage to the cultural landscape as or than any other President within the memory of those alive: Leave no child behind in our Communist-run public schools.

WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION. Long live Pink Floyd.

1 posted on 07/18/2011 4:13:21 PM PDT by MegaSilver
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To: MegaSilver

If an abandonment of statist practices has to wait until 2024, we`re not going to need to concern ourselves with saving the republic, because there`ll be nothing left.


2 posted on 07/18/2011 4:42:48 PM PDT by ScottinVA (As a party that gives Obama what he wants, what again is the GOP`s 2012 selling point?)
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To: MegaSilver
The extemist left deliberately lied and deceived their way into almost complete control of public education (lying to parents on a mass scale) because the extremist left knew their goals could not be achieved without overwhelming brainwashing and demoralizing of American children.

Still you will find libertarian types and others on Free Republic complaining about social conservatives being off base when actually it is social conservatives who are in line with America's centuries old values, the same values under decades of assault from the extemist left's public education monopoly.

3 posted on 07/18/2011 4:44:31 PM PDT by Old Landmarks (No fear of man, none!)
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To: MegaSilver

This is one of many reasons why I believe 2012 is our last best chance to restore the Constitution and the rule of law in our society. An all-out campaign led by a real conservative has to happen, and it has to be a winning campaign. While some of the people in my generation are starting to wake up (I’m in the young voter category), I’m just not certain that the liberal education will wear off without a massive awakening.


4 posted on 07/18/2011 4:46:02 PM PDT by RecoveringPaulisto
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To: MegaSilver

ping


5 posted on 07/18/2011 4:51:25 PM PDT by rogue yam
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To: rogue yam; MegaSilver; RecoveringPaulisto; Old Landmarks; ScottinVA

No one can undertand politics without understanding r/K selection theory, which is why we have two political ideologies.

In Biology, there is what is called r selection and K selection. r selection involves culling a population aggressively, such as through predation. There is plenty of food, and resource, just life is short. As a result, an organism will develop a psychology which favors simple quick reproduction, as early a possible, and as often as possible. Such individuals will avoid competitions with peers, and adopt a promiscuous mating strategy.

Such an r-selected population will survive, but it will generally not evolve too far. This is Liberalism. No competition, be it war or Capitalism, combined with an embrace of promiscuity, and a desperate, selfish pursuit of personal interest.

K selection involve no such culling. Populations increase, until there are not enough resources to go around, and some must perish. As the competition begins, K selection produces a change in pychology. Since resources are scarce, there arises a competition for them, and only those who compete and win survive. Since only those who compete and win survive, the K selected organism evolves a psychology that is designed to produce as fit an organism as possible, so as to win that competition. Mating becomes a careful selection of the fittest mate possible, followed by monogamy, so as to mopolize that highly fit mate, and prevent others from benefiting from her gene’s. Careful child rearing becomes an imperative. And a drive to compete fiercely becomes innate to their nature.

This K-selected psychology is what is generally seen as producing superior evolutionary advancement, through it’s fierce competitions.

This is the origin of the Conservative’s psychology. Conservatives seek freedom, to compete with those who challenge them, be it in war, Capitalism, or even a shootout with a criminal. They seek abstinence until monogamy, and are obsessed with careful child rearing, in the form of “Family Values.”

This all relates to what Blankley is talking about in that our population is no different from any other organism’s. Civilization itself removes the Darwinian selection effect from our populace. Remove Darwinian selection from any population, perhaps through overabundance of resources, and you will get an increase in it’s numbers. Within that increase, r-selected members will increase as a percentage within the population, as they are simply designed to be more reproductive. They are designed to produce quantity over quality, as they say, and absent any selection for fitness, their offspring survive and reproduce. As a result, there will be an increasing number of less fit, r selected individuals who would be culled quickly in a state of nature, but are saved by their circumstances.

At some point, every population of organisms will reach a point where it hits the carrying capacity of the resources available. As Thatcher would say, in humans, this occurs when the Socialists have run out of other people’s money. At that point, a Competition for limited resources will inevitably ensue, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. When this happens, the r-selected component of the population will rapidly diminish in frequency, either through emigration or diminished reproduction, since they are not designed for competition.

I suspect this holds in humans as well, and it is why in history, Liberalism rises, a culture collapses, and then it re-emerges, Conservative and productive, yet doomed to repeat the cycle. So Conservatism will always be innate to our species. It is just that occasionally, our productivity will allow for the growth of an r-selected component of our species, and that will need to be cleared up by some unpleasant periods, before the balance is restored. Once the balance is restored, freedom becomes important to the population as a whole again, as the population becomes dominated by K selected psychologies.

This unpleasantness can be prevented, but we would need to apply a premptive selective effect to the population ourselves, such as by eliminating all but subsistence welfare, making parents pay for their children, instead of making the state pay the parent for as many children as they can produce. There would have to be elimination of economic reditribution, and we would have to start only accepting highly educated, highly skilled immigrants.

Since we can’t seem to get that done, we’ll experience some economic unpleasantness for period, as competition again forces her way into the arena. Once that is over, the balance will be restored, freedom will reign, and Conservatism will return in force.


6 posted on 07/18/2011 5:58:04 PM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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To: AnonymousConservative
Roissy and PUA / Game Theory directly contradicts your account of evolutionary psychology in the cuttlefish being a model for conservative / liberal mating behaviour in humans.

The loudest, brashest males in pickup theory get the hottest women. They don't resort to being effeminate.

Cheers!

7 posted on 07/18/2011 6:48:56 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: AnonymousConservative

This theory can serve as one model for the rise and fall of civilizations, and in this context leftism can be seen as just another “fall,” but it is not a recurrent pattern throughout history: our particular leftism is very specifically a reaction against Christianity. The most heinously consequential (from a material standpoint) philosophical effect off fighting against Christianity has been the perversion of the legal notion of personhood (a Christian concept), and therefore the erosion all of the social and legal constructs that have been built around that notion.

With regards to K-selection, though, I’m not sure I agree that civilization removes Darwinian selection entirely from a populace. Perhaps if you consider “leftist human rights” synonymous with “civilized,” but consider this: Britain’s crime rate in the early industrial period was alarmingly high but it fell dramatically by the first half of the twentieth century. Why? Because they had hanged most of the criminal elements and effectively removed that tendency from the British gene pool. (Mind you, since 1960 they’ve been doing a very fine job reintroducing it through Third World immigration, and in both Britain and Ireland social revolutions have exposed tendencies that in a more civilized context would never get as out of control as they are today. We have the same problem in France, as well: crime is spiking all over Western Europe and not just among immigrant-derived populations.)


8 posted on 07/19/2011 3:00:15 AM PDT by MegaSilver
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To: grey_whiskers

Thank you for the criticism. I really need to know where people will question this, so if anybody else sees something which their specialty seems to contradict, please pile on.

I had to look up what you referenced, so I am not an expert on it, but I will offer some quick observations. First, that work on the PUA stuff is generally just advice for low-fitness, r-selected males. It tells them how to act in a way that is unnatural to them, so as to fool hot (read Competitive K-selected) women into viewing them as acceptable mate choices. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of those guys will never get into a bar scuffle, and are much more likely to vote Democrat. One page I read even said not to bother competing with men for success as a means of impressing women, as it is just easier to fool women by using PUA techniques to get sex.

To me that is identical to a transvestite cuttlefish avoiding honest competition with a Competitor male, and just trying to mate as often as possible. Some will want to compete, earn, and then raise children well in a monogamous relationship. Others will try to avoid competition, mate as often as possible, and avoid having to raise kids. I see PUA’s as the second group, and I will bet most vote Democrat, if they vote. There will be guys who latch on to one girl, are loyal to her, who seek honest success in fair competitions with other men, and who view the PUA guys as “immoral” in some way. Those guys will tend towards Conservatism, and will vote Republican.

Humans are highly K-selected, so we are overwhelmingly competitive, meaning our females will favor competitiveness. Notice, also, hot chicks are highly fit, will tend to be Competitive themselves, and thus will seek out Competitor males for long term relationships.

r-selected individuals are usually of lower fitness, as they are the product of a reproductive strategy designed to produce quantity over quality. Thus in humans r-selected males will find better success with K-selected females by mimicking successful K-selected males, which is what I see there. I’m pretty sure if real competition reared it’s head, in the form of a bar scuffle, these guys would look for the nearest skirt to hide under. Any dude who names himself “Mystery” isn’t banging heads for fun.

r-selection is about two things. First, avoid danger and head-on competition with other males, and second, mate as often as possible. Here, faking K-selected status is just a technique - the strategy is the same. Don’t compete, don’t earn, just get the sex through deception.

Thank for the heads up on the PUA research.


9 posted on 07/19/2011 9:28:30 AM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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To: MegaSilver
constitutional restorationism.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hm?....I like that very much! Constitutional restorationism.

Please check my new tag line.

10 posted on 07/19/2011 9:37:57 AM PDT by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: MegaSilver

My view (and it could be wrong, as it is just an impression) is that civilization begins as K-selected competitors organizing thing to work well together, and avoid unnecessary suffering. This somewhat eliminates the state of nature, which would generally result in guys like Rahm Emmanuel and Saul Alinsky getting their heads bashed in by K-selected Competitors, who are programmed to view them as the enemy.

Since that early civilization offers them protection, it eliminates the selective effect, to a small degree, and these r-selected individuals persist and reproduce. Since r-selected individuals are programmed to reproduce in quantity over quality, they reproduce faster than K-selected individuals. As time goes on, the frequency of their trait increases. As it does, the r-selected individuals affect the nature of their civilization, reducing the selective effect ever further, by making the society more Liberal/Anticompetitive. Welfare increases, cultural discriminations between right and wrong are attacked, and all manner of deviancy are either tolerated, or rewarded with government protection from assail. The successful K-selected individuals are portrayed as the enemies, due to their success, even though they are all that keeps the society running. Eventually, you have a society predominated by r-selected individuals on their front stoops, getting checks for nothing from the government, and still reproducing.

At that point, the incentive to produce diminishes, production diminishes, resources diminish, and a much more competitive environment ensues, which culls the dead wood by necessity.

I knew a woman who lived in the Depression as a child. She said it was crazy, with rail thin people coming to her family’s back door begging desperately for food – yet there was nothing anyone could do. And now, here we go again. I hate to sound cold, but you see that kind of thing in nature all the time. I think its silly to think we are different, or that our population can multiply absent the cold hard effects of Darwin forever.


11 posted on 07/19/2011 9:48:48 AM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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To: MegaSilver
But education is the missing link...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Government K-12 education (and a lot of private school education, too) is our nation's MOST serious threat!!! I have posted this many times and I **seriously** mean it!

If conservatives give a twit about their own kids, about the Constitution, and the future of this nation, they will work to shut down the government K-12 schools! They will work to get their own kids and the children of our nation into private educational settings that uphold the principles upon which this nation was founded.

And...NO NO NO government can NOT be reformed. They were a progressive idea in the beginning. Progressives have always control teacher training and curriculum development. Progressives have always pushed for more and more godless secularism. Government schools were socialist-funded, compulsory, and run by the collectivist voting mob from the beginning!

There is NO WAY that socialist, compulsory, and voter mob schools can be reformed.

Finally,....It is more urgent that we shut down the government K-12 schools. If our nation's colleges were filled to the brim with students who could defend our nation's principles and their faith, their Marxist professors would wither before their righteousness. These Marxists would be like the Wicked Witch of the West, “Help me! I'm melting!”

12 posted on 07/19/2011 10:05:16 AM PDT by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: MegaSilver

That said, I should add that the problem with Christianity (from an r-selected individual’s perspective)is that it publicly supports K-selected drives, towards individual subservience to group for group competitions, responibility, careful childrearing, monogamy, loyalty, fairness, freedom, and decency.

These drives are the r-selected individual’s enemy. Christianity is just the means by which these urges are most obvioulsy pursued today, so Christianity is the target today.

I’m sure Roman Legionaries exhibited many of these drives, and they were reviled by the Anticompetitive Liberals of that day - Anticompetitors who increased taxes exorbinantly, expanded government beyond all bounds, offered generous welfare to every person who didn’t want to work, and who invited foreign barbarians into the government, to help lead their empire.

This theory obviously will not apply in every single case, but it will be a common theme to many.


13 posted on 07/19/2011 10:08:49 AM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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To: AnonymousConservative
I wonder. Has anyone ever done a study to compare the physical attractiveness of conservatives as compared to Marxists ?
14 posted on 07/19/2011 10:11:54 AM PDT by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: wintertime
Apparently the answer is yes, though I haven't bothered to check the study. See http://www.nerve.com/news/politics/conservative-politicans-hotter-than-liberal-ones-says-science Of course Marxists generally tend to denigrate conspicuous consumption (which is really just the advertising of competitive success and mate worthiness), and Feminists are in an age old battle against hot chicks. However competitiveness would involve more than just attractiveness. Don't forget, all of this evolved in a more primitive environment, where violence was the means of competition. You band together as a team, and raid the enemy to take their stuff, or keep the enemy from taking your stuff. If that is how you measure Competitiveness, you might be better off measuring propensity towards, and capability in, violence – especially group violence. A rough measure might be the overwhelming preponderance of Conservatives in the Military. See : Trowbridge, G. (2004). Poll: Today's military: right, republican and principled. Military Times. 05 January 2004. Available Online at: , . And Kohn, R. H. (1994). Out of control: the crisis in civil-military relations. The National Interest, 35(Spring 1994), 3–17. Although Liberal tendencies toward pacifism and Appeasement would also count as evidence. I still think the best argument for the theory of ideology as reproductive strategy is that r/K selection theory in animals revolves around three specific things. 1 Competition embrace or Competition avoidance 2 Promiscuity or Monogamy 3 Concern with carefully raising competitive offspring or lack of concern for offspring rearing Political ideology revolves around the same three things. 1 Embrace or avoidance of competition (in economics as Capitalism v Marxism, in War as Defense vs Pacifism, as well as everywhere else, from gun ownership/gun control to protection from offense through political correctness. 2 Abstinence until Monogamy vs Cultural Promiscuity 3 Careful child rearing through an embrace of “Family Values,” and children protected from indecency in culture, vs a lack of concern for child rearing (Tell a Lib your friend is a single transvestite male raising three kids, while swinging at a gay bar every night. They won't bat an eye, and will insist it may be a great rearing environment.) Add in that every aspect of K-selection comports with Conservatism, while every aspect of r-selection comports with Liberalism. It basically explains everything about how both ideologies would have inevitably formed within our species. What is best about this theory is it hits a very primal button in Libs. Conservatives don't seem to see the effect it will provoke in Libs, but Libs instinctively go apoplectic when they hear it. My theory on that is that the theory activates a neurological structure which they are trying to shield, through their embrace of Liberalism. As a result, they are backed into a corner. Embrace Liberalism, in the presence of this theory, which activates that structure, or abandon Liberalism, and let the structure get hit anyway by the threat of competitive defeat. Try it by explaining this theory to a Liberal, and see how they react. Check your Freepmail if you want a draft of a paper on this with more on the neurobiology.
15 posted on 07/19/2011 2:32:20 PM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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To: wintertime
Not sure why that didn't format. Let's try that again with tags.

Apparently the answer is yes, though I haven't bothered to check the study. See

http://www.nerve.com/news/politics/conservative-politicans-hotter-than-liberal-ones-says-science

Of course Marxists generally tend to denigrate conspicuous consumption (which is really just the advertising of competitive success and mate worthiness), and Feminists are in an age old battle against hot chicks.

However competitiveness would involve more than just attractiveness. Don't forget, all of this evolved in a more primitive environment, where violence was the means of competition. You band together as a team, and raid the enemy to take their stuff, or keep the enemy from taking your stuff.

If that is how you measure Competitiveness, you might be better off measuring propensity towards, and capability in, violence – especially group violence.

A rough measure might be the overwhelming preponderance of Conservatives in the Military. See :

Trowbridge, G. (2004). Poll: Today's military: right, republican and principled. Military Times. 05 January 2004. Available Online at: , .

And

Kohn, R. H. (1994). Out of control: the crisis in civil-military relations. The National Interest, 35(Spring 1994), 3–17.

Although Liberal tendencies toward pacifism and Appeasement would also count as evidence.

I still think the best argument for the theory of ideology as reproductive strategy is that r/K selection theory in animals revolves around three specific things.

1 Competition embrace or Competition avoidance

2 Promiscuity or Monogamy

3 Concern with carefully raising competitive offspring or lack of concern for offspring rearing

Political ideology revolves around the same three things.

1 Embrace or avoidance of competition (in economics as Capitalism v Marxism, in War as Defense vs Pacifism, as well as everywhere else, from gun ownership/gun control to protection from offense through political correctness.

2 Abstinence until Monogamy vs Cultural Promiscuity

3 Careful child rearing through an embrace of “Family Values,” and children protected from indecency in culture, vs a lack of concern for child rearing (Tell a Lib your friend is a single transvestite male raising three kids, while swinging at a gay bar every night. They won't bat an eye, and will insist it may be a great rearing environment.)

Add in that every aspect of K-selection comports with Conservatism, while every aspect of r-selection comports with Liberalism. It basically explains everything about how both ideologies would have inevitably formed within our species.

What is best about this theory is it hits a very primal button in Libs. Conservatives don't seem to see the effect it will provoke in Libs, but Libs instinctively go apoplectic when they hear it. My theory on that is that the theory activates a neurological structure which they are trying to shield, through their embrace of Liberalism. As a result, they are backed into a corner. Embrace Liberalism, in the presence of this theory, which activates that structure, or abandon Liberalism, and let the structure get hit anyway by the threat of competitive defeat. Try it by explaining this theory to a Liberal, and see how they react.

Check your Freepmail if you want a draft of a paper on this with more on the neurobiology.

16 posted on 07/19/2011 2:37:40 PM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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To: AnonymousConservative

Very interesting. Thank you


17 posted on 07/19/2011 3:18:37 PM PDT by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: AnonymousConservative
I had to look up what you referenced, so I am not an expert on it, but I will offer some quick observations. First, that work on the PUA stuff is generally just advice for low-fitness, r-selected males. It tells them how to act in a way that is unnatural to them, so as to fool hot (read Competitive K-selected) women into viewing them as acceptable mate choices. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of those guys will never get into a bar scuffle, and are much more likely to vote Democrat. One page I read even said not to bother competing with men for success as a means of impressing women, as it is just easier to fool women by using PUA techniques to get sex.

There are two significant differences to my mind.

The first is that the PUA seeks to copulate with women, NOT by being feminine, like a cuttlefish, but by imitating competitive males. The second is that these men are interested neither children, nor in long-term monogamous relationships; the first of these makes PUA useless as a reproductive strategy, for there is no reproduction -- and the other appears to leave the alpha males the field open a bit later in life: except that the women so used are "older and wiser more bitter, hence less appealing to the competitive male, you go for younger women: these older women either hide in apartments and get 27 cats, or turn into Maureen Dowd and drop out of the mating race altogether.

Another issue is "hookups" involving oral sex, masturbation, contraception, and abortion: many of the screw-like-bunnies-instead-of-families crowd engage in this, so their birth rate is not what it would have been.

The other missing element is divorce and the marginalization of all the males who are not top of the heap, but who do most of the useful work in a society to provide for their (not-hottie, but still serviceable) "5"-to-"7" wives.

Will discuss other points in a day or two as I have time.

Cheers!

g_w

18 posted on 07/19/2011 3:32:05 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers
The first is that the PUA seeks to copulate with women, NOT by being feminine, like a cuttlefish, but by imitating competitive males.

Yes, but imitating is the key word. The r-selected organism's goal is promiscuity through deception. The cuttlefish pretends to be female, to avoid having to compete, and this works as females apparently have evolved to accept transvestite males for some reason. In our more K-selected species females won't accept Transvestite males (I say this is due to K-selection because the aggressive r-selection applied when our Warriors left for WWII did result in a generation concieved in the forties that matured into the Hippies, in which females did accept androgynous and feminine Hippie males).

Anyway, imitation designed to allow males to avoid actual fitness based competition is the strategy in both cases. One of your PUA guys says on his site, “The investment required to be dominant over men is significantly more costly than the investment required to display attraction-inducing dominance,” implying that competing for resources is a waste of time, when you can just fool women with an illusion of success. These are guys who instinctively would be r-selected betas, but one discovered that circumstance will allow him to fake K-selected Alpha, and as word leaked out, they all adopted the technique to satiate their r-selected promiscuity drive.

Finally, notice that under extreme r-selection, as when we shipped all service age males overseas in WWII, the formula changed. Hippies followed the cuttlefish model exactly, even down to the feminine, non-threateneing, pacifistic male facade. Even today, as K-selection has overtaken our species again, we still see the effete Liberal, adhere exactly to the Anticompetitive model. War is bad, Capitalism is bad, macho is bad, manly is bad - the classic conflict avoidance through effete facade.

That all said, we are a smart species. PUAs are adapting techniques to satiate an underlying drive. Avoid competition, copulate, forget about raising any children, move on. That is r-selection. It not surprising, that in a highly intelligent species, out of 350 million people, a small contingent of r-selected individuals would imitate K-selected males to gain access to highly fit females who would otherwise be out of their league.

The second is that these men are interested neither children, nor in long-term monogamous relationships; the first of these makes PUA useless as a reproductive strategy, for there is no reproduction

Yes but we didn't evolve yesterday, with birth control and abortions. We evolved these r/K selection urges back before we were even human. Go back to just before birth control and abortion. The PUA psychology would impregnate women, and move on, leaving the female to raise the children.

r-selection is defined as promiscuity, not investing in child rearing, and lack of desire to compete with others. As in males mate with as many women as possible, and leave before the offspring are born, like a rabbit or mouse. In a state of nature, that is exactly what the PUA would be driven to do. And I will bet most would vote Dem, and test out as a Lib on Jost's various personality assays. Low conscientiousness, diminished loyalty, less rule adherence, more tolerance for out-group interests etc.

-- and the other appears to leave the alpha males the field open a bit later in life: except that the women so used are "older and wiser more bitter, hence less appealing to the competitive male, you go for younger women: these older women either hide in apartments and get 27 cats, or turn into Maureen Dowd and drop out of the mating race altogether.

That was funny. But I don't think you can mention Maureen Dowd without posting a Catherine Zeta Jones picture. I hear JimRob is real strict on that one.

Another issue is "hookups" involving oral sex, masturbation, contraception, and abortion: many of the screw-like-bunnies-instead-of-families crowd engage in this, so their birth rate is not what it would have been.

Again, these are all recent additions to an intellectual animal which was already behaviorally evolved, with these urges in place. Look at the urges, and visualize the result they would have produced in more primitive times, prior to birth control, prior to abortion, prior to an ability to predict outcomes and use technology to alter them.

Promiscuity and short term relationships will produce lots of children by lots of women, that the male will not be involved in rearing. The urge is the r-selected strategy, it produces a different result because our intellect and ability to mold future circumstances to our benefit has combined with technological advancement to alter how it will play out. Evolution hasn't caught up yet, so we are seeing old urges combined with new circumstances.

The other missing element is divorce and the marginalization of all the males who are not top of the heap, but who do most of the useful work in a society to provide for their (not-hottie, but still serviceable) "5"-to-"7" wives.

I think I see where the confusion is. You are equating successful (Alpha in PUA lingo) with K-selected, and unsuccessful (Beta in PUA lingo) with r-selected. These are psychologies, not measures of success, and they are likely present by age 7 or 8, long before any competition even begins. In fact, success is wholly unrelated to them. Plenty of K-selected cuttlefish fail, but they are still K-selected.

Thus, a man can work cleaning up horse manure at the racetrack, and yet be K-selected in his psychology. Such a guy will view life as a competition, and take his chances in the game where he can. But he will abide by rules, as in hi ethic of working for his income, and accepting the outocmes of competition. He will be monogamous, carefully raise his children as best he can in a two parent household consisting of a Mom and Dad, and he will probably vote Conservative, even if the Libs would raid government coffers to buy his vote.

Conversely, you can have a rich person, who owns a very successful company, but who is r-selected in his psychology. He will be averse to open, rule governed competitions which offer the possibility of loss, and he will be prone to opportunistic advantage taking. He will have short term promiscuous relationships with women, and not invest as heavily in child rearing as he invests in his own pleasure. He will tend to be selfish, disloyal to in-group, and Liberal.

I think it is the PUA stuff which is confusing you, and me too, as I am not all that familiar with it. Alphas are similar to K-selected, in that they are brash and confrontational, and claim success in Competition. But success is not K-selected, and failure is not r-selected. The most K-selected individual is the one who abides by honor in rules of competition, to the point he will accept a defeat honestly, when he has been beaten fairly in free competition. The business owner who accepts failure rather than pay off a politician to raid government coffers on his behalf comes to mind.

Conversely, the most r-selected individual is the one who shamelessly lies, cheats, and steals his way to blinding success by rigging the Competition to be unfair. Think Nazis locking up and then killing Jews, because the Nazis couldn't compete economically in fair competition. Think of a business man who pays off politicians to regulate his competition into failure, and who maintains it was all wholly ethical.

There is no doubt that there is complexity in our species. You take an individual and it is nearly impossible to categorize them easily. But zoom out, to ideologies. On one side you've got Republicans and Conservatives, and on the other you've got Democrats and Liberals.

One ideology embraces peer on peer competitions from capitalism to war. They advocate for abstinence until monogamy, and they coined the phrase “family values.”

The other ideology, in it's purest form, seeks to suppress Competitions and/or redistribute the disparate outcomes they produce, from Communism/Socialism/ (the purest forms of Leftism), to pacifism and disparagement of confrontation (Political Correctness). They support a more promiscuous culture (check Hollywood, for Lib positions on that), and they view concern over family values and indecency in culture as a waste of time, while they support all manner of bizarre child rearing. They give fisting kits to 14 year olds, and teach toddlers about how being a transvestite single dad is a great way to parent a child.

I think if you see r/K selection theory, and how it revolves around issues of promiscuity, child rearing, and competitions between men, and you look at political ideology, you will see they are one and the same animal. Every issue of each ideology is wholly predictable and explainable through that prism.

Freegards,

19 posted on 07/20/2011 4:44:52 PM PDT by AnonymousConservative (www.atheoryofwar,com - Why do Liberals exist within our species?)
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