lennybird
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Differences in Political Ideology: Empathy, Education, Consistency, and Violence.
Liberals believe it is important to teach Children:
- Curiosity
- Empathy
- Tolerance
Whereas Conservatives believe it's important to teach:
- Obedience
- Faith
It's right here where you see the divide being sown. Empathy—a high-level emotion—needs to be fostered and learned just like any high-level logic techniques. If the mother and/or father fails in doing this, it leads to long-term issues in behavioral development. Teachers have also widely called for bolstering teaching empathy:
>How can a child be kind without being helpful or thoughtful? By being polite. It turns out that manners were very important to parents. When given a choice between having manners and having empathy and asked, "Which of these is more important for your child to be right now?" 58 percent chose manners compared with just 41 percent who chose empathy.
>Kotler Clarke suggests that some parents may assume that teaching a child manners is a good way of building empathy. But, she says, "There's really no great evidence around that. In fact, bullies are very good at having manners around adults."
>On this point, teachers broke with parents, overwhelmingly preferring empathy (63 percent) over manners (37 percent). And teachers can see the disconnect in their classrooms. Thirty-four percent say, of the children they teach, that all or most of their parents are raising kids to be empathetic and kind, while just 30 percent say all or most parents are raising children with values consistent with their teachers'.
Furthermore:
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Conservatives are responsible for the vast majority of violence in our nation's history.
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Conservatives / Trump supporters are the least-educated Source 2 Source 3
This is probably the source of why they think the female body rejects rape pregnancies, why they think snowballs on the Senate floor disproves climate change...
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Conservatives diversify their news the least and are most susceptible to misinformation.
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Conservatives are less informed on history and current-events.
There is another interesting correlation, if not a causal-factor, in that those identifying as conservatives are likely to have elevated testosterone levels compared to their left-wing counterparts. Testosterone, the predominant male hormone is known to elevate rage and aggression while muting emotional sensitivities like empathy. On the surface, conservatives may cheer over this, but consider respect for a rabid wild animal / loose-cannon is not the same respect for someone posing intelligent arguments. This is why one frequently sees conservatives substituting aggression and intimidation for a lack of substantive reasoning -- Example. (1 2 3 4 5)
Furthermore, there's a connection with conservatism, and enlarged amygdala (fear, anger), along with reduced pattern-recognition and flexibility to change/adaptation (smaller anterior cingulate cortex compared to liberals).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
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Now imagine if you will that you are decades past your college years (IF you went to college at all) where you were once exposed to a variety of cultures, your preconceived beliefs challenged and you're humbled by how little you do not know (so goes the adage, 'the more you know, the more you realize you don't know*'). Add to this that you are at your peak mental fitness—you pick things up quickly. You also have more time focused on "learning" and being "aware." You are less afraid of change, albeit perhaps naive at times, but you almost look forward to change and progress.
In older years, your free-time dwindles, your priorities change. You can no longer spend as much time reading a book and focusing on current-events. Your time is spent on immediate concerns rather than the abstract and worldly, such as:
- Likely raising a family
- Focusing on your career/work/income
- Your mental capacity likely has deteriorated since your early years
- Your peers are all in the same boat, which then feeds back into itself
Now, instead of reading long-form journalist pieces, timely non-fictional books, researching academic journals—you're limited to "bite-sized" pieces of news via talk radio (Rush) or TV (Fox) as you're eating breakfast before work, then you've got the evening news and your social media feed. This is all you've got. Such a shallow understanding of what's going on makes you malleable, more susceptible to "common-sense" rhetoric when all variables are not known to you.
Because of this, you become more shortsighted. You may be more stressed because you have a family to support, and so you become more selfish—making you hate "all the taxes" that are impacting your bottom-line. Instead of progress, you just want things to "stay the same," and be "stable" because it's harder to adapt in older years. No longer are you looking at the long-term game, but the immediate return.
I contest the correlation with age is not a result of wisdom, but a lack of time to understand issues at depth, or await the return on investment. Compounding this:
Fluid intelligence degradation
>"“Chrystalized” intelligence, i.e., knowledge or experience accumulated over time, actually remains stable with age. On the other hand, “fluid” intelligence or abilities not based on experience or education tend to decline."
In short, Occam's Razor suggests that—surprise—education makes you more informed, and is not some liberal conspiracy. Perhaps we need to start considering the possibility that it's not that education is biased with liberalism, but that liberalism is a result of being educated.
By the way, I say this as a former Republican conservative. But the good news is that they change! My family did! Peace, love, tolerance, curiosity—these aren't exactly bad things. By the way, can you call me a bleeding heart hippie tree-hugger SJW? I wear that badge with honor.
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Political Violence in America | No, it's not a "both sides" issue
The vast majority of domestic terrorist, political, hate-crime violence has been committed by the Right. This is not a "both sides" issue.
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Right-Wing conservative who killed 6 people and attempted-murder on Gabby Giffords (MURDER)
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Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting - Anti-semite right-wing nut-job. (MURDER)
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Florida man charged with threatening to kill three Democratic lawmakers
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Tallahassee Yoga Studio Conservative Shooter (2018 - MURDER) - Right-wing incel nutjob supporting past shooters, hating on african-americans, illegal immigrants, interracial relationships.
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Virginian KKK member who ran his car into protesters for racial injustice & Police brutality (2020)
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Rally attendee threatens to bomb news crew while being filmed (2020)
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Right-wing extremists saying Democratic leaders need shot dead
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Two convicted felons in illegal possession of weapons stockpile planned to go to Kenosha and Portland to "loot and possibly pick people off." (Thankfully, the law permitted their arrest for a crime of possession instead of having to wait for them to murder someone. Maybe gun laws do work?)
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Self-proclaimed white-supremacist Buffalo Shooter killed 10 (MURDER)
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Highland Park Shooter regularly posted "far-right and neo-fascist" ideological rhetoric (MURDER)
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Armed right-wing terrorist storms FBI office in response to Mar-a-lago raid
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2 Right-wing nutjobs convicted of kidnapping plot against Michigan governor
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Let me unpack this further and not mince words:
You see, conservatives have always been responsible for the VAST majority of violence in our nation, from the treasonous confederates fighting for slavery, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, not to mention those whom they exploited; then you've got the 4,000+ documented lynchings per NAACP, clinic bombings, and all the hate crimes on Hispanics and Muslims and Sikhs (who look Muslim... not really).
Remember the Oklahoma City bomber that killed a bunch children in a daycare with his attack, Timothy McVeigh? He was a lunatic nut-job who disagreed with law-enforcement and their crackdown on Waco and Ruby Ridge and all those lunatic soverign citizens/religious nut-jobs/"free folk". Ultra right-wing conservative extremists.
Basically, he was the same sort of moron as the Bundy crew terrorists who did an armed takeover of a Federal facility in Oregon while also holding their ground against law-enforcement in Nevada (Watch this Documentary covering these terrorists).
It's places like
tdred-hat-snowflake-zone that instigate domestic terrorism. And fun fact: For the past 16+ years, radical right-wing conservative groups have been a larger threat per the FBI than any other domestic group. Moreover, radical right-wingers have killed far more people in the U.S. since Trump's election than any foreigner or Muslim.And whaddyaknow, Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter was both a gun nut and of the exact same breed as Bundy and McVeigh:
>Another woman recalled overhearing a man that looked like Paddock talking to another man at a restaurant in las Vegas days before the massacre. She told police that Paddock was ranting about two separate events that took place in the 1990s. One was the standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992, where a right-wing activist resisting federal weapons charges moved with his family to a remote cabin, leading to an 11-day armed standoff with authorities. The other was the 51-day standoff in Waco, Texas, between a Christian cult and police, which led to the deaths of more than 80 people, including 22 children.
and
>One man told the FBI and police that less than one month before the massacre, Paddock responded to his online ad selling schematics which showed how to transform your semi-automatic rifle to make it fire like an automatic weapon. “Somebody has to wake up the American public and get them to arm themselves,” the man recalled Paddock saying during their meeting outside a Las Vegas sporting goods store. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”
(Very odd, also, how Vegas police tried to keep these documents locked up.)
These kind of people are amped up by the rhetoric from Trump. When Trump tells them to commit violence at his rallies (Source 1 Source 2), eventually, someone will do it. Not long ago, we had a "Florida Man who Threatened to Kill Democrats and 'Weak Republicans' Over Kavanaugh Nomination", saying:
>“I can’t do this by myself, I need more conservatives going into liberal homes at night killing them in their sleep,” Patrick said.
>Over the past decade, extremists of every stripe have killed 372 Americans. 74 percent of those killings were committed by right wing extremists. Only 2 percent of those deaths were at the hands of left wing extremists. Mayo told us:
>"I don’t want to give moral equivalence to the two sides because one side is fighting against white supremacy. On the Antifa side, they’ve never murdered anyone but there have been many murders done by white supremacists, so we have to be concerned about that movement."*
Another report released in 2019 (PDF Warning), analyzing 2018 extremist attacks noted the following:
>2018 was a particularly active year for right-wing extremist murders: Every single extremist killing - from Pittsburgh to Parkland - had a link to right-wing extremism
>In 2018, domestic extremists killed at least 50 people in the U.S., a sharp increase from the 37 extremist-related murders documented in 2017, though still lower than the totals for 2015 (70) and 2016 (72). The 50 deaths make 2018 the fourth-deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970.
>Of these killings, 78% were perpetrated by white-supremacists, 16% by anti-government extremists, 4% by "incel" extremists, and 2% by domestic Islamist extremists
Literally all right-wing in nature (Yes, the 2% Islamic extremism is also right-wing).
When the right-wing psycho emboldened by Trump supporters chanting with Lowes tiki-torches, "jews will not replace us" ran over peaceful protesters, killing one, what did Trump do? Muddy the waters and say it was "both sides." No.
Of course, you have the MAGABomber and the Pittsburgh lunatic as just more examples of right-wing extremism recently, among countless others I cannot keep up with.
>There are no US deaths associated with any action that could be accurately described as, "Anti-Fascist."*
That, however, doesn't stop right-wing extremists from posing as Antifa to make them seem more violent than they really are and to rally support to their own cause. Here's another example.
Conservatives love to pretend that those tree-huggin' bleedin'-heart peace-lovin' anti-gun hippies are somehow deranged murderers!! Whoops. Are they snowflakes, or they are they literally Hitler...? So when they point to cases of liberal violence, sometimes they're right, but as always they play the game of false-equivalence (I literally had two separate Trump supporters equating leftists protesting by blocking highways and boycotting restaurants supportive of Trump to the murders of the right). If they want to play the game of who can list the most tragedies, the statistics outright prove I'll win in showing conservatives are more violent in America.
Meanwhile, you had 45% of Americans somehow approving President Trump, 23% of Republicans who wouldn't prosecute Trump if he shot James Comey in cold blood (page 47)—then you have 43% of Republicans as of 2015 who are still so incredibly ignorant that they believe Obama is a Muslim, 51% of Republicans as of 2017 who still think Obama is Kenyan-born. If you cannot connect the dots between the blatant ignorance and hatred revealed by these studies, and the increased tick in violence at this point today—then you're frankly not paying attention.
When it comes down to it, that really is the problem: people aren't paying attention. People aren't calling out ignorance when they see it, and letting it slide and being "polite" and holding your tongue leaves these people into delusions that they have it all figured out. Meanwhile Fox News, Right-Wing Radio, the Bannon/Jones-types of the internet and so forth feed this uninformed audience what they want to hear; they're gullible and easily manipulated into believing whatever is needed in the moment for political expediency. Why do these talking-heads manipulate your crazy Uncle, your conspiracy-loving teenage neighbor, your dad on long trips? Like most corrupt things, it's about money & power. They're profiting off ignorance and fear. It's a scary tragic reality.
This all should all lead to a big question: Why does the Conservative Ideology inherently attract or create more violence? We should all be wondering that, but some of my thoughts on this can be read here.
UPDATE: * Note: While the facts are still be uncovered, a self-proclaimed Anti-Fascist shot a right-wing extremist in Portland. Assuming it wasn't self-defense as the man claimed in his interview before he was killed by police, the "politically-motivated murder count" is:
Antifa: 1
Right-wing Fascists: Hundreds. (thousands if you count right-wing foreign extremists or want to go back in our history).
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Putin Wants Republicans | Summary of Russian influence over US-politics for geopolitical gain. (Archived from Reddit)
Given this war in Ukraine, it cannot be emphasized enough how important it is that Republicans are not handed the keys to the White House, or Congress.
After all, see such sentiment commonly-expressed among Republicans at Trump rallies...
I'll further will explain why this is relevant on the world stage and Ukraine:
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Trump has only praised Putin's "genius," Yet Fox News ignores this
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Kremlin memos urged Russian media to use Tucker Carlson clips
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Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praising Putin just before the invasion
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When Trump was President, he was floating withdrawing from NATO (more on this).
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Recall Trump's strange relationship with Putin, his interest in establishing hotels in Moscow, and outright requesting Russia to hack / leak domestic opposition's data ("Russia, if you're listening...").
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A month later, Rand Paul hand-delivered a Letter from Trump to Putin, the contents of which not known..
Donate, and please plan to REGISTER and VOTE for the CRUCIAL election in the US that are right around the corner. Google your state's Voter registration procedure.
Not voting, voting Republican, or 3rd-party is effectively supporting and advancing Putin's goals. (I want new parties too but our system penalizes 3rd parties as it stands). Every Democrat should be railing Republicans, particularly Trump, over this nonstop. And despite them rapidly going into damage-control, remind them that Democrats were, once again, ahead of the curve on this issue in telling them so.
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When I previously posted this, I received some very strange pro-Russian/Trump replies, trying to deflect attention to the fact that Trump seriously weighed attempting to withdraw from NATO.
Why does this matter? Because this is an event that won't end any time soon. I'm giving concrete steps of what the average American can do for Ukrainian citizens in the long-run, which is to ensure the strongest opposition to Russia remains out of the hands of...Russia. It's time to ensure that Pro-Russian, potentially-compromised individuals never get into the White House again.
Further Reading:
Putin wants Republicans. Not good. Don't let this happen.
