<p>Nationalism is always a good thing.</p>
<p>"Nationalism is always a good thing."</p>
<p>Yes, it worked out just fine in The Holy Roman Empire, 20th century Germany, WWII Japan, modern North Korea, Communist China, Israel, the Balkans, 1990s Sierra Leon, Darfur, Saudi Arabia, ect..</p>
<p>Perhaps patriotism is the appropriate alternative term.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah, nationalism rocks ...</p>
<p>as for the whole head/heart thing ... the way politicians are acting these days, the Republican party definitely cannot call themselves fiscally conservative ... our last prez to balance the budget was a democrat, and look what Regan and Bush Jr have done to the economy! </p>
<p>seriously, read What's the matter with Kansas ... then you'll understand how the Republican party has duped people into believing that they represent the interests of the common man, when really they're in league with big business.</p>
<p>I think when people say they are fiscally conservative they mean it with a lowercase "C". The dictionary definition of conservative, not the political one.</p>
<p>There's a common misconception that one's political ideals are perfectly embodied by the person of that party who most recently occupied the White House. </p>
<p>A lot of pro-gay marriage/anti-adultery Democrats would have a big issue with Mr. Clinton; however, that does not make them less Democrat. When you are choosing between two people at the ballot box, it is nothing save sheer folly to assume that they are the epitome of the ideals of each political party.</p>
<p>High school, IMO, can lead to a very classically liberal education. I read Thoreau, Emerson, and Twain; read the philosophers; and learned about the horrors of religious dogma, racism, and sexism in world history. The liberal education is there for those who want it. </p>
<p>My high school was extremely backwards conservative - racist (like a lot of segregated Boston suburbs), homophobic, and completely sexist. I caught a lot of flack for being a smart girl, for getting top grades, and for being a varsity athlete on top of it all. The boys felt like someone was infringing on their territory. I caught even more flack when I founded a gay/straight alliance. Doesn't matter - I did what I wanted to do for myself and for the world that I have to live in.</p>
<p>I suppose that y'all would hear "conservative" and assume that I'm some backwards hick who succombed to group-think. I'm sorry, but I didn't. Yes, high school can be a Petri dish of followers, but that's pretty similar to how things happen with the rest of life. Trust me on this - it's just more obvious in high school, because you know who the "popular" crowds are. Still, I feel little sympathy for the excuse that you can't get a good education (in terms of learning to think about the humanities) because of peer pressure. </p>
<p>As for y'all who get all worked up about the conservative/liberal heart/brain thing... CHILL. Really, if that upsets you, get a life. Take a few steps back from the computer, take a few deep breaths, and realise that I didn't say what y'all thought I said.</p>
<p>
[quote]
sorry ariesathena, but I think it's ridiculous that you ignored my post
[/quote]
- CHILL. No need to score cheap points.<br>
- What post?
- Where, in the CC TOS, does it say that I must respond to anything, be it drivel or intellectual commentary?</p>
<p>"Regarding your link...Even disregarding the logic, do your research before you cite..."</p>
<p>I'm going out to dinner now :) If anyone's getting worked up it's you lol</p>
<p>??? </p>
<p>52% of those with college degrees voted for Bush. I fail to see how that shows a "tendency" of highly educated people to bel liberal. It shows an even split. MDs, MBAs, and engineers are conservative, on the whole; JDs are liberal. </p>
<p>I think I nicely refuted your statement; I am under no requirement to continue parsing the (nonexistent) nuances between "tends" and "majority." </p>
<p>Again, why the need to feel like you're scoring cheap points? Why not have a very honest discussion about the state of academia? Conservatives make up a significant chunk of the educated populace; why exclude them from academic discourse? We can all acknowledge, without any reservations, that excluding women from academia is ignoring half of our talent. Yet the same is felt to be acceptable with conservatives. Why? </p>
<p>Not worked up, dahlin. Just don't see the need to be flippant and smug over fairly trivial matters.</p>
<p>My dad, an actuary who is college-educated, socially fairly liberal, and fiscally conservative, and identifies with northeastern moderate Republicans, had a theory for why academics tend to be liberals. Admittedly, it's a fiscal-issues-centric theory, but I still like it.</p>
<p>The way he saw it, most intelligent, educated people take one of three career paths:</p>
<p>1) They go into business or a very corporate field.
2) They go into the "professions" - medicine, law, engineering, etc.
3) They go into academia.</p>
<p>People who took the first path most frequently took it because they wanted to make lots of money. If having lots of money is such a big priority for them, it makes sense that they would be conservative, because it's in their best interests. People go into the professions for all sorts of reasons, so it's difficult to predict their political leanings as a group. Academia doesn't pay much for the level of education it requires, so academics as a group just don't place a high priority on having lots of money, so it makes sense that they'd be liberal.</p>
<p>In my experience, people from either end of the political spectrum who grew up surrounded only by others who felt the same way, and constantly reinforced each other's beliefs, are less likely to know how to argue political issues well. I get more annoyed when liberals do it because I'm a liberal and I want us to be able to argue well. ;) I grew up in very red states, and I had only rarely seen this behavior among liberals pre-college, because the liberals in Kentucky and Georgia grew up having to think carefully about their beliefs and defend them constantly. At college, some of my friends grew up in liberal bubbles, and they are more likely to be intolerant of opposing views, much the same way the conservatives I grew up with in conservative areas were. The conservatives who grew up in liberal areas, on the other hand, are more likely to be well-spoken and thoughtful, because, like the liberals from conservative areas, they're used to defending their beliefs, questioning them, and thinking them through. This is not to say that all liberals from liberal areas or conservatives from conservative areas are stunted in their critical thinking and debate abilities, just that as a group they're less developed in those abilities by the time they reach college age.</p>
<p>That makes a lot sense....</p>
<p>Contemporary liberals and leftists tend to think that only their views are relevant; everyone else is an "idiot" or a "right-wing zealot" or "hateful." It's a shallow defense mechanism, but it works -- nobody wants to be called these things, so they generally tip-toe around the lib-left. Their views can't be criticized, no matter how true the criticism is, because you will be viciously slandered.</p>
<p>Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned, I guess.</p>
<p>Fides et Ratio...
From my humble experience, it's not only the liberals that are like that. The extreme right-wingers are similarly intolerant. It's always like that on the extremes.</p>
<p>I think college should be a time where all the preconceptions you grew up with are challenged. Maybe I'm in the minority, but my experience thus far has been that I've had professors on both sides of the isle with no clear majority on either side. I had a freshman survey class that was supposed to provide on overview of the cultures of the world, but the way the prof taught it, you'd have thought the title was "Affirmations of Middle American Xenophobia and Protestant Cultural Bias." Then I also had an Economics professor who was an avowed in-your-face socialist. I didn't take his class, but there's apparently a Geology professor at my last school that is a Creationist who'll totally go to the mat about it! If I weren't transferring, I really would want to take that class just to pick his brain. The others that I had were either teaching pedagogy or didn't express a political ideology either way. Having started college with fiscally conservative and a socially liberal views, I obviously found the extremists I had beyond grating at the time. However, thinking back, I believe I learned some valuable lessons by having my preconditioned arguments dissected and thrown back in my face by both of them. Arguing with profs like that can be like getting in a stinking match with a skunk because they've already heard it all, but if nothing else they sure do have a way of forcing you to think for yourself instead of relying on "truths" you've accepted over time. Funny how I no longer "know" so many things ... I no longer take political discussions personally, either, and don't automatically assume someone is just an automaton because he subscribes to a particular view on a given subject. Hrmmm ... Maybe that's part of becoming "edumacated?" :)</p>
<p>I must say that I do find the sloganeering and generalizations by those on both sides of this discussion somewhat disturbing ... I don't see how that's productive at all.</p>
<p>I agree with Jessie's dad.</p>
<p>I'll further elaborate, having moved about in a few professions and having considered academia: you tend to go where you feel most welcome, which really creates a self-perpetuating atmosphere. I'm really an engineer at heart. My brain just works that way. I find the thought processes of lawyers to be irrational. I've considered going into academia, but wonder how a very conservative woman would be welcomed (or not at all). So the end result is that I'm doing my damnest to return, in some capacity, to the sciences, where things just make sense to me. </p>
<p>There is some overlap there with politics. Someone told me that the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives believe in an absolute truth. Perhaps - which is why we might gravitate towards the sciences, where there's an answer, instead of towards other fields. </p>
<p>Those are the thoughts swirling about my head right now, as I try to avoid work on this lovely Monday. </p>
<p>Happy Fourth, y'all. I hope that's a holiday we can all get behind. YAY!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Contemporary liberals and leftists tend to think that only their views are relevant; everyone else is an "idiot" or a "right-wing zealot" or "hateful."
[/quote]
I hope for your sake that you're either being intentionally dull or that you'll get a decent education at college. Either way, you need to come to understand that the distinction between "left" and "right" is never as neat as the demagogues would have us believe.</p>
<p>What, it's "contemporary liberals" who think only their viewpoints are correct? No, it has nothing to do with being a liberal or conservative, which, as I said, are groups that vary from year to year with the changing political winds. Rather, it has to do with whether or not you're a thoughtful person. The so-called right plays the self-righteous game, too, writing books like Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism and Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism.</p>
<p>You've been educated by Jesuits, you say, so you really, really should be able to think more carefully than this. Your arguments may be the easy ones to make, but they're also shallow and ill-considered. This goes for the mirror arguments on the "left," too.</p>
<p>The fundamental distinction is not between left and right, in my mind, but people who think seriously about important issues and those who don't. Most people fall into the second category irrespective of their political allegiances.</p>
<p>
[quote]
52% of those with college degrees voted for Bush.
[/quote]
That can't be right, given the percentage of the population voting. This must be something like "52% of those who voted and had college degrees voted for Bush."</p>
<p>"Someone told me that the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives believe in an absolute truth."</p>
<p>I think this is true, at least it has been in my experience. When I was an agnostic -- basically all my life until the age of 23 -- I was a liberal. I didn't really have any strong moral convictions one way or the other aside from the ones we all have, and therefore I took offense to people whom I saw as trying to push their idea of "right" and "wrong" on society (usually conservatives). Morality, to me, was largely relative. However, as I gravitated toward religion in the last couple of years, and as my religious beliefs have become more and more established and firm in my heart and mind, I have steadily become more conservative. Morality is no longer relative to me; right and wrong are now much more clearly defined. </p>
<p>This is why I am always puzzled by religious people who are also political liberals -- something I run into every day as a Canadian Catholic. One thing I have discovered: liberal Catholics are almost always "cradle" Catholics, people who were born and raised Catholic. People like me, recent converts to the faith from agnosticism/atheism, are generally a lot more conservative. We want the real deal, not watered-down Catholicism; liberal Catholics, I guess, have had enough of the real deal and now want something a little more laissez-faire.</p>
<p>Of course, I blame Vatican II. ;)</p>
<p>Liberals are not more morally ambiguous or less religious, despite what Utah would like to be true. Morals should be based on reasoned principles that fit the situation at hand. </p>
<p>And Canadian stratifications of political ideologies are much different elsewhere in the world, particularly in United States. </p>
<p>Public health care, strong involvement/cooperation on the world stage, and free and fair global trading are ideas that are not shared by the american conservative. Just to name a few.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Someone told me that the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives believe in an absolute truth.
[/quote]
I think that's nonsense. What constitutes "conservative" and "liberal" changes over time, while an absolute truth by definition does not. If believing in an "absolute truth" made one conservative then conservatives of all stripes would have believed the same things across all times.</p>
<p>Unless by absolute truth you mean the party line.</p>