Things that bother me about liberals

Not in theory but actual experiences

Published on August 5, 2007 By Draginol In Politics

Whether it be talking with friends, relatives, or just casual acquaintences, if the subject of politics comes up, I have noticed very specific behavior patterns between those who tend to be left of center politically versus those who are right of center.

There are plenty of things that annoy me about political conservatives too but not as consistently as "regular" people who are politically left. The list below is not a list of annoyances of politicans or public figures but rather traits of left of center people I have met in real life that seems to come up over and over.

So here's my list of things that bother me about dealing with political leftists:

Choose their positions based on emotion and passion rather than through research or investigation
Rarely look up for themselves the underlying facts on a given issue but rather rely on "trusted" advisors or editorials
Are very intolerant of views that do not match theirs. I don't think I've ever seen a conservative say "I don't want to hear anymore, let's talk about something else". by contrast, over and over, liberals will (at best) ask you to change the subject because they don't want to hear other points of view or (at worst) try to bully you from giving an opposing point of view.
Act as if their positions have some sort of moral high ground simply because their positions are based on "good intentions".
Similar to #4 -- take the view that their position is the "civilized" or "moderate" point of view. And that other points of view are simply barbaric "Of course guns should be outlawed" or "You didn't vote for Kerry? You seem like such a smart guy."
Have no knowledge of the tax system even as they loudly advocate higher taxes on "the rich". There's nothing quite like seeing a 3rd grade teacher espousing how the rich pay hardly anything in taxes even as they are talking to someone they know pays immense amounts of taxes (because I usually make sure to correct this falacy). And I usually get "Then you need to get a better accountant" as if they have any concept of the tax structure. Oh yes, I'll just use the magic loopholes that liberals are so certain exist and avoid taxes...
Think that feeling strongly about something counts more than actually doing something. My $1k contribution to the Cancer Society isn't as significant as someone who did a "Cancer walk" and got $315 in donations apparently. And btw, it's nice to do a cancer walk, it's even nicer to donate money yourself. Walking, chanting, whatever may make you feel but but it does nothing. It's the people donating to the cause materially that are actually making a material difference.
Think that witty sarcasm is a substitute for a coherent argument for their position. How many times have you made a point only to have a left winger try to dismiss it with a one-line sarcasm "Of course we armed Osama, I guess we got what we paid for.." That's a non sequitor and stupid to foot. But knowing little irrelevant pseudo-factoids is not a substitute for knowledge on the actual issue. It really comes to a head if Iraq comes up. Most anti-Iraq "war" advocates can't put together a coherent argument against it.
Massively inconsistent, simple minded positions. There's nothing quite like having a friend in Southern California say "Wars never solved anything". Really? You plan to argue that southern California should go back to Mexico? Because there was one war (US/Mexican) that most definitively and materially solved a particular question. Not to mention the Civil War and slavery, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Gulf War I. Or some middle class person living in a house in Florida that they inherited from their father arguing for higher estate taxes (why wait? why not hand your house to the government right now?). Or my favorite "There's no excuse for anyone to go hungry in this country." as an argument for more welfare. I agree there's no excuse, only a total dumbass could go hungry in this country. Welfare ain't gonna fix that.
Problems are always to be solved by someone else. To left wingers, being compassionate seems to mean being intellectually concerned about people but not wanting to actually do anything. My uncle, a conservative, drove down to Louisiana as part of his church group to repair people's houses. Meanwhile, not a single liberal I know has volunteered for anything but they sure have argued for more government spending on Katrina relief -- which is easy for them, I end up paying for it.
Believe in equality unless equality is inconvenient. I try not to flaunt my material success but at the same time, I am proud of what my family has achieved. My wife and I started with nothing (and btw, yes you can live on minium wage -- I did). But if I object to paying more in taxes, I am called greedy by some of my liberal friends. If I ask if they want to compare how much they donated to charity last year (not taxes, charity) they always come back with the "well you have more to give" argument. So what? And I've even tried to do the "Okay, then as a percentage of our income comparison" I still get the "we don't have as much excess money to give as you do" argument. And on taxes, even though I use the same roads, schools, police, etc. and pay literally over 50X more in taxes than most people and support progressive taxation, I still get implied arguments that I don't want to pay my fair share if I object to paying even more in taxes.
Obsess on diversity of skin color instead of diversity of ideas. What is it with the left and their obession with skin color? Yet, as I mentioned earlier, liberals are incredibly intolerant of other ideas. They want to live in an echo chamber. Most conservatives I know enjoy a good intelligent discussion. Most liberals get angry and frustrated with people who dare to have different (or incorrect) opinions. I have one friend named Chris who is liberal who is the exception to this (so if he's reading, kudos to him) who will intelligently and thoughtfully discuss issues without getting angry. I can't think of any liberal friend or relative who doesn't get angry and frustrated if confronted with opinons that don't match theirs.

Like I said, these are observations on public speakers. These are observations on friends, family, acquaintences that I meet and talk to. I am often almost made to feel like I should be ashamed for having conservative..uncivilized view points. If only I were as enlightened like them and used my heart more I would be ready to be welcomed into their civilized society.

Comments (Page 1)

danielost

on Aug 06, 2007

liberals are all talk. they have the ideas and want someone else to pay for it.

like gene he wants the infrastructure to be fixed as do we all. but he isn't willing to give up a dime to do so. he wants someone else to fix it.

Locamama

on Aug 06, 2007

Okay, I have to admit that I am gulity of some but not all of these things. I know that I am particularly guilty on count number one. I find number three, being intolerant of other views, more of a conservative characteristic through my personal experiences.

~now can we please just not talk about this anymore? - ~lol~

Jewbu

on Aug 06, 2007

I have had similar experiences with both sides. I am no fan of stupid, the common denominator, I suspect. When I asked a friend why was he voting for George Bush, he had no susbstantive answer, but that "I think he's a good leader." If he's such a good leader what are we doing in this extremely expensive war? I asked another friend why he hated (his word) Hillary Clinton so much. His answer, "I don't know, I just hate her." OK.

LW, your response about illegals would make more sense to me if, indeed, you did speak out about non-Hispanic immigrants here illegally. I rarely see anything said about Canadians or that open Canadian corridor to our north, for example. As far as Obama goes, I question his credentials myself, but on grounds of his actual qualifications, not hysterics regarding whether or not he went to a Muslim school as a grade schooler.

The problem with conservatives is that they have a long history of prejudice and seem deeply suspicious, sometimes xenophobic. Anyone who has lived in the deep south can attest to this. I do not see them working very hard to overcome this, and when they do, as with GW and his stance on Mexicans, conservatives say he is alienating his base.

My sense is that when liberals and conservatives get together, liberal frustration with conservative views is based more on the type of thinking conservatives display, i.e., dichotomous. They tend to be, by definition, reductionistic and deotological. Such thinking really disallows exploration of a topic for the sake of anything but to maintain the status quo, hence frustration.

I will admit there are princes and princesses on both sides who behave so smugly you want to smack 'em (we'll leave that to the whip).

Be well.

Gideon MacLeish

on Aug 06, 2007

Hey, sodaiho, I'm interested in your opinion on THIS:

http://gideon-macleish.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=159551

Which should give you some idea why I don't like Hillary, personally.

Locamama

on Aug 06, 2007

How many times have i been frustrated by your lack of research (#2) in favor of simply repeating things you've read or heard elsewhere?

Just because you think it doesn't make it true. Occassionally, I get irate enough to just dash off a post but generally I do read up on a subject before I post. As far as the generalizations some of them just happen to be true and I agree wtih them 100%. Is calling a someone an ass trumpet somehow more clever?

Jewbu

on Aug 06, 2007

Hey, sodaiho, I'm interested in your opinion on THIS:
http://gideon-macleish.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=159551

Interesting Gid, I had just posted a note on your blog. Good article. Frankly, I don't see how you and Hillary are that far apart (ducking for cover). She is a child advocate and most sincere children's advocates understand that removel of a child is often the very last option that should be exercised. Yet with staffing cuts, funding cuts, and all sorts of program cuts, how else can a CPS agency insure a child at risk will not be abused or killed?

As I repeatedly say, I am no fan of stupid, and there are a ton of self-righteous, stupid social workers out there who really ought to either get out of the business, get some really good supervision, or go on to graduate school where they might learn to think out of the box a bit. On the other hand, there are a ton of perps out there, parents included, who duck behind family values as way of throwing smoke to avoid facing their own malevolent behavior toward their children.

I have had one too many community and church pillars in my caseload who enjoyed having sex with their children to think that CPS is a manifestation of the Evil Empire.

Be well.

Gideon MacLeish

on Aug 06, 2007

Frankly, I don't see how you and Hillary are that far apart (ducking for cover).

First of all, Hillary is a politician. She does what is politically expedient. I have anecddotal (I will probably research later) information that she has not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in dealing with the war on terror, and any friend of the bomb is no friend of mine. What I know that is NOT anecdotal, however, is that she has repeatedly supported the war in Iraq and will most likely continue to do so. While I believe we need to clean up the mess as best we can, I do not approve of what we have done in this war, and do not approve of a presidential candidate who does.

Hillary refuses to be pinned down on issues and is every bit as duplicitous as her husband, who said in his campaign that he would approve NAFTA only if US labor and environmental standards were enforced, and then proceeded to rubber stamp the trade agreement once elected. She supports con artists like AL Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who not only are not working to eliminate poverty in the inner cities but are lining their profits with the money they have extorted from businesses allegedly on behalf of those in the inner city.

Hillary believes "it takes a village". I believe it takes a responsible set of parents. Granted, there are times when those parents don't have all the tools they need, but it is in our best interest to TEACH them, not to steal their children away with unmarked vans and take them away from their parents. In my time working to this end, I have found instances where children were removed because their parents couldn't pay the electric bills, one case where the child was removed because his mother lived in a tipi, and another, even more shocking case where the child was removed because, among other things, there was scant furniture in the home. The furniture was not there because the parents had to move 1/2 mile to their residence using only a radio flyer wagon to move things. The state is not trying to work with parents, as gutting the foster care industry is working against their own self interest.

I was raised partly in "foster farms", Sodaiho, the end product of an overzealous government that decides that they, not their citizenry, know what is best for the American people. At least one of the "foster farms" is still in operation, despite the fact that I reported it some 20 years ago. Hillary has not worked to prevent these injustices from occurring, nor has she ever expressed anything remotely resembling empathy for the parents of these children who, imperfect and flawed as they are, often do the best with the tools they are given.

Hillary and I are not much alike, Sodaiho. To Hillary, public accolades are everything. To me, if I end up in a forgotten grave, but make a substantial difference, the monument I have left will be far bigger than any they could place on the mall in Washington.

Jewbu

on Aug 06, 2007

LW writes: Liberals always want it both ways. Race is only to be taken into account to beat someone over the head with. You can't be against illegal immigrants without being against Mexicans, which automatically makes you a racist, understand?

I understand this is how you see it. Yet, I just don't see the furor over Anglo illegals. The furor is over those who come and "take jobs from Americans" and the context is almost exclusively Mexicans. Show me a single article against illegal immigration that does use Hispanics as exemplars of the "problem."

As a matter of principle I am not "for" "Illegal" immigration. At the same time, I do not quite get the furor, it borders on xenophobia. I am not for lawbreaking, yet I do think we should be smart enough to figure out a solution to the problem. I know in my part of the country businesses rely on immigrants (mostly illegal, I am sure) to do the farm and field work, lots of construction, and other sorts of things. Shipping them back to Mexico would not be particularly helpful, in my opinion, but then, I am a liberal and I guess I must be soft on crime.

LW opines: By the same token, you can't be against increasing entitlements without being for starving children. You can't be pro-life without wanting to punish women, outlaw birth control, and teach abstinence-only in the schools, get it? If you're against socialized health care, you're a mean ol' ogre who wants to see people die in the streets of commonly cured diseases, if you oppose federally funded stem-cell research you're trying to BAN science, and if you favor tax cuts you're a heartless capitalist pig who only wants to see the rich get richer...off the backs of the poor. (who pay zero taxes.)

I think these are false dichotomies, but in the sense of them, there is a grain of truth. I would like to see people opposed to increased entitlements have some solution for the problems associated with poverty other than the Horatio Alger stories that abound among what were once called yuppies. Or how federally mandating that pregnancies go to term is somehow the governments business. Or why we should, in fact, teach abstinence only as the sole way of preventing pregnancy or STDs, especially in view of the fact that every study I am aware of shows these programs fail. How is it not opposing science to oppose stem cell research? LW, the poor pay taxes...most poor are working poor and they pay tax. Welfare recipients pay taxes on every item they purchase, admittedly from the tax dollars they receive, but none the less the tax reduces the benefit of their subsidy and the state or fed recovers some of their tax dollars in the process.

Be well.

Gideon MacLeish

on Aug 06, 2007

How is it not opposing science to oppose stem cell research?

Sodaiho,

You are repeating a common myth and I need to call you on it. Stem cell research is not banned, only federal monies to fund it. If it is so important and offers such incredible breakthroughs, why aren't more private investors/donors stepping up to the plate?

Things that make you go hmmmm.....

danielost

on Aug 06, 2007

Hillary isn't sincere about anything except wanting to be president

danielost

on Aug 06, 2007

as for who is racist it is the people who gain power keeping that alive. and most of them are democrats.

ViridianGames

on Aug 06, 2007

"Federally mandating that pregnancies go to term"? What, so women who miscarry face jail time? Seems like you're presenting a false dichotomy of your own.

In the end, women who support abortion do so out of a simple desire to avoid responsibility. They are willing to kill their own children in order to avoid responsibility. Can you see why some people find the idea abhorrent?

I'm not against sex education - heck, my thirteen-year-old daughter knows the whole story at this point, and she learned it from me. I'm also not against birth control; seems like only fanatic Catholics could be.

But once that egg gets fertilized, a person has been created and you have no right to kill that person just because you don't want to be responsible for it.

Jythier

on Aug 06, 2007

I suppose the worst failure of your responsibility for a person would be their death. Best to get it out of the way early, I guess.

Jewbu

on Aug 06, 2007

Hunny, welfare recipients get tax REFUNDS on taxes they never paid in the first place? Ever hear of the EIC? All you have to do to 'earn' it is have children.

LW,

Great dialogue. Thank you.

In the first place, there is already a temporary worker program in place for migrant workers who come to help with various harvests. Additionally, I have never been an advocate of shipping anyone anywhere, I favor enforcement by attrition. In other words, let's stem the flow by securing our borders, (north and south) and do little else.

Good. We are in agreement here. My only issue with the guest worker program is that legal border crossings are incredibly challenging, as well as the completerlty inefficient systems in place to handle it. Illegal immigration has been an easy reliel to the businesses that use such labor.

Yes, they (as in illegal immigrants) DO take jobs from Americans, as can be witnessed by the fact that whenever a raid is executed on a business resulting in the deportation of their workers, American citizens immediately line up for the jobs.

Maybe in your area, but not here. I know of very few non-Mexicans willing to pick cotten, harvest chili peppers, shake the pecan trees, and dig up the onions we grow here. Of course, I could be wrong.

And the last time I checked, Sodaiho, American citizens came in all sorts of colors and countries of origin. Wanna know who's hurt the most by illegals in the job market? Our own 'African American' citizens, followed by young people just entering the work force, and our own retirees looking for a little part-time work to supplement their Social Security checks.

This may very well be true. And it is very unfortunate. Again, our state has about 1% African American population. And the last time I looked, seniors were not about to go out and pick chilis.

Our welfare system has enslaved generation after generation of Americans who find themselves literally trapped in a cycle of dependency with zero incentive to break free of it. A fellow who used to blog here used a quote that became a favorite of mine, although I don't know if he coined it or not. It said..."Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Give a man a fish and you own the pathetic s.o.b."

We are on the same page here. I used to work in this system and had the same issues. So, revamping the system is clearly in order. It is offensive to me as a social worker when a grandmother brings hger granddaughter in to claim her "own" check. At the same time, cutting people off, like dumping people out of pych hospitals in the 70s and 80s, will not help unless there are sufficient systems and resources in place to address the problems of education, lack of skill (both life skills and work skills), drugs and other addictions, and of course, teen parents.

I worked as a school psycholgist for a few years and I can attest to the entrenchement of family based anti-school attitudes. Children just could not seem to wait to get old enough to quit school so they could get a job at Mickey D's. So sad. Parents would claim they could not control their children and wanted me to control them for them. On the other hand, when we did attempt to control them, we'd have the "I don't hold to government telling me what to do with MY kids" folks blowing smoke all over the place. It is, indeed, a mess.

I don't think the federal government has any say so in it either way, Sodaiho. I think it's a matter of State's rights, and if the decision were put back in the hands of 'we the people' on a state-by-state basis, I think that would be a good start towards resolving the issue, or at least some of the bitterness it inspires.

Good idea. I'm with yiou here.

It's nice to know you think you know all about Conservative thought, though. Myself, I think you've got it confused with Fundamentalism. Just as all liberals aren't godless heathens, all conservatives aren't fundamentalists.

I don't claim to know all about conservatives, but I was a businessman and the Executive Director of my loical Chamber of Commerce. You know I grew up in the south, a conservative mecca, and have Republicans on one side of my family. It is true what you say, not all liberals are godless, but I am not soooo sure about conservatives not being fundies of one stripe or another.

even though I personally think it's wrong to create these cells for that sole purpose.

And this is just it. Such cells exist already and are simply thrown away.

I'll happily change my position if and when any and all cures or treatments resulting from this testing are shared with the public that funded the research at cost. Until our government is willing to do that, let the filthy rich pharmaceudical companies that you liberals despise so much pay for the research, and reap whatever profits may come from it.

My daughter is a Post Doc researcher at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Before this, she worked as a doctoral student in a University Alzheimer's lab (a disorder I am stricken with). Her research at University was freely disseminated. And at St. Jude, all of their research is done through donations and all of their services are without charge. My understanding is that research across the board is seriously hampered by the few stem cell lines available.

I don't despise pharmaceutical companies, just some of their policies and methods. Profit is good, but the degree of profit is obscene when there are folks who have to choose between food or drugs.

Hunny, welfare recipients get tax REFUNDS on taxes they never paid in the first place? Ever hear of the EIC? All you have to do to 'earn' it is have children.

My understanding of the Earned Income Credit is that to be eligible a person must have been employed in the tax year in question.

I hope I've cleared up some misconceptions, Sodaiho. Not all conservatives are wealthy, white, fundamentalist, xenophobic, and compassionless males. I'm on the low end of the income scale, disabled, non-Christian, and possessed of far more compassion than many here will ever know. I'm also willing to bet that I've fraternized (as in socially) with more non-whites on a continuing basis than many of the 'liberals' posting here have even met in their entire lives, and yeah, that includes blacks, hispanics, and (gasp) even the odd Muslim here and there.

Glad to see we have so much in common, LW.

Be well (ducks sand covers).

Zoomba

on Aug 06, 2007

I often see some of the same sorts of behaviors in many of my religiously conservative friends. Or even those who have strong views on anyone foreign. But it's true that you can talk to any random left-minded individual and probably hit at least half of the points below.

I think you can more accurately say this is a list of annoyances for anyone who "feels" their political views. For every liberal I knew growing up there was one conservative who acted in much the same way. I think in general these people don't arrive at their political views on their own, but take them from their family growing up, or whoever they spend the most time with. Anyone who actually arrives at their political views on their own through experience and research should be able to civilly and reasonably argue their point of view without resorting to anything on that list.

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