Saturday, April 7, 2012
2012 The Talk: Nonconservative Version
Posted by Paul Constant on Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 10:49 AM
In the last few months, as part of my Stranger election coverage, I've attended many conservative and Libertarian rallies. Since conservatives are now writing columns about dealing with the "scary other" these days, it occurs to me that I should take a page from their book and share my experiences with you, in case you ever find yourself in a situation where you might have to deal with a conservative.
(1) While always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of mean differences, use statistical common sense:
(1a) Avoid concentrations of conservatives not all known to you personally.
(1b) Stay out of heavily conservative neighborhoods.
(1c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with conservatives on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by self-inflicted gunshot).
(1d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of conservatives.
(1e) If you are at some public event at which the number of conservatives suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(1f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by conservative politicians.
(1g) Before voting for a conservative politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a normal one.
(1h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to conservatives in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(1i) If accosted by a strange conservative in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(2) The mean intelligence of conservatives is much lower than for everyone else.
(3) There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by privilege. White American conservatives tend not to understand that they are the wealthiest, most comfortable people in all of history. They like to pretend that they are always under attack—that their religion is something rare and endangered, even though 60 to 76% of all Americans describe themselves as Christian; that all their luxury goods are constantly in peril, even though crime rates continue to decline; that what other people do in their bedrooms is somehow their business. In fact, if you encounter a conservative in the wild, there is a nine-in-ten chance they will be whining. Simply back away from them; reason will not work.
(4) There are nonetheless several intelligent and well-socialized conservatives. (I’ll use IWSC as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSCs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially hilarious accusations of prejudice against conservative thought.
(5) Unfortunately the demand is greater than the supply, so IWSCs are something of a luxury good, like antique furniture or corporate jets. Those many less fortunate conservatives like to hold their few intelligent brethren up as an example of how they are not all bigoted swine. (Sometimes, the most openly racist conservatives will be pilloried in public by other conservatives. This is a ruse to trick people into thinking that racism is not a core value of modern white conservatism. Don't believe it.)
(6) The internet still likes to pretend that it's shocked when a rich white man who self-identifies as a conservative turns out to be a racist pig. This is understandable—stupid people are generally the loudest, so they tend to gather attention to themselves—but it is regrettable. It would be best to leave these few nattering jackasses to their own tiny corners of the internet and ignore their bigoted comments on blog posts. They are the past, and slowly, inexorably, they are going extinct.
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The thing about many of those who label themselves "conservatives" is that they are not really.
Since they would be "conserving" the status quo which now consists of:
1) 40 years of the right to 1st trimester abortion
2) Freely available birth control
3) Acknowledgement of a government mediated capitalist state
4) Racial, sexual and religious tolerance and equality
The people who are truly "conservative" are more like the moderate people on SLOG who are arguing to preserve the status quo of these basic accepted norms.
That is correct; do not allow the Republican self-labeling of conservative shake you from the fact that their creed has absolutely not a whiff of conservatism within itself. They are better termed as "reactionaries."
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Gotta be the angel dust.
Although if you judge my voting record and politics, I look like a hard core liberal, although compared to The Stranger, I look like a hard core conservative.
Yeah, and by the way, the nonsensical "study" that supposedly "proves" that conservatives are less intelligent than others, is a fabrication. I've it in its entirety, and it is very easy to debunk. I won't waste my time explaining it further, I think many have already made up their minds that anyone who disagrees with them is somehow less intelligent.
Personally, I think conservatives and liberals are idiots: The center is the only reasonable place to reside politically.
Liberals and Conservatives are two sides of the same coin, they have more in common than they do in contrast. They are one in the same. They are both the asshole of politics, and no, I don't mean that they're impolite, I mean that they are the anus from which all shit flows out of. I dislike both sides of this coin. But that doesn't mean I dislike those people, I like everybody... Everybody deserves love and consideration, and anything else is just not compassionate.
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(This might be why pro sports are important. Much safer to chat about. Usually.)
Also, most self-described U.S. liberals are in the centre. Maybe that's not clear thanks to your country's distorted politics but by historical standards, U.S. libs are tame. Who's a communist these days? Nobody. Even the left-leaning paper you're reading is a for-profit business. Liberals like businesses. Liberals aren't extremists.
U.S. conservatives, on the other hand, are super radical. But they like to pretend ordinary liberals are as far off to the left as they are to the right because that deflects attention away from how extreme their ideas really are.
Conservatives. Yuck!
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That's not over-generalizing. That's based on what The Stranger and (many!) other news outlets report. Republicans have been loudly says horrible things for quite a while. I've been paying attention.
I realize that conservatism's current trends don't represent the totality of conservative thought. Conservative perspectives don't have to be horrid -- for example, Margaret Thatcher, also on the right-wing side of conservative thought and a creature of pure evil on many issues, supported action against global warming. You wouldn't see anything like that from today's Republicans!
So you can call me provincial, or patronizing, or just plain wrong but I'm far from the only person who sees vicious extremism cloaking itself under a conservative banner.
It's a real shame that conservatism has come to stand for xenophobia, spite and stupidity. You'd have to be a bastard, a moron or both to believe in all the terrible stuff Canada's Conservatives and the U.S.' Republicans seem to support. Maybe that will change at some point. But until then, I'll probably have a hard time enjoying political conversations with conservatives.
Would be happy to be surprised.
Thanks for the laugh. Get out much?
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Everyone has some bias, but there isn't a neighborhood in Seattle (besides maybe the Laurelhursts and Broadmoors) where a white stranger wouldn't help you.
We started to fitfully try to come to terms with this heritage during the Civil Rights movement, and honestly I think we've made some progress. But 300 years of a society built on racism isn't going away in a generation or two, so I'm sorry to say that all of us and all of our children and grandchildren are going to be dealing with it for quite a while.
Sadly, other places have their own worm in the apple. Human societies are all flawed. Personally, I think it makes just as much sense to try to fix the crappy society we have than to move to a different kind of crappy society, but everyone has to come to their own idea on that one.
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