patrick.net

Sounds interesting.

I guess my question would be why is today's political environment so polarized? If liberals and conservatives were so fundamentally different would we not always be highly polarized?

A fair question Leo.

My own runs more along these lines.

As a Recovering Republican, I was never averse to science. I felt uncomfortable with those in the party who were to hostile to it. Isn't your book title overly simplistic?

I have to wonder if the polarization isn't due to people such as myself either leaving the party or if they remain they have all been shoved to the sidelines.

Science got us to the moon and created the Internet. Anyone who thinks that science is bunk does not deserve any respect and should not be allowed to vote.

Hypocritically, those who oppose science are glad to enjoy the fruits of its production: high tech military equipment, the Internet, satellites, etc. You never see them turn down any technological advancement that gives them more military power.

Take good notes and we'll get back to you.

Dan8267 says

Science got us to the moon and created the Internet. Anyone who thinks that science is bunk does not deserve any respect and should not be allowed to vote.
Hypocritically, those who oppose science are glad to enjoy the fruits of its production: high tech military equipment, the Internet, satellites, etc. You never see them turn down any technological advancement that gives them more military power.

Kind of strange since much of tech came from places like Silicon Valley which at the time was more GOP then Liberal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County,_California#Government_and_politics

I can say the many who were leaders and workers in the tech industry there is no conflict between religion and science.

of course who was opposed to Science and Technology before the tech boom ... Hippies and other scum Liberals hiding in dumps near Davis. Where the fuck were you hippies for the past 40 fucking years.... getting high/stoned and reading Chomsky ? So where did all go.. tune in and drop out ...

You certainly were NOT the losers who became Engineers and Business people.. the establishment, modern industry that made all this happen.

thomas.wong1986 says

Kind of strange since much of tech came from places like Silicon Valley which at the time was more GOP then Liberal.

Quite true; things were much different then. When I first moved to California my rep was Tom Campbell, who was a Republican but very moderate and competent. I liked him a lot and voted for him twice (including against Dianne Feinstein for Senate). The last time I heard from him was when he was Campagning against Prop 8; today I'm sure he'd be run out of the party as a RINO.

A few years back there was an interesting paper in a top scientific journal (Nature or Science I think). It basically showed that both self-described Democrats and Republicans had a significantly decreased ability to critically identify mistakes and contradictions said by politicians from their own party.

Everybody's brain is wired to quickly jump after facts that support what we already believe but to brush aside facts that are contrary to what we already believe. It takes a real mental effort to go after what disagrees with you and try to understand that better.

In the case of global warming it was an idea that came naturally to many Democrats, but which was disliked from the start by many Republicans. Then when the facts and the data actually turned out to support this idea then the results were predictable.

I actually just ran across The Republican Brain book in the Union Station bookstore in DC yesterday and flipped through it. Looks good. A couple of points I got out of 10 minutes of reading:

* thomas.wong1986 is right in that the military and the corporate world are very Republican. I felt that Intel was quasi-military when I worked there. The author's explanation is that Republicans are comfortable and efficient in heirarchical structures. He praises them for their hard work. So the same reluctance to question established and traditional order is an advantage when working in large numbers against a common enemy.

* You'll never defeat a dedicated Republican with facts. Facts that interfere with his team's goals will be ignored. The best tactic is to provide an alternative story that they can buy into. A story involving people and ideals more than facts.

I don't completely buy his thesis that republican brains are all the same.
You could say there are:

1) fundamentalist and or guns, gays, and god crowd

2) the libertarian group

3) the pro business and or anti tax crowd

While there may often be overlap, there is also often simply tolerance of the other groups because they are on the same team.

I do think there are some strong underlying traits, and so if the Republican Brain guy addresses those, maybe he's on to something. For example authoritarian tendencies.

This guy models it in an interesting (and not divisive) way.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/vs41JrnGaxc

Dan8267 says

1. I never believe anything from Wikipedia.

First comment first mistake.. even to be here at ground central during the 70s and 80s, we were very much conservative and religious. If you have some idiotic idea we (SV and other tech hubs) were some atheist utopia, then you would be wrong. The data presented on Wikipedia is correct and that is the facts your kind is unable to reason with.

marcus says

2) the libertarian group
3) the pro business and or anti tax crowd

What exactly is the difference between 2 & 3?

thomas.wong1986 says

The data presented on Wikipedia is correct

And how did you verify that?

Vicente says

What exactly is the difference between 2 & 3?

As I said there is overlap.

Rather than get into a big analysis of the difference, how about if I just offer you Gearge W. Bush. Probusiness, especially defense industry business, oil related, and when possible both at the same time (Haliburton). Protax cuts even when they were paid for by debt, purely costing us, based on what he had to know was a supply side lie.

(not that the supply side argument about taxes doesn't make sense if and when taxes are too high. but we know now that they weren't).

I don't see that Bush was particularly a libertarian in any way. I guess he was occasionally against a regulation or two, but libertarians go much further. Libertarians tend to be for legalizing drugs and keeping the government completely out of our lives (can you say the Patriot Act).

And so on.

There are a lot of people that vote republican because of how it effects their personal bottom line and they rationalize that that's what's best for the country "hey coincidently it's best for me too!" So this is mostly about taxes.

Again there is an overlap.

I wonder are Ron Paul and other serious libertarians for lowering taxes if the cuts aren't paid for ?

marcus says

I wonder are Ron Paul and other serious libertarians for lowering taxes if the cuts aren't paid for ?

Ron Paul is on the same page as Norquist.

Ron Paul "End the Fed" and "sound money" are simply his variants of Starve the Beast. He believes that foreign adventurism and debt must end, and the way to FORCE this policy change into reality is cutting off the ability to fund these activities.

The worst way to attempt to "cure" an alcoholic is by hiding all their liquor.

It baffles me how neither Norquist nor Libertopians can acknowledge that things are the way they are, because a lot of people WANT it that way. These things have public support, and any "Star Chamber" aspects to it are largely imaginary or irrelevant.

Nomograph says

The data presented on Wikipedia is correct and that is the facts your kind is unable to reason with.

Why won't you reason with this, Mr. Wong?

One thing I find pretty misleading with this chart. All quantities are *cumulative* from 2001. Obviously, any reduced tax or increased spend will have a bigger cumulative impact if it summed up from 2001 to 2011 than if it is summed up from 2008 to 2011.

And if you compare the blue triangle of 3 years under Obama it is not so different from the first 3 years of Bush. Actually it looks a bit bigger.

drtor says

3 years under Obama it is not so different from the first 3 years of Bush. Actually it looks a bit bigger.

dirty joke came to mind. sorry.

drtor says

And if you compare the blue triangle of 3 years under Obama it is not so different from the first 3 years of Bush. Actually it looks a bit bigger.

It is a specific frame of reference.

The right side of the big chart on the left with the vertical line shows that instead of our total debt decreasing by 6 trillion (which would barely have taken it to surplus because the debt was over 5 trillion in 2000) instead our debt actually increased by 6 trillion.

OBama's Presidency takes place during our current surreal period of decreased GDP (even if it is slowly increasing), relative to projections back then. so yes the triangle in bigger. And if the economy had been booming the whole time, then Bush's negative impact might not be so bad (although still relatively way worse than if he hadn't cut taxes).

The difference between projected economic growth and actual increased a lot since 2008 (negatively). This adversely effects the areas(on graph) of Bush's green impact as well as Obama's blue impact.

I don't think it's all that misleading. What's misleading is when people talk just about how much the deficit increased under Obama, when GDP (and tax revenues) had fallen so much without proportional drops in govt spending, including Bush war spending that had to continue, and they make it sound like all of the resulting increases in the deficit was just the effect of Obama's spending and policies.

Something self satisfying about watching Liberals ponder the inner workings of the Conservative mind. It's almost like it is self gratifying for them to ponder it. It's kinda weird it's the opposite of watching a hot girl masturbate, but I can't look away.

Do you guys think about Newt when you do it?

Cloud says

You vill now refer to "Global warming" as "Climate Change."

Well, it always was and always will be "global warming". The entire globe on average is "warming".

However scientists, putting too much faith in humanity, did not anticipate how difficult it would be for some individuals to understand that this overall increase in temperature would accompany cold weather increases in some locals. There are certain, very wealthy, organizations that have a vested financial interest in the burning of fossil fuels. These organizations have been able to sew confusion taking advantage of people who are unwilling or unable to understand the basic science of "global warming".

So... in order to help alleviate this confusion the scientific community thought that the term "climate change" -- which is also accurate to describe the situation -- would be less confusing for those that have difficulty understanding simple scientific concepts.

However, those that see conspiracy everywhere where FOX "news" orders them see conspiracy are probably beyond help.