Red v Blue Comparison

Comments

1. david-whelan says

   June 24, 2010 at 6:54 am

   The blue people are certainly smarter than the red people! Now if I could only find my car keys I would be able to leave and get to work.  

   • edgarthearmenian says

     June 24, 2010 at 9:52 am

     • kbusch says

       June 24, 2010 at 10:27 am

       I was simply asserting that conservatives have shown much less interest in policy. Full stop.

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       p>I’m not saying liberals are brighter.

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       p>Nor do I think that this “proves” it. At best, it lends confirmation to that assertion.

       • charley-on-the-mta says

         June 24, 2010 at 11:08 am

         There are scads, scads of people who are plenty smart and get everything wrong anyway. Smarts, analytical prowess and verbal dexterity are very useful when you’re trying to rationalize something that’s utterly nuts.

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         p>No, what’s really precious and unusual is intellectual integrity, genuine logic, and sound reasoning — not to mention humility: the willingness to be proven wrong and change your mind when the facts don’t flatter your pre-conceived notions and public stands.

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         p>When you see a smart person get something gonzo-off-the-deep-end wrong, the correct response should be fear-and-trembling: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

       • mr-lynne says

         June 24, 2010 at 11:19 am

         … how exact or specific you get with regard to what you assert, they will always assume it comes from arrogance.  

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         p>I think much of this is more cultural than anything else.  They’ve accepted their premises about the evils of government and are not prone to examination of them.  So policy is more about taking down what’s there than actually governing.  In this way, their primary concern is not the minutia of policy so much as the goal of victory so as to put into practice the take down of evil government.  For conservatives (and TPers in particular), the governing isn’t the problem – government is.  For liberals, governing is the problem.  So the cultural priority on the left are usually policy oriented because the question is ‘how to govern?’, but on the right the priority is getting elected because the question is ‘how to dismantle government?’ and the obvious answer is ‘get elected’.

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         p>From an earlier comment:

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         p>

         Nationally, however, the GOP is all philosophy and no actual stomach for the actual job of making a government function well.

         John Dean:

         If I could turn on a blinking red light to catch a reader’s attention, to give him a heads-up to alert him to pay attention, I would place it next to the following observations of political scientist Alan Wolfe:* “Political parties expend the time and grueling energy to control government for different reasons,” he explained, viewing politics with his wide-angle lens.

         Liberals, while enjoying the perquisites of office, also want to be in a position to use government to solve problems. But conservatives have different motives for wanting power. One is to prevent liberals from doing so; if government cannot be made to disappear, at least it can be prevented from doing any good. The other is to build a political machine in which business and the Republican Party can exchange mutual favors; business will lavish cash on politicians (called campaign contributions) while politicians will throw the money back at business (called public policy). Conservatism will always attract its share of young idealists. And young idealists will always be disillusioned by the sheer amount of corruption that people like Gingrich and DeLay generate. If yesterday’s conservative was a liberal mugged by reality, today’s is a free-marketer fattened by pork.

         If you understand these observations of Alan Wolfe you have grasped the essence of Republican rule. If not, reread this passage, for you will never find a more succinct explanation of the quintessence of modern Republicanism.

         I have taken little joy in writing this book. Frankly, I once believed Republicans would be good at governing. But I was wrong: They have demonstrated that they can only rule for limited periods. As used in the pages that follow, “governing” is a craft, a skill, even an art; it is an effort to find common rules under which all can pursue happiness; “ruling,” in contrast, is merely reigning and exercising power.

         • kbusch says

           June 24, 2010 at 11:29 am

           One thing I’m not sure about, though, is the relationship between the system of mutual favors (as Dean calls it) and the Republican base. We saw that a lot in how the executive branch was run under the Bush Administration. Does the Republican base accept that as part of what it means to be pro-business, or is their acceptance a matter of PR, spin, and advertising?

           • mr-lynne says

             June 24, 2010 at 11:46 am

             … I understand specifically what you’re asking here, but I’ll take a shot.  From my perspective leaders on the right find the base convenient because their authoritarian follower tendencies make it easy to give them articles of faith to believe (the premises) without examination.  Likewise, the mutual favors are just a means to an end as well (this one about money where the other one is about votes).  Now these two means of support can actually hinder each other – hence the fine line and spin that the right needs to keep up in order to keep the unpopular parts of the mutual favors from getting the true believers too pissed off.  Say ‘bailout’ and your not likely to think of Busch, but that is by design.  Thus the authoritarian follower nature of the tribal right makes it at least possible (diabolically so) for the leadership to have their cake and eat it too.

2. peter-porcupine says

   June 24, 2010 at 5:26 pm

   Jeff Perry doesn’t post three times under usual circumstances.  But he’s in a 4-way primary.

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   p>In fact, we have 174 candidates.  9 out of 10 Congressional seats challanged, and GOP primaries in all but one congressional race.

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   p>How many posts here were devoted to the Glodis/Lake/Bump race?  And isn’t that pretty much your only primary?

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   p>I would submit that the heated political season has contributed to slant of the posts rather than intrinsic lack of interest in issues.

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   p>And fess up – when Jeff gave a speech to GOAL on second amendment issues in MA, did you count that as issues-based or political?

   • kbusch says

     June 24, 2010 at 8:14 pm

     I did think that the heavy Perry presence biased it a bit.

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     p>I did listen to the GOAL speech. One could generously categorize it as issues-based.