Are conservatives just irrational people?

[vash1012]

I think stupid people are stupid. Some of those stupid people are conservative. Some are liberal. Some research says more stupid people are conservative than liberal, but who really knows? Stupid people on both sides make the same mistakes. Confirmation bias and emotional reasoning largely. Its an example of stupidity to think the other "side" holds the monopoly on stupidity.

Stupid ideas from the left:

15 dollar an hour minimum wage
Government provided single payer healthcare will magically make our healthcare system much cheaper and more effective
Government provided college tuition will magically make our education system much cheaper and more effective
Regulations don't impede the economy
Taxes don't impede the economy
Social welfare systems don't reduce incentive to work regardless of their design

 

[SonOfDaedalus]

I think stupid people are stupid. Some of those stupid people are conservative. Some are liberal. Some research says more stupid people are conservative than liberal, but who really knows? Stupid people on both sides make the same mistakes. Confirmation bias and emotional reasoning largely. Its an example of stupidity to think the other "side" holds the monopoly on stupidity.

Stupid ideas from the left:

15 dollar an hour minimum wage
Government provided single-payer healthcare will magically make our healthcare system much cheaper and more effective
Government provided college tuition will magically make our education system much cheaper and more effective
Regulations don't impede the economy
Taxes don't impede the economy
Social welfare systems don't reduce incentive to work regardless of their design

I could counter that with the opposite stupid thinking:

1. We don't need a minimum wage
2. Our current health care system where we pay twice as much works.
3. People spending their careers paying off student debt makes sense.
4. All regulations are bad. The fewer regulations the better.
5. There are no negative consequences to lowering taxes.
6. Letting people starve doesn't incentivize crime or produce health problems.

I don't deny that there are rational conservatives. But the current conservative movement that Trump is leading is mostly irrational beliefs. Is Tucker Carlson not a conservative?

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

Yeah, walls worked great in the 3rd century...The story is from Fox news so you don't have to worry about the MSM lying to you. There are these new flying contraptions.

Drug cartels using drones to smuggle drugs at border

I can only imagine the cartels laughing thinking about Trump's insurmountable wall.

And you can install a Jamming device that will knock them out of the sky. Their is always some "HEY LOOK AT THIS NON REASON AS TO WHY THIS WILL NOT WORK!" and it is always shoot down.

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

I could counter that with the opposite stupid thinking:

1. We don't need a minimum wage
2. Our current health care system where we pay twice as much works.
3. People spending their careers paying off student debt makes sense.
4. All regulations are bad. The fewer regulations the better.
5. There are no negative consequences to lowering taxes.
6. Letting people starve doesn't incentivize crime or produce health problems.

I don't deny that there are rational conservatives. But the current conservative movement that Trump is leading is mostly irrational beliefs. Is Tucker Carlson not a conservative?

You are made Tucker is making better arguments and is winning people over as your side strokes out while screaming "MUH RUSSIA!".

Enjoy the mid term results, just wait until we have 60 seats and McCain and the result of cuckservative are purged, and you are dealing with a united party with the will to win.

You are already begging for the easy days of Bush, those are gone and never coming back. You can yell, scream, throw all the tantrums you want, we just do not care anymore and your name calling and lies are just not being believed anymore.

 

[X Factor]

Yeah, walls worked great in the 3rd century...The story is from Fox news so you don't have to worry about the MSM lying to you. There are these new flying contraptions.

Drug cartels using drones to smuggle drugs at border

I can only imagine the cartels laughing thinking about Trump's insurmountable wall.

I live on the border and as much as you’d like to pretend otherwise, the fact is that a large physical barrier is generally effective. Are there ways around it? Sure, but it’s like locking the door to your house. Not perfect but it’s more secure than not doing it.

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

I live on the border and as much as you’d like to pretend otherwise, the fact is that a large physical barrier is generally effective. Are there ways around it? Sure, but it’s like locking the door to your house. Not perfect but it’s more secure than not doing it.

Well to people like him its always "If it does not work 100% of the time it never works ever, so do nothing". They really do take pride in this wrapped sense of defenselessness is some how moral and source pride.

 

[Slingshot Bob]

The left say's "if just one life is saved by banning guns, it's worth it" ....Funny, they don't follow that logic with illegal immigrants.

But then again, guns don't vote, so....

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

No, we accepted the results of the 2016 election. When will the left accept the results?

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

The left say's "if just one life is saved by banning guns, it's worth it" ....Funny, they don't follow that logic with illegal immigrants.

But then again, guns don't vote, so....

Holy **** that is truth to power.

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

No, we accepted the results of the 2016 election. When will the left accept the results?

They only accept the results when it gives them more power and us less freedom. They should be careful as we on the right are starting to play by the "fight to win" viewpoint.

Turn about is ALWAYS fair play.

First "Bush did not win, Muh popular vote, Muh Supreme Court", Now its "Muh Russia"...Just watch next will be same other lie.

 

[Perotista]

But we don't disagree. I agree. Obama agrees. Hillary agrees. Democrats agree that we need to control the border. It would be great if Trump were rational and could get a rational electronic border with sensors built. But he needs some ugly useless wall that makes America look like some giant prison. And Trump poisons the well by making it seem like illegal immigrants are a criminal menace.

Watch out for MS-13! It's not like there are all kinds of American citizen Hells Angels biker gangs in shootouts. It's not like American citizen drug gangs are shooting up Chicago. The existence of MS-13 proves illegals are a problem.

The wall! The Great Wall of China didn't work too good. Even the Berlin Wall and the Wall from North Germany to its southern end didn't really work either. It only worked when two fences were constructed with 50 or so feet in-between the fences where patrols who were ordered to shoot to kill anyone caught in-between the fences. They also had dogs and watch towers every so often. Still, every once in a long while, some East Germans managed to escape. I was with the 11th ACR in Fulda guarding the East German Border back from 1980-83.

Even with fences along our southern border, people along with drug smugglers tunnel under the fences. A good pair of bolt cutters or wire cutters also does wonders. A wall isn't the answer. There we agree. I think E-Verify along with hefty fines for hiring illegals would work a heck of a lot better. By hefty I mean a fine of 1,000 dollars for each illegal someone hires for the first offense. Second offense double it to 2,000 per and if there is a third offense 5,000 per and so on.

During Vietnam we placed sensors along the DMZ and the Ho Chi Minh trail. Those along the trail were pretty much worthless as the trail was way too long and went in too many directions. Along the DMZ, we met with much better success. A much smaller area which could be pounded with bombs when one went off. Infiltration along the DMZ was pretty much non-existent. When you have a thousand miles of trail, way too much to cover.

Along our southern border we aren't about to drop bombs if a sensor goes off. So I'm back to E-Verify and hefty fines. I'm sure there are other ways to deal with the problem. Less expensive ways and more effective ways.

 

[Cephus]

Lol, you fail to agree with me so you must be irrational.

Unfortunately, the far left thinks they can just redefine words as they want, whenever they want. The far left and the far right tend to both be irrational, based on the actual definition of the term. They tend to look at the world emotionally and not intellectually.

 

[Cephus]

Trump is president. He is head of the conservative party. We have a liberal party and a conservative party.

Absolutely untrue, not that I'd expect a libtard to know the truth. Actually, we have two liberal parties fiscally and one liberal and one religious zealot party socially. We have no conservative parties in America. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

The wall! The Great Wall of China didn't work too good. Even the Berlin Wall and the Wall from North Germany to its southern end didn't really work either. It only worked when two fences were constructed with 50 or so feet in-between the fences where patrols who were ordered to shoot to kill anyone caught in-between the fences. They also had dogs and watch towers every so often. Still, every once in a long while, some East Germans managed to escape. I was with the 11th ACR in Fulda guarding the East German Border back from 1980-83.

Even with fences along our southern border, people along with drug smugglers tunnel under the fences. A good pair of bolt cutters or wire cutters also does wonders. A wall isn't the answer. There we agree. I think E-Verify along with hefty fines for hiring illegals would work a heck of a lot better. By hefty I mean a fine of 1,000 dollars for each illegal someone hires for the first offense. Second offense double it to 2,000 per and if there is a third offense 5,000 per and so on.

During Vietnam we placed sensors along the DMZ and the Ho Chi Minh trail. Those along the trail were pretty much worthless as the trail was way too long and went in too many directions. Along the DMZ, we met with much better success. A much smaller area which could be pounded with bombs when one went off. Infiltration along the DMZ was pretty much non-existent. When you have a thousand miles of trail, way too much to cover.

Along our southern border we aren't about to drop bombs if a sensor goes off. So I'm back to E-Verify and hefty fines. I'm sure there are other ways to deal with the problem. Less expensive ways and more effective ways.

And those sensor and programs will be shut off by the left or Neo Con right when they get power. A Wall works, that is why they hate it.

With Cameras and RRTs it will reduce it to a trickle.

And if you think walls do not work, please tell us why prisoners do not just walk out Prison.

 

[Skeptic Bob]

I don’t think most conservatives are irrational. They just have different priorities and take different approaches to solving problems.

Also, I think you are mistaking some of the more absurd members here with a “conservatives” lean as indicative of most conservatives.

 

[slick]

Trump is most certainly anti-immigrant. He called for a ban on all Muslim immigration.

I pointed out specifically the irrational faulty logic behind his idea.

One Muslim immigrant goes on a shooting spree means that Muslim immigration is the problem. There are billions of Muslims around the world. There are millions in the U.S. These dangerous individuals are a very tiny fraction of the population. It's totally irrational to take action against the entire population based on the actions of less than a hundredth of one percent of that population. One visa lottery immigrant kills people and that means we have to get rid of the visa lottery.

I watch FOX News just to listen to the other side. I hear this irrational argument over and over again. Some illegal alien commits a crime and the problem is illegal aliens. That's just irrational.

Is the visa lottery illegal immigrants? The leader of your party seems to insist that immigration policy is a problem. That clearly means our immigrants are a problem. But the facts completely contradict that. Immigrants overall do far better than American citizens, even the ones for s-hole countries outperform American citizens. It's just irrational.

Trump is anti-immigrant because he realizes what one of our four great presidents residing on the Mt. Rushmore memorial Teddy Roosevelt
stated in one of his most memorable quotes:

''The one absolute certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be
to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationaliities'

Saying Trump is racist or xenophobic is stupid. He simply does not see how this country is enriched by bringing in scores of people from
failed 3rd world states. Like Roosevelt he's not interested in the USA becoming more tangled up by squabbling nationaliities' than it
already has become & that should make sense to everyone!

 

[CLAX1911]

Trump's presidency has made me consider that all these years I've been arguing with fundamentally irrational people. Trump is obviously utterly and totally incompetent. Any rational person can see that. So, it's evident that we're dealing with irrational people.

But beyond Trump almost everything about conservatism is fundamentally irrational:

Perhaps you are simply being myopic. You may not be seeing your own bias and you may be basing rationale on your own bias.

1. Anti-immigration irrationality. If one illegal alien or Muslim commits a crime they reason that if you banned all illegal aliens or Muslim that crime would not have occurred. That's irrational.

I agree that is irrational but I have never heard anybody make that argument.

2. Climate change deniers. Why would you ignore what scientists are telling you? Even if half the scientists said there was nothing to worry about and half were warning us, wouldn't it make sense to err on the side of caution? What do we have to lose if we clean up pollution then later find out there was no man-made climate change? But consider what we have to lose if they were right and we didn't do enough. The irrationality is absolutely staggering.

I lean conservative on this topic. But I'm not a denier of climate change per se. I simply am skeptical of the impending catastrophe (doomsday prophecies tend to destroy credibility when the day passes.) I'm also very sceptical of the idea that government is the answer.

Also much of the plans to reduce pollution are terrible, fictional, or reqire a drastic cultural change. Further they require more theft through taxes.

3. Universal health care. Canada and all of Europe has moved to universal health care. None of them want to go back to the system we have.

It's perfectly rational to be against that. Even if foreign people think it's better.

Finally, unless you're willing to let a homeless man die because he can't afford treatment, health care is always universal anyway.

Everybody is willing to let people d
all over the world die. You could give food to starving people but do you? There is enough that death from starving could be a thing of the past.

So yes I'm willing to let people die. I'm against slavery. And forcing somebody to provide services without compensation is slavery.

We just have a terrible universal system.

Universal systems require forced service without appropriate compensation. So I'm thrilled our universal system is terrible is be even happier if it was non existent.

I'm in favor of capitalism.

4. Nationalism.

Lack of nationalism is suicide.

Flag worship and demanding Americans stand for the anthem is just irrational. How can you have a free country where people are forced to stand for the anthem? That makes absolutely no sense.

You are myopic. Nobody is forced to stand for the national anthem. If they were is have been arrested dozens of times. Nobody advocates for that.

You aremischaracterizing things to be irrational. You are making strawmen in order to suggest that people are irrational.

5. Gay marriage. If you don't like gay marriage then don't get gay married.

First it's just marriage. Nobody gets gay married just like I don't gay drive a car nor do I gay eat dinner.

Why do you care what others do? Whatever happened to freedom? I'm Christian but I refuse to impose my beliefs on my fellow citizens because I don't want them to do the same to me.

Thats hypocritical. You are willing to force your beliefs in impending climate catastrophe and universal health care on people but religion is wrong?

Three conservative Supreme Court judges voted in favor of Texas' anti-sodomy law in a case where a gay man was arrested for having sex in his own home. This includes Scalia and Thomas. This is totally irrational.

Personal liberties is where I'm liberal. Its ridiculous to illegalize such things.

6. Defense. We're deeply in debt. Our military is bigger than the next 10 militaries combined. Surely we can save some money by decreasing military spending, right?

No. The United States military is a global force. It is what protects many contries from war. Its isolationist of you to suggest that each country should provide its own military.

Not a

No doubt you'll write me off as irrational even though I'm largely liberal. Its easier to pigeon hole people than it is to actually listen to others and let them tell you what they think.

This vitriol and hatred that anti liberal regressives express is Precisly why we have the president we have. You just make strawman fallacies and ignore people.

 

[CLAX1911]

Trump is anti-immigrant because he realizes what one of our four great presidents residing on the Mt. Rushmore memorial Teddy Roosevelt
stated in one of his most memorable quotes:

''The one absolute certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be
to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationaliities'

Saying Trump is racist or xenophobic is stupid. He simply does not see how this country is enriched by bringing in scores of people from
failed 3rd world states. Like Roosevelt he's not interested in the USA becoming more tangled up by squabbling nationaliities' than it
already has become & that should make sense to everyone!

though I'm in agreement with you about the Theodore Roosevelt quote. He isn't anti immagration. He is anti illegal immagration. Everybody should be. That's like being anti human trafficking or anti theft.

He's claiming that it's irrational to be anti immigrant and to some degree it is. But it's 100% rational to be anti illegal immagration. He dishonestly left that out. It isn't about being rational its about demonizing the opposition.

 

[Greenbeard]

Trump's presidency has made me consider that all these years I've been arguing with fundamentally irrational people. Trump is obviously utterly and totally incompetent. Any rational person can see that. So, it's evident that we're dealing with irrational people.

Do you not remember the pants-****ting that went on over Ebola? They wanted to end air travel to entire continents. Proportionality, sober analysis, common sense, basic knowledge of key facts about how things work are not known to be hallmarks of the American right.

 

[Moon]

This is the DP equivalent of "Yo Momma" jokes, without the humor.

This is the new DP civility. If someone doesn't agree with you, they're stupid, ignorant, etc., etc. It's about as intellectually lazy as one can get.

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

Trump is anti-immigrant because he realizes what one of our four great presidents residing on the Mt. Rushmore memorial Teddy Roosevelt
stated in one of his most memorable quotes:

''The one absolute certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be
to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationaliities'

Saying Trump is racist or xenophobic is stupid. He simply does not see how this country is enriched by bringing in scores of people from
failed 3rd world states. Like Roosevelt he's not interested in the USA becoming more tangled up by squabbling nationaliities' than it
already has become & that should make sense to everyone!

To people like SOD its "unjust" and "wrong" to not want to "atone for "our" "sins" by throwing open the gates to those "excluded" by our "racist" past and we can only do this by handing everyone else everything.

Luckily more and more are seeing this and want less then nothing to do with it.

 

[PhysicalRemoval]

Do you not remember the pants-****ting that went on over Ebola? They wanted to end air travel to entire continents. Proportionality, sober analysis, common sense, basic knowledge of key facts about how things work are not known to be hallmarks of the American right.

Yeah, people wanted to quarantine the spread of a deadly virus...You know like what other nations did to stop the spread, and what every nation has done since the mid 1500s?

But then again what do we expect from the side that thinks screaming "racist" is an argument and claims walls do not work whiles its leaders have them around the mansions.

 

[Greenbeard]

Yeah, people wanted to quarantine the spread of a deadly virus.

Hi. We did that. Using public health infrastructure, not xenophobia.

 

[Perotista]

And those sensor and programs will be shut off by the left or Neo Con right when they get power. A Wall works, that is why they hate it.

With Cameras and RRTs it will reduce it to a trickle.

And if you think walls do not work, please tell us why prisoners do not just walk out Prison.

How tall are most prison walls? How long? Do they have a bunch of guards all around the prison walls, some even on top of them keeping watch. There's a huge difference between a prison which may have a mile worth of walls on counting all four sides. Now you're talking approximately 2,000 miles worth of wall. Are you going to deploy guards as they do in prison every so many meters or feet along the wall? How many guards are there at a prison? That's apples to oranges to compare a prison wall to one that would run along our southern border. The only walls or fences that seemed to work were the one's constructed by the USSR and East Germany. But they were to keep people in, not out and the East German army who patrolled the area between the fences had orders to shoot to kill along with attack dogs. They also had watch or guard towers ever few miles manned with troops also with orders to kill anyone trying to escape. No one was trying to break into East Germany.

What's to stop tunnel digging? Where we have a wall or fence now, tunnels are being dug under the fence everyday. Cameras are useless there. How many border patrol personnel will be assigned? I wouldn't put too much faith in a wall. E-verify and hefty heavy fines for hiring illegals I think would be much more cost effective and efficient in reducing the flow. No work, no means to make a living or take care of one's family.

 

[SonOfDaedalus]

So yes I'm willing to let people die. I'm against slavery. And forcing somebody to provide services without compensation is slavery.

You prove my point. This is just irrational nonsense. A man sitting next to you on the train has a heart attack. EMS rushes over. They check his account balance and find he has no money. They leave and let him die. You're OK with that?

This is the kind of stuff I don't bother wasting my time arguing. It's just irrationality.

Health care just doesn't work like other goods and services. We not going to just let people die because they can't afford health care. I'm sorry this doesn't fit with your free-market ideology. Refusing to accept reality is the definition irrationality.