Political Irony

4 Comments

1. Jeff wrote:

   What I’ve never understood is why the poor, who are most negatively effected by the policies of the Right and the greed of the private sector, are often the biggest supporters of those insitutions. Why do they vote for people who take their benefits? Why do they think that a system that stifles their economic growth is acting in their best interests? Why do they mistrust government regulations that directly protect them from being defrauded by private business?

   Financial collapses should teach us that the wealthy private businessmen either don’t understand their own business, don’t care about major financial catastrophes of a global scale, or believe that this is a good thing.

   Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:58 am | Permalink
2. atwork wrote:

   They are probably just niave and too ignorant to know any better.

   Plus those same purveyors of bad economic policy also promote god-fearin’, gun-lovin’ bigotry – a big draw to that poor demographic.

   Unfortunately now that there are so many poor, and the rich have figured out how to manipulate their fears, the circle is unlikely to be broken anytime soon.

   Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:49 pm | Permalink
3. Jeff wrote:

   I think you’re probably right, but maybe not about the ignorant part.

   I think that a lot of people vote conservative for the reasons you stated: god-fearin’ and gun-lovin’. They have been suckered into thinking that the GOP, and only the GOP stand for religion and firearms in a country of secular pacifists.

   But I also think that the Right has successfully tied Free Market in people’s mind to Freedom, even though they have nothing to do with each other. People hear “communism” and they think slavery and evil. They hear “Free Market Capitalism” and they hear “Freedom.” If they believe that, they’ll believe that the Right supports freedom and the Left doesn’t.

   Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm | Permalink
4. effisland wrote:

   Well that’s kind of why I said ‘ignorant’ – not in a derogatory way necessarily, just that they are not aware of knowledge that is otherwise obvious to the rest of us.

   Probably also tied into the whole two-party system, which results in or sets people up for seeing and arguing things in black and white terms without consideration for nuances and half-truths.

   The whole idea of government should be to help run a system so that the average person can go about their business without too much impediment. Government has really become some multi-headed beast that is more about controlling our lives rather than letting us live. My own views are simply that, while for others government has become some kind of church or religious dogma that they require to tell them what to do in order to live their lives. We don’t really need government – but it has become an industry unto itself. Starting wars on its own, doing things we don’t agree with – it’s really gotten out of control. Which is why voting is down so much – people feel it has taken on a life of its own, when it should be at the end of a leash, controlled by the people.

   Probably wouldn’t find that in the constitution….

   Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 10:55 pm | Permalink