Dealing with conservative types

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You're damned right I'm serious.

If you think that coming up with a few quotes from individuals in any group somehow proves anything about the group as a whole, you need to do some serious rethinking. If it were that easy, all anyone would need to prove any case about any group is to handpick a small number of "representative" individuals and use their opinions as a basis to claim that the entire group holds that opinion.

Your approach proves nothing.

"just tell me what conservative values are best based on facts and logic."

This was my original proposal. So far no one has really said anything to this. Your opinion on rape quotes has been established I guess. And the definition of republican/conservative has been confused. You're right my approach is totally meaningless being is has not even happened yet.

To clarify - What is a republican held position that is better than it's democratic counterpart and why. Explained in facts and logical statements and numbers. Opinions really are not relevant.

So, this isn't written in a jerky tone, but I know tone is difficult in writing on forums. You're definition of the problem is incorrect. You've defined conservative types incorrectly. Therefor the entire equation is false. You're question about the drunk driver, no one would ever think the innocent driver had brought his accident upon himself, the question has nothing to do with a conservative view of self reliance, which is what I think you mean when you say "everyone makes their own destiny and brings everything upon themselves". Which btw, people do think that, but it's certainly doesn't make someone conservative or not conservative. So your brother in laws response has nothing to do with being conservative, and you're original question to him has nothing to do with being a conservative, so you guys are talking about something completely different. Meanwhile, you're under the assumption that conservatives are a bunch of asshats....

I know a few people who are most likely on the spectrum who are very conservative btw.

For what it's worth, Republicans and Democrats are likely about equal in terms of nonsense.

What democratic ideas are nonsense in your opinion?

Not their ideas. Their behavior. It's like they're sports fans or something. To a Democrat, Democrats can do no wrong; to a Republican, Republicans can do no wrong.

I prefer to ignore political parties altogether, and there are a lot of people with that same approach to politics--not because of their ideology, but because they're tired of the silliness.

I know what you mean. Conservatives are not defined by this idea, but it is a pretty common idea behind many of the republican policies. Many times more common in republicans than democrats. No one is trying to put anyone into a corner, but being that there are exceptions, we are forced to sort of speak in broader terms.

One of the biggest, shared by both Democrats and Republicans is that it is okay to borrow money to finance consumption.

Democrats can do all kinds of wrong. I totally concede that. We can't just dismiss it all though, it defeats the purpose of talking politics in the first place.

I can totally understand why someone would not want to pay attention to politics. It does get ridiculous and unbearable at times.

Basically, it is a tribal mentality. Democrats are in one "tribe", Republicans are in another "tribe". When it comes to goodies, both major parties are about the same -- as long as the goodies go to their "tribe", they have few objections. They only seem to object if the goodies are going to the other "tribe".

BTW, this quote, I think was misspoken and then misinterpreted--

OK, here's the deal with rape. As a woman, feminist, and pro-life (yeah, you can be both), I think that many people who recognize a fetus as fully human tend to forget about the other humans in the picture, especially because the fetus is the one in the most risk. But I said "most"--the pregnant woman is at risk, too, and the baby will be at risk in some situations if it is carried to term. We absolutely cannot ignore the other people in the situation. The woman is human; so is her baby. The father is human, too (though if he's a rapist I want him locked away as much as the next person).

From a pro-life perspective, he has one thing right: Life is a gift from God. But rape absolutely is not. When a man chooses to rape a woman and she becomes pregnant, he made that choice, and all the pain and terror and emotional and physical consequences are the result of that choice. To tell a pregnant rape victim to "make the best of a bad situation" is to trivialize her pain. It's technically true that anyone in a bad situation can "make the best of it", but giving somebody a glib platitude like that makes it pretty obvious he hasn't thought about what that situation must actually be like. It's like he's talking to a suicidally depressed person and telling them to "just cheer up".

I don't think Santorum should have been making statements about rape or about pregnancy unless he had taken the time to research the issue thoroughly, including talking to women's rights advocates, including understanding the opposing viewpoints. But he didn't do that, and it came out sounding like he thought pregnancy resulting from rape was a good thing. It shows a lot of disrespect for women.

Personally--yes, I think that a fetus is human, both from a scientific and philosophical standpoint. I don't think there are any easy answers when it comes to pregnancy after a rape. It's one of those trolley problems where to help one person is to hurt another, and vice versa, and I hope I never have to make that choice. It's not an easy choice even if you don't believe that a fetus qualifies as human. It's even worse if you do. I just wish both sides could come together and support the women who are going through this, because theoretically both sides should agree that, at the very least, the pregnant woman is human and deserves to be protected; plus, all women who could potentially get into that situation are also human and also deserve to be protected. Whatever your definition of "human", there should be at least that much to agree on. But people like easy answers, I guess. They like to ignore one person so that they can support the other.

Uhm, anyway. I just had to make that point.... that pro-life doesn't mean anti-woman. Or, it shouldn't. Sometimes "pro-life" is just the excuse people use for misogyny.

I have def found that the Democrats I know are much less likely to hold their own accountable.

I remember, for example, when NDAA passed, my Republican friends were mad as hell and giving it to their elected officials. My democratic friends where busy at work blaming the Republicans and ignoring the fact the Democratic Senate passed it.

The NDAA for what year?

Guys, don't confuse conservative/republican politicians for conservative/republican people outside the political machine. A lot of conservative people are pretty reasonable and not given to extremes. The current republican party, the members in power, do not speak for everyone who considers themselves conservative. Quoting a bunch of politicians saying terrible things about rape does not mean all conservatives are rapemongering fascists.

Still, I wish so many would not adopt the extreme positions promoted by the leadership, or try to make excuses for those extreme positions.

Verdandi. I know the feeling. I do sympathize. There are tons of rational conservatives. I do think your party has been ruined slowly, starting in the eighties. But we do still need to vote for one party or the other. There is no center really. Not anymore. Which is sad.

Even if you consider it picking the lesser of two evils, it is still important. Because one of those choices is going to be LESS evil. Or in other terms, induce less evil into the world. It seems forgotten that things like war, health care, Medicare, welfare all have an effect on large amounts of people, and for some of those people it literally means the difference between living and dying.

Why don't people feel more responsible in their political views?

Umm...yeah, I'm not thinking of conservative so much in the political sense, but in in a more raw form of everyone for themselves. If I can call it that. Just think, at one point in recent history there was no insurance and no income tax (and forget things like anti-discrimination laws). So people who have this mentality of "everyone brings everything upon themselves" are shunning the ideals of a "safety net" or any notion of victims recourse. Maybe I provided a somewhat different slant on "conservative" but that's the closest label I could find. I don't know if Darwinian's the right label either. Let's just say this guy was overly arrogant and thought "these sorts of things don't happen to me, they just happen to the other poor fools out there." Maybe he just had a distorted view of a "winners mentality". To be a winner, though, sometimes you have to lose big, and I wouldn't say this guy was much of a risk-taker.