Quote:
Originally Posted by Bionca
The disconnects in the American voter is an odd odd thing. The base of the Conservative movement here is two-pronged. You have the "values voters" and "Free market folks". Ultimately these two will have to sort out their own laundry since "values voters" require welfare, state funding of religion, onerous laws and in short, MASSIVE government.
Free market dudes just want to remove child labor laws, government foreign aid, the Family Medical Leave Act, medical research and education grants.
Sooner or later they will realize they are their own worst enemy. The Free market dudes will eventually hive off, the values crowd will hook up with the Blue Dog Dems (good to see them go), and we can finally have an actual Liberal party as an option.
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That American voters so consistently vote against their real interest is actually not such a mystery. It becomes understandable when one considers the unique "ideology" that is instilled in American children from an early age ... an ideology that is largely unknown in the rest of the world. Specifically, those who control the wealth in this country figured out a long time ago that the so-called "American dream" (e.g., anyone can become rich, anyone can grow up to be president, etc.) was a powerful tool to use in avoiding having to do some of the things that the European welfare states have had to do, specifically have strong social safety nets in essentially capitalist countries. If you hammer into people's heads, at a young age, the notion that it is their own responsibility to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, you gradually erode within society the sense of social solidarity that is common to Europeans. It makes it easy to argue against the essential human reality that -- when it comes to living socially and ensuring a good life for all, especially in a wealthy land like the United States -- and injury to one is an injury to all.
I remember once when I was living in Paris for a short while that I would walk by, in my neighborhood, a creche (daycare center) every day on my way to work. There seemed to be about 30 or so children who were taken care of at this particular place. One morning, I walked by and found a large crowd, about 400 people, demonstrating. Many of them had their children with them, and few (obviously) were the parents of the actual children who attended the daycare center. The government had announced a cutback the day before, and the entire neighborhood came out in protest -- even the relatively wealthy people who had children with nannies! I asked some of my neighbors why they were there and they said that it was their civic duty to defend the interests of the people who needed this government-provided assistance. That was it. Simply put and simply true.
American "individualism" is a trick used by those who seek to control the wealth. But it is so deeply ingrained that you can find people voting and acting against their own economic interests and those they share with their neighbors at every turn.