Lorne Michaels

I think this is the real difference between liberals and conservatives - conservatives understand liberals, and think they are wrong. Liberals do not understand conservatives, and think they are evil.

Lots of effects come out of this... and it is a very dangerous situation for liberals, because they do not know their enemy.

Since you speak both languages, maybe you can translate something for me. It's by far not the most important question of the day, but I'm still curious.

So, how can somebody accept $150,000 of other people's money to buy clothes while still claiming to be "just a hockey mom?"

(See Politico's article at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14805.html)

That's silly. She needs clothes to campaign--it's a legitimate business expense, just as much as any campaign expenditure. She has said she'll be donating them to charity after the campaign.

It's also a weakness of conservatives because they are often too forgiving of an unrepentant enemy. Not all liberals are unredeemable, but many are. Some are extremely dangerous as a result. Too often that danger is ignored or more often downplayed.

Lorne Michaels by getting it, appears to have some of the perspective that liberals often lack. What is called bilingual here I just consider a sense of perspective or the ability to see multiple perspectives. It's particularly troubling that our major media does not have what I would think to be an essential requirement... an ability to see multiple perspectives (or do they have it but never reveal it because of a lust of power, or what?)

It would include empathy as well. Liberals seem particularly tone deaf empathetically. Which is weird since they put so much stock in feelings.

I've never seen any evidence for this. Certainly some liberals don't understand conservatives. But why say that about most (or even all!) liberals?

Carl Pham could easily show that I don't understand Hawking radiation - I did some more reading, and I still don't understand it. But how could he show that I (or any liberal - this isn't about me) doesn't understand conservatives?

More practically: if it is true, can be fixed through reading? What would have to be regular reading in order to understand conservatives? The Corner?

Slightly tangentially: I was quite charmed by the latest David Brooks column called "Patio Man". Does David Brooks understand conservatives?

But how could he show that I (or any liberal - this isn't about me) doesn't understand conservatives?

People who go off on deranged rants about Sarah Palin clearly don't understand conservatives.

Does David Brooks understand conservatives?

I've never seen much evidence of it.

I probably asked my question wrong - I should have stuck with program and talked about "monolingual" vs "bilingual". The issue is language, not understanding, and definitely not agreement.

McCain says that homeowners are just "innocent bystanders" in the financial crisis. Obama says (to Joe the plumber): "now that you've become more successful, through hard work, you don't want to be taxed as much."

So, both candidates are bilingual, right? :)

Rand - what confuses me about Palin's wardrobe is not that she needed additional clothes (although as Governor, presumably she had some suitable attire before taking the job) but that she needed to spend so much. $150K is three times the US median household income.

...what confuses me about Palin's wardrobe is not that she needed additional clothes (although as Governor, presumably she had some suitable attire before taking the job) but that she needed to spend so much.

What is the right amount to spend? Why do you care, unless you're a McCain contributor? What is that "confuses" you?

One thing I learn from my own contact with liberals is a subconscious false assumption that liberals and conservatives agree on the effects on certain policies.

For instance, many assume that minimum wage hikes will increase incomes of minimum wage earners in the long term and not just the immediate. They will assume that conservatives recognize this as fact, and conclude that the Right does not care about minimum wage earners. Conservatives oppose that policy because they correctly perceive negative long-term effects of such policies, and they recognize that scarcely anyone stays in minimum-wage employment for life - people get better pay by getting better jobs.

Ther is also a real barrier, a failure to recognize that different factions define words differently. The debate over the definition of "torture" is one of the most recent examples. It's lunchtime, so I don't have time to ponder other examples. Anyone else know of words that mean one thing to the Right and something else to the Left?

I "get" why liberals would attack Palin on her wardrobe and it is what David said. It's why they attacked her for her son, Trig. Look at Chris, he can't stop talking about the wardrobe in a post about something else. He has to keep her as the "other" and to not criticize everything about her risks making her human instead of a faceless evil Republican.

Bob, that makes absolutely no sense. No matter how much you make, you don't want to be taxed as much. That's a non sequitur and it points up how little the Uno understands people other than his fellow travelers.

In fairness to Obama, it was a quote out of context from his interaction with "Joe the Plumber". Obama was showing that he understood Joe's point: that no one wants to be penalized for getting richer by working hard. The complete transcript is here:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/article858299.ece
Despite Obama's use of the phrase "spread the wealth around", I think he showed understanding of who he was talking to. Even the phrase "spread the wealth around" should be taken in context -- Obama was saying that Joe would have more customers if they were taxed less!

Actually Rand, that would make you tri-lingual, wouldn't it? Since presumably you also speak "Randian", not being a conservative yourself?

Hey, maybe that's what E. Gary Gygax was getting at with "alignment languages", it's not actually a different language, but some concepts simply can't be communicated ...

Anywho, I must admit that I don't speak "liberal" very well. I have a great deal of difficulty having meaningful conversations with anyone who strongly self-identifies as liberal. I can talk about the weather and stuff, but as soon as politics comes up, Bam!, misunderstandings all over the place.

Alan Henderson's point is certainly on the money. Liberals seem to have a very strong built in assumption that someone's intentions matter more than actual results, which often causes them to not even examine the results of their actions. I always forget that while talking to them and don't even grok how someone could sleep at night being like that. Don't they care that they're hurting people? Apparently not.

I know I don't "speak liberal" at all though because I hear them attacking Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin's wardrobe, and I'm like "Huh?". I don't even understand what they're getting at; it's just a string of non sequiturs to me.

Here's what I don't get about Palin's wardrobe:

I don't get how one can complain about politicians as celebrities then spend money like a celebrity breaking in a new credit card.

I don't get how one can claim to represent Middle America and spend three times the average annual income of a Middle American on clothes.

I don't get how one can complain about Wall Street mismanaging other people's money while mismanaging money given to you by others.

I don't get how one can claim to represent Middle America and spend three times the average annual income of a Middle American on clothes.

Oh, that's easy. Because you'd lose the election.

Middle America expects their President to look good. That's why Bush can drop $3,500 on a suit he wears only a couple times. If he wore a $199 suit from Men's Warehouse to his inauguration even his most loyal constituents would feel ashamed to admit he was their President. They're proud of their President, and want him to look good. It's the reason the British Royals always have to be well dressed at all times. They're the hood ornament for a whole damn country, so they have to shine even when there's mud on the tires (so to speak).

So, on the one hand, liberals are mafia-like fascist thugs who claim the ends justify the means, but on the other hand, they pay attention intentions so much that they forget about results. Hard to reconcile these.

I think these kind of generalizations are largely useless - it is better to just concentrate on a specific person, and then focus on that person's stated ideology or on their behavior in specific real-life situations, rather than lumping people together into one big group and then try to make generalizations about them that really have nothing to do with their ideology or their behavior. This is particularly true when you have great disdain or great love for them -- your emotions will lead you to over-generalize.

Bob, the problem may be logically insoluble.

There are two classes of people we tend to call "conservative." One class wants to enforce a somewhat sadomasochistic morality on everyone, the classic caricature of Puritanism or evangelical Christian "culture conservatives," the same type of people who power resurgent Islam in other parts of the world.

I'd argue that, first, there are not that many of that kind of people in the United States, and, second, that the totalitarian left does "get" these kinds of people, which is why they very often address them when they claim to be addressing the right generally.

The other class of "conservative" is the live and let live, laissez faire, libertarian (or classically liberal) man reluctant to judge or rule others, someone who values individual liberty very highly, who is reluctant to mess with what works in the dubious hope of something so much better. Who does not want to force other people to pay for stuff he likes ("fiscally conservative") nor legislate his own views generally ("socially liberal").

How do you get to such a place? How can you think I believe X and Y is right and good, but I would not vote to force the logical consequences of those beliefs on others? Generally, only by having a great deal of practise putting yourself in the shoes of others, and realizing (often from bitter experience) that other people are simply different. They see things differently, want different things, think differently. That makes it difficult if not impossible to judge for them. It makes it difficult if not impossible for a general agreement, by everybody, on the right way for the country as a whole to proceed. That points the way to an abandonment of mass-movement, big-government, collectivist solutions to life's problem -- because you know those solutions will always fail, because people are inherently so different.

In short, the causative arrow in the Corner commentary is backwards: it's not that being a (libertarian) conservative makes you better able to "get" people not like you. It's that the ability to "get" people not like you turns you into a libertarian conservative.

In that sense, if we could teach collectivist liberals to "get" people not like them, the only result would be to turn them into libertarian conservatives.

In that sense, if we could teach collectivist liberals to "get" people not like them, the only result would be to turn them into libertarian conservatives.

And I believe that this is the primary reason liberals tend to turn into conservatives as they grow up.

The problem is that neither the liberals nor the conservatives are RATIONAL. The both fail to see that their policies not only do not work in the real world, but they actually make things worse.

It's all about Free Riders and Societies Cracks

The socialists (and social welfare democrats) are deathly afraid that someone somewhere will fall through the cracks. The problem is, when you expand the powers of governments to try to take care of people, you just make the cracks bigger, and trap more people.

The conservatives are deathly afraid that someone will get a free ride, that someone will benefit who does not "deserve" to. the problem is, when you expand the powers of govenrments to try to prevent folks from getting a free ride, you raise the cost of doing business, thus encouraging people to take the easy way.

There will ALWAYS be those who fall through the cracks
There will ALWAYS be those who get a free ride.

A libertarian understands that a free society, based upon the capitalistic principle of mutual exchange for mutual benefit, is the most effective way to reduce both problems.

I think these kind of generalizations are largely useless - it is better to just concentrate on a specific person, and then focus on that person's stated ideology or on their behavior in specific real-life situations, rather than lumping people together into one big group

But if you talk to enough people (on an individual basis) and note the same pattern of behaviors over and over again then it's only natural to lump them into a group. You can call the group anything you please (it doesn't matter, as long as we all agree on which label means what). Many people choose to use labels like "liberals" and "conservatives".

Of course when I say "conservative" I mean the cultural conservatives. Likewise, when I say "liberals" I mean the progressive, ALF-supporting, anti-nuclear, leftist wingnuts who are tempted to vote for Dennis Kucinich or Ralph Nader. Many people in the "middle" are either some flavor of classical liberal, libertarian, or just indifferent to politics.

So, on the one hand, liberals are mafia-like fascist thugs who claim the ends justify the means, but on the other hand, they pay attention intentions so much that they forget about results. Hard to reconcile these.

Different people. They're Stalinists & useful idiots, respectively. We only group them both under "liberal" when the Stalinists (like Bill Ayers) manipulate the useful idiots (like most of Hollywood) into furthering the Agenda.

What is so wrong with a respectable Republican cloth coat?

Sarah spending $150,000 on clothing sure can seem excessive. But how about the O! collecting $150,000,000 in one month to spend on t.v. spots and other ads to obtain a job that barely pays more than the $250,000 that O! seems to think is a significant marker of some sort.

$150,000 could feed or cloth a few poor people , but $150,000,000 could feed and cloth a small city. Do you feel the same angst towards O! as you do towards Sarah?

I don't have an issue with Obama raising $150M or McCain raising $84M for their campaign. That's what it takes to get the job, and neither man is in it for the money.

But doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical to be billed as a "small town Mom from Wasilla" and at the same time drop six figures of donated money for your personal wardrobe? Or irresponsible? $150,000 would buy a nice chunk of ads or mailers that I'm sure McCain would like right about now.

But doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical to be billed as a "small town Mom from Wasilla" and at the same time drop six figures of donated money for your personal wardrobe? Or irresponsible?

Um, no. For reasons stated above.

Next question, please.

But doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical to be billed as a "small town Mom from Wasilla" and at the same time drop six figures of donated money for your personal wardrobe?

It is not her "personal" wardrobe. It is costumery, owned by the campaign, that she wears for the campaign. When the campaign is over, she doesn't keep it. You are grasping at straws.

Rand - I guess this is part of the "two languages" thing. Of course, I speak as a guy who didn't have a problem with John Edwards' $400 haircut. (Although, that was HIS money being spent.)

You are correct, though in saying that it's not even close to the biggest issue of the day. I'll let it drop.

Carl Pham nailed it with a precision of Pi equal to the radius of "our" galaxy (and to wander a few parsecs off topic: based on the assumption that the quality of the resolution of Pi equals the attainable sphere of absolute influence does that make Carl a "type III civilization" on the Kardashev scale all on his own? ^_^).

HH,

Hey! That might explain Carl's warped explanations! (Just teasing!)

Milky Way galaxy is warped and vibrating like a drum
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/09_warp.shtml

No Chris, those haircuts were in his FEC filings. That was campaign money. Unfortunately, he couldn't donate his head to charity. Of course no one would want it.

"Alan Henderson's point is certainly on the money. Liberals seem to have a very strong built in assumption that someone's intentions matter more than actual results"

It's worse than that. Many liberals believe assume that Policy X will produce Result A, and assume that conservatives believe likewise. Thus opposition to Policy X = opposition to Result A. To such people, conservatives oppose goals such as poverty alleviation, environmental safety, peace with Iran, etc. They do not recognize that conservatives have an entirely prescription for meeting such results (or that the current Iranian government has no fracking desire for peace).