I think I've figured it out.

After 2 years of reading bumper stickers that say "Silly liberals... Pay checks are for workers" and "I fight poverty, I WORK!" and other completely asinine things, trying to figure out what would make someone so heartless as to not want to help their fellow countrymen, I've figured it out.

There is a theory of moral development (Kohlberg's) that explains it all. In the first level, the person only does what is right because of a fear of punishment or because of a chance of a reward. They basically have this "What's in it for me?" mentality. In the third (and final) level, the person is able to look at things from another person's perspective. They know that there are a wide range of opinions and values in this world and that laws need to protect people's rights.

Basically what it comes down to is that Republicans never left the first stage of moral development. They lack the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes and they only do something if they can get something out of it (like get into heaven).

You can see it in play any day of the week.

source of their 'fear of punishment' and heaven is held out as their 'chance for reward'.

:evilgrin:

and it explains why having a productive/meaningful conversation with these people is simply not possible, and why we should, in fact, be afraid of what they are willing to do to preserve their own peace of mind. It's like the human species has two branches: us, and them.

Like being unable to tell reality from fantasy.

I always figured it was the ouritanical work-ethic that ultimately those who suffer someone deserve it and that suffering will make them better.

out to the poor. talk about a brain fart

...that they fear there isn't enough to go around, and in their heart of hearts believe they don't really deserve what they've got, and someone will be along to take it from them unless they put up a bluster.

Again, developmentally stalled or partway down the wrong track, for certain.

Thanks for your two cents.
:toast:

... basically an Ayn Randian delusion that society is a one-way street where certain epecially valuable "individuals" are entitled to reap the benefits of cooperation, but not required to reciprocate with anything other than providing their personal "genius" to the world.

Another way to look at it is the prevailing idea that any collective effort is a zero-sum proposition. I liked the "Morality is a Plus-Sum Game" thesis posted here http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/241. A core fallacy of current American conservatism seems to be that if someone benefits from some collective effort, someone else loses. This misses the "We're in it together" truth of human society in general. The whole flavor of the current, "You're killing us by reforming healthcare" outrage seems based on this idea taken to the extreme. "Well, if it's better for 'poor people,' it must be worse for anyone who considers themselves middle-class." There's a sense of panic that progressive ideas are all about taking resources from the strongest and giving them to the weakest.

I also saw an article recently about liberal vs. conservative notions of morality. The conclusion was that a a liberal mindset only evaluates 1) harm and 2) fairness, while a conservative mindset throws in other factors like "moral / sexual purity" and traditionalism. Thus, a liberal analysis of gay marriage would be that it doesn't hurt anyone and treats hetero and homosexual couples equally, vs. the conservative objection that gay marriage upsets tradition and is somehow morally unclean.

That defines our situation in terms everyone but tea people will grok.

I am stealing this. Good stuff, Dirk.

The difference is that if they consider themselves Democrats, then they're usually at least open to the IDEA of changing their minds. Republicans are not only moral infants...they also refuse to even CONSIDER growing up. They think that having the moral development of a toddler is a "good" thing.

What they're really talking about is they want kick-ass Superpower bristling with weaponry kicking sand in the faces of the rest of the world. They fear losing that power. That fear also applies to how they feel about other races getting equality. They fear the loss of their position at the top of the food chain because they think they might end up in the position of the people they keep subjugated. They fear retaliation which will force them into the lifestyles of the poorest in the world.

They have only one idea about human relations. It's the wolf pack idea of one Alpha male keeping his status by forcefully muscling the rest of the pack into inferior roles.

Their self esteem and self image are wrapped in the American flag of aggression.

mantra.

Look at how the bumper sticker talk revolves around that thought, depending on which political party is in office. With Bush, it was, "My country, right or wrong," "Love or leave it," and in the Internet forums, simply, "GTFO!" Now, "We're taking our country *back*" The clear message is that America is a plate of pie that conservatives claim to own, and intend to defend from everyone else. Thus the focus on who "owns" the country at the moment.

Greenwald had a nice piece turning on essentially this idea about a year back, when the militias were re-gearing in response to Obama's election. Something about the howl of Angry White Males enraged at the loss of (perceived) cultural dominance. The same sense of entitlement and displacement drives this aggressive re-writing of history to "prove" that America was somehow conceived as a homogenous, white Christian kingdom, apparently to lay the foundation for some kind of claim to inherent cultural and economic primacy. If America is indeed a plate of pie, and there isn't enough for everyone, conservatives want to base who eats first on whatever parameters best describe themselves.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -- John Kenneth Galbraith