The American Political Divide: What is it?

wiscoaster

Well-known member
Light vs. darkness, good vs. evil:

Ditto. That being said, not ALL the evil is on one side only, and not ALL the good is on the other side. There's enough evil to go around. Still, I think the divide is more in that one side is better at recognizing the battle of good vs. evil and in upholding the good and in resisting the evil.
 

Gridley

Member
Formal education. This will come across as biased but I'm going to go ahead and throw it out there: once upon a time if you couldn't pass calculus you didn't need to go to college, and calculus requires an IQ of 120 or so to be able to pass it. (That's why historically it's been a requirement for people who want to go to medical school, or take accounting as a major, or computer science, etc. If you can't pass calculus then you're probably not bright enough to handle the harder stuff.) Now we live in age where everyone needs to take on huge debt to go to college, and some of the less bright folks filter down into the grievance studies majors instead of STEM, and come out indoctrinated, apparently unable to examine facts or question the lies they've been fed in college. They know how to protest, though.

I'd like to talk about this a bit.

I'm an engineer, and work with lots of engineers. Some are good at their jobs, others not. Some I know the political opinions of, others not. While I thus cannot say that I see any strong correlation between a 'red' outlook on things vs 'blue' and being a good engineer (my data set is far too threadbare), I can certainly point to some very 'blue' folks who are better engineers than I am (of course I can also point out counter examples).

I think as a society we mistake education for intelligence, and intelligence for (for want of a better word) wisdom.

I would agree with thegunguy that a decent IQ is needed to be a successful engineer, and of course most companies won't even look at your resume without a degree so education is needed too. But I don't think either one, or even the combination, show wisdom.

Now some engineering jobs you need wisdom too - but not all of them. I expect that's true of even most "calculus required" fields.

I think the red/blue divide isn't at all about intelligence or education - except coincidentally. I think it is about wisdom.

Wisdom (again, perhaps not the best word choice) is where you realize that almost everything is a tradeoff - if I drive faster I'll get there sooner, but I might get a speeding ticket. Tradeoff.

I see a lot of 'red' area folks talk about tradeoffs. I seldom hear that from 'blues.' I hear 'blues' talk about ideals.

Take COVID-19. I hear 'blues' talk about how "if everyone wearing masks saves even one life it is worth it." That sounds like a tradeoff... but it is really an absolutist position because wearing masks has negative health effects on a large part of the population. The "tradeoff" question is "does everyone wearing masks result in a healthier society?" I have my own opinion on that, but *every single person I've had a productive discussion with on those terms was someone I knew was a 'red'*.

Again, gun control. Does it work? Does it reduce crime? To the 'blues' this doesn't matter - we have heard the "if it saves only one life" mantra for decades. Of course gun control also *costs* lives - the lives of those who couldn't defend themselves. Again, I have my own opinion. Again, every person I've actually been able to *talk* about that idea with was 'red' or at least 'purple'. The 'blues' simply look at the positive results and ignore the unintended (or at least unspoken) consequences. Guns do bad things and are evil, so anything that reduces the number of them out there *must* be good.

This, obviously, is a simplification, but I really feel like it is the clearest divide I've seen.

Thoughts?
 

roscoe

Well-known member
I'd like to talk about this a bit.

I'm an engineer, and work with lots of engineers. Some are good at their jobs, others not. Some I know the political opinions of, others not. While I thus cannot say that I see any strong correlation between a 'red' outlook on things vs 'blue' and being a good engineer (my data set is far too threadbare), I can certainly point to some very 'blue' folks who are better engineers than I am (of course I can also point out counter examples).

I think as a society we mistake education for intelligence, and intelligence for (for want of a better word) wisdom.

I would agree with thegunguy that a decent IQ is needed to be a successful engineer, and of course most companies won't even look at your resume without a degree so education is needed too. But I don't think either one, or even the combination, show wisdom.

Now some engineering jobs you need wisdom too - but not all of them. I expect that's true of even most "calculus required" fields.

I think the red/blue divide isn't at all about intelligence or education - except coincidentally. I think it is about wisdom.

Wisdom (again, perhaps not the best word choice) is where you realize that almost everything is a tradeoff - if I drive faster I'll get there sooner, but I might get a speeding ticket. Tradeoff.

I see a lot of 'red' area folks talk about tradeoffs. I seldom hear that from 'blues.' I hear 'blues' talk about ideals.

Take COVID-19. I hear 'blues' talk about how "if everyone wearing masks saves even one life it is worth it." That sounds like a tradeoff... but it is really an absolutist position because wearing masks has negative health effects on a large part of the population. The "tradeoff" question is "does everyone wearing masks result in a healthier society?" I have my own opinion on that, but *every single person I've had a productive discussion with on those terms was someone I knew was a 'red'*.

Again, gun control. Does it work? Does it reduce crime? To the 'blues' this doesn't matter - we have heard the "if it saves only one life" mantra for decades. Of course gun control also *costs* lives - the lives of those who couldn't defend themselves. Again, I have my own opinion. Again, every person I've actually been able to *talk* about that idea with was 'red' or at least 'purple'. The 'blues' simply look at the positive results and ignore the unintended (or at least unspoken) consequences. Guns do bad things and are evil, so anything that reduces the number of them out there *must* be good.

This, obviously, is a simplification, but I really feel like it is the clearest divide I've seen.

Thoughts?

I appreciate this post because you are clearly thinking about this, rather than emoting, which is a lot of what I see here.

The red/blue divide obviously cannot be broken down into one thing, but it is important to understand what conservatism and liberalism mean. Conservatism, by definition, means a desire to slow change, or to eliminate change and revert to a previous position. It tends to be reactive, in that someone proposes a change (let's say gay marriage). A conservative position is to oppose that, because it contradicts previous traditions (or religions) and rules. Taxes might be another position - a liberal (in 1913) might propose income taxes, and a conservative would oppose that change because it poses a threat to some aspect of their economic life.

Because liberals want change (in certain directions), they naturally want the authority to effect that change, and therefore seek the authority to do so. They are therefore considered the group in favor of governmental power. This is why conservatives oppose governmental power - to oppose any such changes. In US history, the biggest manifestation of this was the Civil War, in which conservatives wanted to preserve the current order (slavery) and liberals wanted change. The southern states therefore framed this as a states' rights issue because a strong federal government would be in a position to eliminate slavery.

It is worth thinking about the fact that, as time has passed, the vast majority of beachheads defended by the conservatives have disappeared because society has moved on in the direction of liberal change: slavery, resistance to women's right to vote (and equal rights), outlawing birth control, segregation, proscription of gay marriage, resistance to science (e.g. the Scopes Trial), book censorship, trickle-down economics, isolationism (and the America-First Committee associated with Lindberg). Today, you won't find too many conservatives defending segregation, but when I was a small child, it was not uncommon. My grandmother remembered fighting for the right to vote.

There are a few exceptions - conservative libertarian issues have tended to be supported, such as gun rights. Some elements of conservative economics are still generally considered sound, although much of that is open for debate by economists today.

However, it is worth considering that the US was founded during the Enlightenment, as a liberal nation. It was very much founded by the secular liberals of their day (who, against conservative thought, rejected the divine right of kings), and many of the the most important changes to the nation (end of slavery, Progressive Era, Civil Rights Era, WW2) are 'liberal' in that sense. There have been social reactions to these things, of course - the end of reconstruction and the 2nd KKK, the Reagan Revolution, etc. You might read Alexander Stephens' 'Keystone Speech' for a fairly brutal articulation of this. Despite these reactions, the trend is clearly in the direction of the changes I listed.

(Trump was, in this sense, a reaction to Obama and the change he represented [a black president who got universal health care instituted]. But then we got Biden, who is even more liberal than Obama.)

This desire to change and improve is why liberals tend to look to the future. They see that things can be better in the future if specific changes are made. In this sense they may be seen as 'idealistic', whereas conservatives tend to be pessimistic. A liberal may want to change something about society, but a conservative is pessimistic that the change will actually achieve the desired result, or be positive at all. Sometimes conservatives are correct - some liberal experiments at social engineering, such as public housing, have largely been a disaster, (gun control is another example). But sometimes liberals are right - gay marriage does not seem to have been the end of the nuclear family. Nor has the right to vote for women lead to a dissolution of society. Programs like Social Security and the ACA (Obamacare) seem to work. The American public university system is the envy of the entire world and is significantly responsible for the economic might of the US. Environmentalism (starting largely with Teddy Roosevelt) is why we all have public lands where we can camp, hunt, fish, and share as Americans. Public funding for research (NSF and NIH) has been responsible for innumerable medical and technical advances.

But I would beware of conflating pessimism with wisdom. Over the last 250 years the world has steadily changed, and conservatism, as a general philosophy, has tended to be wrong. We no longer defer to monarchs or religious authorities. The traditional social hierarchies inherited from the previous 10,000 years, of master over slave, landholder over peasant, priest over parishioner, male over female, colonial invader over native, etc., have been rejected. In all of these cases, it has been the forces of enlightenment and liberalism that have driven the world forward. The adoption of democratic principles, science, universal education, the rights of man, legal egalitarianism - these are all liberal changes, and all resisted by conservatives (at the time).

There are people on this board (over on the vaccination thread) who have said that they will never get the vaccination, no matter what. That is a conservative reaction, driven by a conservative impulse to resist change. It is also wrong. It is true that liberals sometimes overreach, or move too fast. Conservatives like to latch onto those instances. But, historically, on balance, it is the liberal trajectory that is the right one. Where would the world be today without vaccinations? Have you ever seen someone with polio or smallpox?

Some people have difficulty understanding the big picture, but step back 20, 50, 100, and 200 years. What are the important changes in world and US history? In which cases was conservatism in the right?
 
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theotherwaldo

Well-known member
I am impressed by how many "Conservative" Democrat programs that you condemned in your previous statement.
I have noticed that Democrats of whatever stripe tend to do things that make them feel good in the short run, then blame the entire program to their competition when their Feel Good program starts feeling not-so-good.
The usual statement from the left is that the political parties switched sides.
In actuality, the Democrats simply abandon those that are starting to embarrass their party and claim that those that are being shunned were really on the other side all along.
That's why leftists go around vandalizing and destroying memorials and statues dedicated to Democrats of the past - they are embarrassments to the present crop of Democrats.
I rather suspect that the present crop of Democrats will be just as embarrassing to the Democrats of the future... .
 

roscoe

Well-known member
I am impressed by how many "Conservative" Democrat programs that you condemned in your previous statement.
I have noticed that Democrats of whatever stripe tend to do things that make them feel good in the short run, then blame the entire program to their competition when their Feel Good program starts feeling not-so-good.
The usual statement from the left is that the political parties switched sides.
In actuality, the Democrats simply abandon those that are starting to embarrass their party and claim that those that are being shunned were really on the other side all along.
That's why leftists go around vandalizing and destroying memorials and statues dedicated to Democrats of the past - they are embarrassments to the present crop of Democrats.
I rather suspect that the present crop of Democrats will be just as embarrassing to the Democrats of the future... .

You are fixating on Democrat-Republican. My point is about liberal-conservative. They switched positions, if you weren't aware, during the middle of the 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt was a liberal Republican, as was Lincoln. FDR was the first liberal Democrat president. Nixon was the first truly conservative Republican president (although Goldwater was conservative, obviously).

I am also talking about trends over the decades and centuries. It's a long post - you might re-read it.
 
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wiscoaster

Well-known member
Nixon was definitely NOT "truly conservative" - neither of the Bushes were either. Reagan was "truly conservative" and he was formerly a Democrat!!

Otherwise, nice distinction about liberal v. conservative doesn't necessarily imply any particular political party label.

And, some well-thought and expressed comments and viewpoints in multiple posts above. Wish I had the time and energy to do that any more ...

(y) (y) (y)
 

roscoe

Well-known member
Nixon was definitely NOT "truly conservative" - neither of the Bushes were either. Reagan was "truly conservative" and he was formerly a Democrat!!

Otherwise, nice distinction about liberal v. conservative doesn't necessarily imply any particular political party label.

And, some well-thought and expressed comments and viewpoints in multiple posts above. Wish I had the time and energy to do that any more ...

(y) (y) (y)

Thanks!

Yes, Reagan was the first conservative Republican president in the modern sense. Nixon ran to the right with his 'Southern strategy', but it is true his policies were fairly middle of the road during the presidency. Goldwater was more of a philosophical conservative. Other than his opposition to civil rights legislation (for libertarian reasons), I always thought he was a solid guy.
 

v35

Member
Thank you for your insights Gridley. I'm also an engineer - a PE, having been licensed in three US states - and a member of Mensa "the high IQ society." As such I'd like to share my observations regarding those two groups of people often thought of as smarter than most.

Growing up I always had great respect for engineers for their broad-based intelligence and ability to solve apparently insurmountable problems, which led me to that profession. Earning an engineering degree was as grueling as I had been told, and the practical test for a PE license was even more so. This Mensa member didn't pass the first time, naively falling into a trap that should have been obvious. So there's an illustration of wisdom, or the lack of it that can only come with age and experience.

I've had the pleasure of working with many engineers. Some are wonderful, but many are astonishingly, astoundingly dumb. Rather than bore you with anecdotes you probably won't believe, you'll just have to take my word for it that you wouldn't want them in a position of responsibility.

Ok, one anecdote. I worked with one guy who designed a building that spectacularly collapsed during construction, because he didn't take into account certain temporary loads that would be present as it was being built. He wound up getting promoted. The story doesn't end there. He went on to lead another project that he mismanaged so badly the client withdrew their nine-figure contract and gave it to a much smaller competitor. I don't know where that guy is today. Probably CEO. I am told such anecdotes are common in the engineering business.​

During my career I discovered most engineers lean left, and are overly eager to cede control to governments and institutions. I don't know why that is, but there is a definite tendency for them to place trust in bureaucracies while distrusting individuals. From my experience perhaps they themselves perceive a degree of protection from hiding deep within a corporate or government structure where their own mistakes can be buried, free from the risk of personal responsibility. But this is mere speculation on my part, and I don't have an answer.

There does seem to be one broad generalization: Even among right-leaning people, many of those on the left are considered well-intentioned. In my opinion those well-intentioned people suffer from an inability or unwillingness to think beyond what I call "Step 1".

As an example, you take Step 1 which is to say guns are bad so let's just ban all guns. Pass legislation, enact an executive order, whatever. Done! Ok, then what? Ask a gun-control advocate, and you will find out many haven't given the slightest thought about Step 2. Or Step 3, and so forth. Do you go from house to house, millions of houses, tens, hundreds of millions of houses and apartments and trailers and mobile homes and boats and tents and simply ask whoever answers the door to hand 'em over? Who do you send to carry out that task? Where do they go? What do you do when you get there? How? These "Step 2" type questions rapidly increase to hundreds more, and the proposal quickly collapses under its own weight.

Problems occur when no one asks them, or they simply assume somebody else will address such insignificant (to them) minutia.

Mensa is supposed to be a society of highly intelligent people. Like engineers, only more broad-based, the sole barrier to entry being the ability to pass an IQ test. Yet they too are some of the dumbest people I have ever met, for the same reason: Can't think beyond Step 1.

For example, one local Mensa officer criticized a local get-together during the pandemic. On the one hand, he commended them for probably contributing to herd immunity. On the other hand, he berated them for being irresponsible. Without the slightest bit of proof he blamed them for a temporary "spike" in local infections. So which is it? I'd like to think this guy is on the cusp of enlightenment, but that assumes facts not in evidence. Perhaps there is hope. Everyone who lives long enough can't help but gain experience. Sure he's smart, and perhaps wisdom isn't far off for him.

I temporarily resigned my Mensa membership in the 90s when the national organization took an overtly political stance. They're not supposed to do that. They ultimately backed away from it, and I returned. One thing is certain though: conservative Mensa members are quiet and tend to keep to themselves, a characteristic of conservatives in general. Contrast that to the left's tendency to be exceedingly vocal and "in your face." Every once in a while I'll read a Mensa Bulletin letter to the editor taking them to task about some leftist idea. They are well-written and logical, and clearly demonstrate an ability to think beyond Step 1.

Thinking is not easy. It's not supposed to be easy. On the other hand, feeling is easy. It requires no effort. Whenever you hear someone say "I feel that..." or ask you what you "feel", ask them to explain. You may be surprised to learn thinking never happened. In rare cases, you may actually inspire them to think. That's gratifying. Try it!

Let's start here:

Take COVID-19. I hear 'blues' talk about how "if everyone wearing masks saves even one life it is worth it."

A textbook example of Step 1 thinking. Worth... what exactly?

What is "it"?

Quantify "it" in terms that can be agreed upon, and you have the nascent beginnings of a discussion. That simple "if everyone wearing masks saves even one life" is not a discussion. It's not a debate. Is wearing a mask completely free of risk? Is anything? Ask someone who cannot tolerate wearing a mask (I'm one of them) and that sound bite collapses. Now, proceed to Step 2.

This, obviously, is a simplification, but I really feel like it is the clearest divide I've seen.

It seems that way. As much as I would prefer otherwise, I am not hopeful for any reconciliation. If anything it seems the "divide" has only grown deeper and wider; two poles growing inexorably farther apart.

One last thought regarding engineers, Mensans, and smart people in general. The past year has given me an even greater appreciation for those who actually make the world go 'round. Laborers, plumbers, truck drivers, electricians, welders... we really can't do without people in those professions. Whereas some of the dumbest people I know are engineers and Mensans, the smartest ones are often found holding a wrench with grimy hands, getting things done. I've learned more from a good technician than I ever did in engineering school.
 
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wiscoaster

Well-known member
...Thinking is not easy. It's not supposed to be easy...
Nice post, @v35 - I call your "step" process "what-iffing" and in my aviation career found it useful to prepare for eventualities that might but probably wouldn't happen, yet if they did you'd be able to deal with them. This process extended to all life circumstances I call "critical thinking" and I don't think it's taught any more because there's no longer a desire for people to be self-reliant.
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
Part of the problem with MENSA is that it is firmly attached to IQ testing.
The IQ test is a relic of the First Word War and was originally intended to measure the educational levels of their new recruits. It was primarily a comparison between the accomplishments and knowledge of the individual recruit and what would be expected from a typical high school graduate. It was not intended to measure the actual intelligence of anyone and was aimed at young men aged between 16 and 18.

Most IQ tests are very similar to those of more than a century ago: a comparison of the test taker's knowledge base and problem solving skills to the expected levels of others in their age level. This is not really a test of intelligence. Rather, it is more of a check of their ability to retain and use information from a typical educational curriculum.

I doubt that Edison or Einstein would score well on this type of test.

I have always felt that there should be at least two separate IQ measurements: an Intelligence test that in not too different from what is described above and an inquisitivity test to find out whether the subject is able to use his intelligence to solve novel problems and reason outside the institutional box.

This is where the Einsteins of the world would shine. I'm not as sure about Edison, though.
The only problem with testing for inquisitivity is that the person conducting the test must be at least as advanced as the subject of the test... .

By the way, I was intending to go into one of the engineering fields until the fields that interested me were quashed back in the 1979s - utility-based nuclear energy, naval architecture and alternative fuel systems. Instead, I went into education and librarianship.
 

v35

Member
Part of the problem with MENSA is that it is firmly attached to IQ testing.

That is its only criterion. It demonstrates success at test-taking. I know plenty of very intelligent people who just don't have that ability.

And it's Mensa, not MENSA. It's not an acronym.
 

v35

Member
- I call your "step" process "what-iffing" and in my aviation career found it useful to prepare for eventualities that might but probably wouldn't happen, yet if they did you'd be able to deal with them.

I'm also an airline Captain. In that capacity you're constantly thinking in those terms. What if this, what if that. Regardless of the question you must always have an answer you're prepared to defend. "That can't happen" is not an acceptable answer.

UA232 comes to mind. A triple hydraulic system failure was impossible. Until it happened.
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
-I think that I majored in test-taking - I changed schools some 33 times in the process of getting my Master's Degree and each change led to at least one more battery of tests.

Also, every Mensa member that I've met (except for you) seemed to imply that Mensa should always be printed entirely in capital letters - underlined and surrounded by big gold stars.
 
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theotherwaldo

Well-known member
I'm also an airline Captain. In that capacity you're constantly thinking in those terms. What if this, what if that. Regardless of the question you must always have an answer you're prepared to defend. "That can't happen" is not an acceptable answer.

UA232 comes to mind. A triple hydraulic system failure was impossible. Until it happened.
So you are already familiar with Edward A. Murphy, Jr. - and his Laws... .
 

Selena

Active member
Thanks!

Yes, Reagan was the first conservative Republican president in the modern sense. Nixon ran to the right with his 'Southern strategy', but it is true his policies were fairly middle of the road during the presidency. Goldwater was more of a philosophical conservative. Other than his opposition to civil rights legislation (for libertarian reasons), I always thought he was a solid guy.
Nixon was as much a government control socialist as FDR. I give you just two of the little items I was taught...



What is interesting from my point of view is the effect Nixon's price controls had on the meat market. I'm told that before the 1970's nobody had heard of a rib eye steak and T bones were king of the menu. Since "new" products didn't have a price control butchers started cutting the bone of rib steaks and sold them as rib eyes at a much higher price & profit margin. Likewise T bones became New York strip and the bone discarded.
 

roscoe

Well-known member
Nixon was as much a government control socialist as FDR. I give you just two of the little items I was taught...



What is interesting from my point of view is the effect Nixon's price controls had on the meat market. I'm told that before the 1970's nobody had heard of a rib eye steak and T bones were king of the menu. Since "new" products didn't have a price control butchers started cutting the bone of rib steaks and sold them as rib eyes at a much higher price & profit margin. Likewise T bones became New York strip and the bone discarded.

He also took the US off the gold standard, setting the stage for Ron Paul's rise to power!
 

v35

Member
He also took the US off the gold standard, setting the stage for Ron Paul's rise to power!

It's easy to lay blame for abandonment of the gold standard at Nixon's feet, but the reason is a lot more complicated than that and predated Nixon's presidency by decades. The creation of the International Monetary Fund was the product of a worldwide socialist organization dedicated to the redistribution of wealth. It originally held to the gold standard, knowing it was the way to get member nations to participate. They also knew that its goal was to decouple financing of what ultimately turn out to be unsustainably large government expenditures, the kind that tend to accelerate as national treasuries succumb to the lure unlimited capital promises. Taxes are inexorably increased (tax the rich!) while fiat currencies inexorably decline for decades, and then rapidly accelerate toward worthlessness. This always happens during wars, which eventually end, but when there are no wars Great Society type programs are created that never end. Sound familiar with what's going on today? It should.

No society has ever survived the siren call of unlimited wealth that arises from the illusion fiat currency provides. Whereas entire nations routinely collapse from its effects (Germany, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe... countless other nation states) the coming collapse will affect the entire world. It is one hundred percent certain to occur. No one knows exactly when, but it's no longer decades away as it was during the creation of the IMF. It's now a matter of a few years. It might be a few months. That's the nature of collapse.

In any event we can blame Nixon for a lot of things (let's start with President Carter?) but taking the US off the gold standard was an inevitability completely out of his hands.
 

wiscoaster

Well-known member
It's easy to lay blame for abandonment of the gold standard at Nixon's feet, but the reason is a lot more complicated than that and predated Nixon's presidency by decades. ... <snip>...

In any event we can blame Nixon for a lot of things (let's start with President Carter?) but taking the US off the gold standard was an inevitability completely out of his hands.
I remember that France was cashing in its dollars for gold bullion stored at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and emptying the vault of our gold reserves. Nixon had no choice. The U.S. was getting ripped off by an ally who were taking advantage of the dollar's convertibility to gold.
 

wiscoaster

Well-known member
It is one hundred percent certain to occur. No one knows exactly when, but it's no longer decades away as it was during the creation of the IMF. It's now a matter of a few years. It might be a few months. That's the nature of collapse.
The US Dollar Index is trading around 89. Two years ago it was around 98 (as back-adjusted for contract rollover spreads). That's a decline of about 10 percent. Five percent a year on average. The Fed's target is two percent. Doesn't sound like our currency is being managed too well.
 
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