|*Your*| Perception of who is Smarter, Leftists or Rightists?

How do you account for my exceptionally high IQ then. I was born into a left wing family. Voted for only Democrats until 1980 and I then was 42. I believe I was blind up to age 42 and took the crap spewed by Democrats on faith and did not ask them to prove anything. Today I know far more. i now understand the how and why of the founders. I know the bill of rights totally and can explain the constitution has a number of parts.

I seem to know much more being on the Right wing. i am no extremist as claimed by the left. They lie to the world is what happens.

 

That is a very good point and our off the scale brilliant friend AboveAlpha admitted that he tended to vote G.O.P......


http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-the-office-of-potus-as-early-as-2016.397835/

 

Do you feel that you are typical of the right wing? You don't sound like much of a winger, but more of a right-leaning centrist, maybe fundamentally an independent who votes Republican over Democrat in our goofy partisan system.

 

Your apparent obsession with AboveAlpha is strange to me. Why constantly post about someone who doesn't even post here now?

 

Agree. I consider myself leftist, but I prefer talking to an intelligent rightist than to stupid leftist.

People should THINK instead repeat slogans.

IMHO the difference between left and right can be summarized by the question: should we force people to help less fortunate citizens. As a leftist - I say yes, even someone from the right will call it "wealth transfer".

zalek

 

IMHO, leftists are more curious and open-minded, resulting in a higher intelligence as an average.

Rightists, however, maybe more wise, or patient.

Of course, there are exceptions on both sides. It doesn't help that the US Left/Right lines are a bit blurred as of yet.

 

Neither. And both. Fools are fools and aren't limited by political persuasion.

 

For one reason.. .I nominated him to be considered by the Jewish people for the role of Moshiach ben Ephrayim. If he is deceased........ then it is time for the Jewish people to mourn for him..... if he is alive and healthy and simply too busy to post here .... He will get a really good laugh about his being nominated for that role.......


http://www.politicalforum.com/index...s-for-the-role-of-elijah-needed.499830/page-3

 

Ironicaly, I know consider me right winged. Being born in a very leftist family, it was rather hard to admit I changed. I still despire politician of both sides, and from some point of views, I remained a leftist, but I would now see me personnaly as right winged.

From my point of view, it's an opposition between people who think that you're responsible of your life (the right) and people who think that society is responsible of your life (the left), by the way, it's too a matter of balance.
It's too between the christian part of the society, and the more atheist part, the xenophobic part and the xenophile part.

 

Based on polling, I'm not sure that education would be the best indicator of leftism, at least when looking at the 2012 election, most college graduates voted Republican, but most post grads voted Democrat. High School drop outs went with the Democrats better than 2 to 1. So it's a mixed bag.

As far as Gore goes, he's a theology school drop out, but graduated from Harvard. There is almost certainly more than IQ at play in that.

 

I took the political compass evaluation test and it declared me a tad right of center. I lost all interest in ever voting for any democrat. I try to engage my democrats of congress but nothing said to them reaches them. They clearly are not out to represent any of my interests. My interests with them is for what is in the best interest of all, not merely me.

 

This nation was not founded that way. And it never should have evolved that way.

When you force, you create deep seated resentments. Would you wish to be forced into the Army for 5 years? When we get forced by left wingers, it does not end in 5 years. it lasts much longer.

When this nation was founded, it did not fund education from DC. And states did not fund it. It was extremely good to educate the public. Still this nation did not force it.

Today far too many drop out of school. Forcing did not force them to stay in school. They never will finish high school. They are who you want to force me to support.

 

You are talking slogans. Even Republicans want to force us: to pay taxes for the army, to pay for public facilities etc. And it also creates deep resentment, so the question is how much we need “to force” citizen to pay for specific goals.

For me – helping fellow citizens is more important that waving a flag and singing patriotic songs. You may have different ideas and if we want to live in the same country we need to compromise.

I live in NYC and lately I see a lot of homeless people – some with a sign “army veteran”. Today I walked near Trump Towers – I saw 3 homeless persons on the near block. I am ready to pay higher taxes to fix this problem, I guess for our Stable Genius and his supporters it is not priority – for them the biggest problem is The Wall. OK, here we can try to convince each other about priorities.


zalek

 

Well - partially I agree with you - people should be responsible for their action, but we know that same people cannot take care of themselves - mentally sick or old who didn't save for retirement. What we should do with them? Let them die on the street?

zb

 

I am not talking slogans at all. The constitution does provide for particular things be paid for. Democrats conceived the notion of a huge standing army as historians of Roosevelt will attest.

The way things were set up, your major vision of government was first your city then your own state. Last came the Feds. They were essential to helping 50 states work properly. But today due to politics, people see presidents as number one. They need to see their governor as number one.

Help your fellow citizens and i shall applaud you. Force me to help them and I will resist. Sure you will find the homeless where Democrats took charge. This is the bane of Democrats who mainly force us to obey them.

Why didn't you help those homeless you saw as you walked?

 

Right or Left, evil dictator or beloved elected leader, people in national leadership are very smart. You don't amass that much power and rise to the top unless you are very smart and have exceptional political and people skills. Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill, Castro, obama, Pol Pot, etc. - all very intelligent and skilled in manipulating and motivating people.

But "right" and "left" isn't the issue for those people. Its power, and the avenue they take to get power is largely based on circumstance and opportunity. If their available route to power is the communist party, then that's the ideology they adopt.

 

Interesting concept "smarter". Who is smarter? The college professor with a pile of degrees. He goes to a job he hates every day. His boss puts impossible demands on him. He has to try to teach kids who could care less what he is saying. They are only there because they need his class to graduate. He has a nice car and home. His wife nags him for a nicer car, his kids want a swimming pool. On the other side of the spectrum is the street bum. He quit school when he was 16. He begs money on the street to buy booze and drugs. He lives in a cardboard box. He lives only for his self and has total freedom. He goes wherever he wants, never works, answers to no one and is happy as a lark. Who is smarter?

 

My impression is that conservatives are not inherently more anti-intellectual in every country or in every culture. You can have very intellectual conservatives who use critical thinking for the most part to bolster their views. Here in the US, in the current political climate however, conservatives do seem to be the ones who have embraced anti-intellectualism. A “smart” conservative in the US would likely be eaten alive by the Republican base right now.

Some leftists like Jill Stein are not far behind, but on the left it seems to be less mainstream for now. That could be changing shortly however.

I get your point. There’s an argument to be made for the simple life. Being homeless is probably not the best example of that.

 

Most whom I consider really smart have one thing in common politically: they don't fit neatly into the left/right spectrum. Values have no truth content, there is no right answer. If someone is trying to think rationally for themselves it doesn't make much sense that they'd wholly adopt one worldview, but instead to craft their own.

Plenty of members like this here: Ronstar, GoogleMurrayBookchin, Ethereal, American Nationalist etc.

 

How so?

 

I agree, it is disgusting. From the party of FDR and Kennedy they have devolved into a bunch of lip service whores who conspire with their counterparts in the GOP to make sure that the billionaires are favored and the working class gets screwed. However at this point in time it seems that the GOP is devolving into a bad joke. It seems that since they nominated that sleazy crook they no longer give a crap about the rule of law, the deficit, influence peddling or morality....

 

It has nothing to do with the simple life, it is about being happy. Smart people are intelligent enough to make the most out of their situation and achieve happiness. How many happy liberals do you know? They always have their panties in a wad. Mad about guns. Rioting when some criminal gets offed while beating on a cop who is half his size. Rioting after Trump gets elected. Rioting when conservatives try to speak at their campus. Their talking heads are always insulting everyone who disagrees with them, miserable lot. Totally unable to accept loss or diversified opinions. It makes no difference how much education you have this is the behavior of bratty children not intelligent people. After all how intelligent is anyone who still believes in "Trump is involved in Russian Collusion"?

However, most on the right see no need to try to force other to their point of view. They use facts not emotion. They don't riot when their candidate loses. They don't riot when liberal speakers speak at their universities. They don't scream and yell and throw tantrums when others disagree with their point of view. They don't riot when some scumbag gets wacked. They can accept what life gives them and they believe you work to make it better, not by taking things away from others. They take satisfaction in managing and earning their own way. Their accomplishments make them happy. That shows higher intelligence.

Too many people try to tie education to intelligence. Some of the most educated people I know are idiots. Intelligence means being able to get the job done. If my car breaks down on the interstate, I want a mechanic not a PHD. I'll tell you that guy with a HS education that got my car going in 15 minutes is a genius. The PHD will talk about how everything works for two days and do nothing.

 

I must have the honnesty to say, I'm one of them. I have the luck to live in a country where I could get my handicap diagnosed in a public hospital and get a small pension. I could never thanks enough my country for that.
It's a matter of equilibrium, if you help too much some people who could do otherwise, you create a system where vast part of the population are dependant of the state and you have to over tax the rest. That was happened here in France. The left want to tax the richest and help the poor, they ended by tax the middle class because it's the one who can't defend itself by getting financial lawyer.

I don't believe in any magical solution in economy. Some people says "the state just have to help more people" and some other says "the less the state, the better it is", I think it's quite a delicate equilibrium.

The problem however seems to be quite the same in both countries : the elite is extremly corrupted.

I published a topic where I explain why I think that by nature, a politician is twisted :
http://politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/we-cant-trust-politician-heres-why.530302/

Clearly, I don't believe in any magic solution coming from a politician, and I look at people who see some politicians as a sort of messiah who would save the country with contempt.

From my point of view, french people are a decadent people, I don't really know for american people, but I have the feeling that the decadency touch the whole western world. We have the politician we deserve. The only solution is to try to better yourself, and people by people, it would better the country.

 

Not where I come from. You might consider applying that theory to those who are "street smart."

 

The role of a government, any government, is authoritarian in nature. If is isn't, if there is no police, no laws and no obligations like taxes etc, then that government isn't one, and the country it presides is ripe for the taking by any organized force.

Extreme libertarianism is either anarchy or a hippy commune.