Debunking "liberals don't think"

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2008
Debunking "liberals don't think"
107
Fri, 10-17-2008 - 1:37pm

I have often read the phrase "those liberals don't think, they only feel." Accompanying this phrase is often the analogy of Obama supporters as sheep who are so blinded by the light of Obama's celebrity that they fail to consider the issues carefully or logically.

First, I wanted to say that most liberals I know DO feel. They are very empathetic, compassionate people who do want to ease suffering in the world. I think that most conservatives are the same way. But liberals are not stupid. In fact, if you look at the data, higher levels of education are correlated with more liberal attitudes, although once you get into people with graduate degrees, the correlation flattens. The faculty at more prestigious universities also tend to be more liberal than the faculty at less prestigious universities. This is not to say that there are not highly intelligent people who are also conservative. My point is simply that saying liberals "don't think, they only feel" is simply a false explanation for disagreement.

Can't we all agree that two intelligent people considering the exact same information might come to different conclusions? Can't we all agree that two intelligent people carefully and logically considering the issues might still choose to vote for different presidential candidates? If we want to get over the polarization in our society, we need to stop thinking of people who disagree as being idiots.



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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 12:38am
No wonder you call yourself two step. You do the two step where Obama is concerned.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 12:40am

<<No wonder you call yourself two step. You do the two step where Obama is concerned>>


i'm not sure what you mean? but thanks.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 2:27am

~That is the group that contains the ones who said they would leave the USA if Bush got elected.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 2:44am
I am not the OP, but I know that Alec Baldwin and Gwyneth Paltrow were at least two of them. Of course I think Gwyneth did leave, but not for the reason that she stated she would.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 3:03am

That's it?

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 3:23am
Who said that was all?
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2008
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 3:28am

Sorry, I confused you with someone else.


I'm a bit lost by the whole thing (apparently I'm not and know exactly what's going on - wish that were true LOL).

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-07-2007
Mon, 10-20-2008 - 3:01pm

I personally couldn't care less if most all of

 

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2008
Tue, 10-21-2008 - 3:53am
Well, if you think that,
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-07-2003
Tue, 10-21-2008 - 4:08am


>>Just because many of the people in *some* small towns are white doesn't make this statement racist.<<


Here's the quote from http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_on_smalltown_PA_Clinging_religion_guns_xenophobia.html:


You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.


And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.


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