But that came after deregulation. We used to have Investor owned regulated utilities. It ended about 25 years ago. I still have an electric bill from that period. 700 k of electricity under $9.00. Today from Duke Progress it is about 340. In the late 60's I was gifted 2k of Connecticut Light and Power stock. I still have it. It has changed names several times but I just kept reinvesting dividends It is worth over $125,000 today. Utilities are doing just fine.Privatize everything. That's the goal.
Conservative thinking is based on moral principles
I see the usual liberal blindness here. Conservative thinking is based on moral principles, one of which is that honest people do not need regulations and that conservatives are generous, a fact that can be seen comparing liberal to conservative charity donation rates. And how much better a world would we be living in if everybody felt and acted that way.
Bill Maher Fires Back At Those Who Say His Politics Have Changed, Blames Looney Left Policies
Bill Maher saved his best for last on his Friday night Real Time on HBO. After bland discussions on civil liberties, Covid-19 rules, affirmative action, and whether actual partisan combat may be br…deadline.com
Seems I am not alone in seeing something very unfortunate happening on the left.
Churches are the world's most unpleasant country clubs.This is problematic because presumably quite a lot of those donations to churches are spent to proselytize others or provide religious services, which unless you are a member of that religion is no benefit at all.
If by any means you are interested in exposing your assumptions to challenge, take a look at the work of Johnathan Haidt. Here is just a random place to start:Thanks, now I have to clean my monitor again.
You present a principled moral case suggesting liberals are more generous. Here is a moral case that shows how dangerous liberal generosity is:Yes, when I think of the last 7 years the one thing I know when everyone thinks of conservatives the first thing to come to mind is 'moral principles'. LOL.
Also, the 'generosity' of conservatives over liberals is only true if you count donations to religious organizations, as conservatives give much more heavily to them than liberals do. This is problematic because presumably quite a lot of those donations to churches are spent to proselytize others or provide religious services, which unless you are a member of that religion is no benefit at all. Last time I checked if you remove religious organizations liberals are actually more generous than conservatives.
So one laughably false assertion and one pretty false assertion. Maybe reconsider your views?
Huh, are you sure you aren't confusing that with the GOP platform for the last 6 years?Conservatives have a rather larger palate of moral concerns than liberals do, all of them having survival value, whereas liberals fail to impress a huge swath of humanity because they fail to address a broad range of sacred moral beliefs. It is why they lose elections. All they do is shout, "stupid and bad."
You present a principled moral case suggesting liberals are more generous. Here is a moral case that shows how dangerous liberal generosity is:
Opinion | The Left’s Idea of Generosity
Progressives across the West are eager to spend other people’s money on moral vanity projects.www.wsj.com
I don't know what the issue is to you, I just know that your post was based on false premises. I think the last seven years illustrates quite clearly that when conservatives said they valued morality they were lying. Also when you said conservatives were more generous that's simply not the case once you cut out them funding their own religions as 'charity'.If you think the issue for me is that conservatives are more generous than liberals or visa versa, it isn't. My point is that what motivates conservative and liberal notions of moral behavior are in two ways similar and a bunch more that are different the result of which is that conservatives understand liberal morality better than visa versa and liberals are blind to that fact.
Conservatives have a rather larger palate of moral concerns than liberals do, all of them having survival value, whereas liberals fail to impress a huge swath of humanity because they fail to address a broad range of sacred moral beliefs. It is why they lose elections. All they do is shout, "stupid and bad."
Liberals will rage in vain against conservative values thinking those values are evil when in fact the only thing that is evil is what conservatives identify as the good in those moral concerns isn't the real good in them. In this way liberal arguments against conservative values fail to connect. You can't tell people who believe they are good that that good does not exist. It does exist and they know that it does. What they believe that good looks like in practice, however, may be totally wrong. Liberals generally, are so freaked out by the danger of conservative moral values as practiced, they go as nuts as conservatives do defending their beliefs.
The advantage I have, in my opinion, is that long ago I ceased to be able to believe in anything. All I had left after that what was what remained after a shipwreck, and what that is can only reveal itself after that fate.
The divide is close to 50 50 for many election cycles I have read.Huh, are you sure you aren't confusing that with the GOP platform for the last 6 years?
Yeah. I'm in WI and gerrymandering here is scary. Since Walker they seem to be actively seeking the bottom 10 for most quality of life metrics. I'm planning on looking at geothermal and solar with my LP backup. Combined with BEV with house backup function I should be able to get adequately off the grid. I also have a well, and given the city water issues here recently I'm really glad...
You are still stuck in the same rut. They are moral in their opinion, acting as they believe is proper, and you disagree that is morality. And all the while you can't even credit the evolutionary values of their beliefs.You would think fervent support for Donald Trump would be a challenge for the hypothesis that conservatives make decisions based on moral principles. Apparently not!
This article is disingenuous nonsense and does nothing to engage with my point. Liberals are more generous than conservatives when it comes to PRIVATE CHARITABLE GIVING if you do not include religious organizations, and I think there's a good reason not to. Your article attempts to say that liberals view taxation as charitable giving, which is of course a ridiculous lie. Then again it was by Bobby Jindal, who hasn't exactly shown much commitment to truth or morality as I'm sure you know.
I don't know what the issue is to you, I just know that your post was based on false premises. I think the last seven years illustrates quite clearly that when conservatives said they valued morality they were lying. Also when you said conservatives were more generous that's simply not the case once you cut out them funding their own religions as 'charity'.
I have a lot of contact with the evangelical Christian community through friends in my hometown and when push came to shove and they had to choose between political power and their own professed morals nearly all of them chose political power. The only 'sacred belief' they have is that they are good and so whatever their wants and needs are at the moment are by definition good as they, the good guys, hold them. I saw the same people I grew up with who railed against Bill Clinton for his lying and infidelity happily embrace the human embodiment of the seven deadly sins. Why? They never really cared to begin with, their politics informs their morality, not the other way around. When the two came in conflict, their morals gave way.
So when you talk about conservative morality unless you mean something other than 'what I want = morality' insofar as political conservatism goes the answer is for most it simply doesn't exist. A good friend of mine is one of the few conservatives who actually does embody conservative morality and her response was to abandon the conservative movement. She's still a conservative, but she's no longer a movement one because it's been exposed as an amoral fraud.
No, how they behave in practice is not consistent with their own stated views on what constitutes moral behavior.You are still stuck in the same rut. They are moral in their opinion, acting as they believe is proper, and you disagree that is morality. And all the while you can't even credit the evolutionary values of their beliefs.
It is obvious to me that you have never read those studies as studies of charitable giving often discuss this at length as this confound is a very important part of any discussion on the topic. Let me know if you would like examples if you want to actually read them instead of pretend to, haha.Only a liberal would not include religious charity in a definition of what real charity is. The reason so many studies show that conservatives are more generous than liberals is that they look at generosity traditionally as people typically think of it, not liberal elites.
PS: More interested in what you thought of the Maher clip.
No problem with that. I perfectly understand where you are coming from. But I am also aware in my opinion, that my liberal viewpoint is shallow and that a deeper perspective, one more understanding of how conservatives think, yields insights and perspectives that transform the triggering of contempt. I see a passion for outrage that is based on threat to the ego and fear and I think the reason I do is because where I see it first is in myself. I also think I permit this kind of seeing because I have less self respect to protect, having once lost long ago, my most cherished beliefs. When an explanation was offered to me that I hated myself unconsciously, I had already lost a lot of a need to deny things I didn’t want to see. My opinion.No, how they behave in practice is not consistent with their own stated views on what constitutes moral behavior.
Now if you want to say their morality is ‘evolving’ that’s fine, but to my point it ‘evolves’ to whatever is convenient for them at any given time and they will be more than happy to ‘evolve’ it right back the other way if need be.
It is obvious to me that you have never read those studies as studies of charitable giving often discuss this at length as this confound is a very important part of any discussion on the topic. Let me know if you would like examples if you want to actually read them instead of pretend to, haha.
This point is particularly important because research estimates that less than 25% of the funds given to churches are spent on social services to help the less fortunate, which is what normal people actually think charity is. ‘Donating’ to your church so they can build a nicer building to serve you in or so they can provide services to your kids? Not so much.
As far as Bill Maher goes I watch him every week and I agree that there’s a subset of liberals who have gone kind of crazy, although I think he exaggerates their numbers and impact. Since you seem to value his opinions though, how do you feel about the fact that from his public statements he clearly agrees with me on the morals and charity of conservatives?
Moonbeam, if people keep missing your point, you probably aren't articulating it well.I debate this stuff with you, then and in my opinion, not because I your challenge to my statement of generosity is wrong makes me defensive and need to be right, but because I think you are missing the real point I am trying to make.
You are still stuck in the same rut. They are moral in their opinion, acting as they believe is proper, and you disagree that is morality. And all the while you can't even credit the evolutionary values of their beliefs.
Only a liberal would not include religious charity in a definition of what real charity is. The reason so many studies show that conservatives are more generous than liberals is that they look at generosity traditionally as people typically think of it, not liberal elites.
PS: More interested in what you thought of the Maher clip.
Moonbeam, if people keep missing your point, you probably aren't articulating it well.
Seriously? The current GOP is the party of "fuck you, I got mine." Democrats push for social reforms for health care, education, etc. Republicans believe that caring bridge and Go Fund Me are acceptable forms of social change.I see the usual liberal blindness here. Conservative thinking is based on moral principles, one of which is that honest people do not need regulations and that conservatives are generous, a fact that can be seen comparing liberal to conservative charity donation rates. And how much better a world would we be living in if everybody felt and acted that way.
Bill Maher Fires Back At Those Who Say His Politics Have Changed, Blames Looney Left Policies
Bill Maher saved his best for last on his Friday night Real Time on HBO. After bland discussions on civil liberties, Covid-19 rules, affirmative action, and whether actual partisan combat may be br…deadline.com
Seems I am not alone in seeing something very unfortunate happening on the left.
Thanks for your post. I provided a link above that I hope will clarify how I am using morality when it comes to political parties. The most important part of what that link expresses in my opinion is what it does not see to see. The authors note that a fundamental difference between conservative and liberal morality is that liberal beliefs rely on a notion that human beings lean toward decent and don't need moral controls so much as with conservatives who see the dark side of humanity and institute societal norms and systems that seek to limit it's expression. Nowhere do they account for this difference whereas to me it is obviously the product of how much as children liberals and conservatives are taught to hate themselves as having within themselves something evil. I think that in great measure you can thank the very systems that were designed by liberals to free them of that affliction that when overrun by people suffering from it, those systems become the source of causing more such delusion of sin.It appears to me that you are suggesting that anyone should be considered moral if in their own opinion they are. That seems overly generous to me as I suspect even Hitler (and his modern day equivalents) could qualify under your criteria. IMHO this kind of self-validation leads to the very problems I have harangued you all about earlier, that being undo pride and reliance on your own opinion over the opinions of others. I have no doubt that parents who steadfastly refuse to have their children vaccinated against COVID believe they are acting on some moral principles, however from my standpoint it seems immoral.
It seems to me that one of the biggest differences between liberal and conservative approaches to charity (as well as to addressing all societal ills) is that liberals look to organize it through government action/programs while conservatives want to rely on voluntary acts by individuals or smaller groups. I will grant you that both can be effective and both are needed to solve most problems.
I will point out, however, that the voluntary acts do not always materialize and unfortunately lend themselves to prejudices over who deserves to be helped. In their fight against "big government" and various relief programs, I cannot help but see conservatives as being against any organized efforts to address some of the problems our society has. It begs the question of just how committed conservatives really are to fixing problems.
And about "religious charity"... How much of the donations to what is classified as religious charity actually goes to charitable acts? And how much is spent providing services to the church members?
Are you seriously here debating that GOP is the morally right party......
I see what you are trying to say, but you have to realize that reality isn't that simple. When Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, everyone was horrified. There was a relatively universal belief that we are all in it together. The Republicans are banning books about racism and the holocaust. They are proposing to ban the Islamic faith from the country. They are claiming that its acceptable to allow children to starve in order to teach their parents a lesson. Every liberal should be outraged because this is Nazi level shit. You are feeding into it by calling liberals "triggered." claiming that liberal outrage furthers the Republican narrative diminishes the truth that the Republican policies are inhumane and wrong.How you could seriously ask me that is what is beyond me. Well, actually it is an example of what I am talking about, how when anything sounds funny and threatens our moral beliefs, we react with defensive anger. I do not believe the GOP is the morally right party. I believe they are the most morally threatened because their morality is skewed, that their moral values were inculcated via putdowns violence and fear rather than reason and love. They were made to feel to evil my nature to be trusted. It causes their moral values to always depend on some outside authority that tells them the right way to behave. Stockholm victims. Contempt for people who are as they are because the had to be to survive is also just a mirror of the same victimization. Liberals believe that people are decent but conservatives always are there to prove otherwise. Liberals have more faith in human nature but it lacks depth with threatened. Right now there is a real threat on the right. Liberals, having no idea of how evil people are will naively give the store away, all of the spiritual and worldly goods conservatives store up in their cellars like ants while the grasshoppers fiddle. Triggered liberals prove to them only that they are right.
Murder is immoral except in self defense. Then it becomes a virtue. Conservatives are hell bent on never allowing liberals to take from them the right of self defense. You are arguing that self defense is insane when what is insane is their apprehension of threat. Reality is of no relevance to people who live in a state of fear and I am suggesting that your reaction to conservative misplaced sense of values is to blame them as lacking morals. The result is that you become as insane as they are. You see evil in them and they see evil in you. I see only people acting our their moral values as they understand them. Attack the understanding of morality not morality itself. I believe this is a path that does not generate irrational fear, in oneself or the other. There are more in the way of good intentions leading to hell than get there with evil intent.I see what you are trying to say, but you have to realize that reality isn't that simple. When Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, everyone was horrified. There was a relatively universal belief that we are all in it together. The Republicans are banning books about racism and the holocaust. They are proposing to ban the Islamic faith from the country. They are claiming that its acceptable to allow children to starve in order to teach their parents a lesson. Every liberal should be outraged because this is Nazi level shit. You are feeding into it by calling liberals "triggered." claiming that liberal outrage furthers the Republican narrative diminishes the truth that the Republican policies are inhumane and wrong.
No, the GOP has radicalized to the point of being dangerous and requires a sober, not a fanatical response. You are just adding impetus to the wheel of Karma. Your options are to respond with reason or with madness. Your way looks like madness to me. It will achieve the opposite result of what is intended. You have it right that real morality is vital but yours is just as fucked up as theirs is when you act out of triggered fear.I don't disagree with certain conservative thoughts or ideals. However, being conservative does not mean you are more moral than a liberal.
The current GOP is pure evil. There are many who claim to be conservative, who will directly contradict their own supposed values to further their own goals and to "own the libtards". It's just hypocrisy and insanity.