Poor conservatives, I don't get it. Righties please explain.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh look, it's this lame talking point again.

It's not a talking point.  It's reality.  None of the major things Republicans are discussing are theoretical.  It's all been tried before with varying degress of success (by which I mean failure).  There are numerous countries with weak central governments and low taxes on the rich that would love for US millionares to relocate.  Ever wonder why you don't see an exodus?  Think about it.

It is a talking point. It insinuates that the call for less gov't is a complete absolute desire for none at all. Hyperbolistic exaggeration of one's opponents is one of the most common of talking points.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This thread was created by, for and of people who couldn't fathom a group people voting based on a different criteria, then their own. The entire premise is probably the height of insulting condescension. This is because it insinuates that the only way poor people should vote, is based on who will give them the most gov't assistance, and to vote any other way must be the result of ignorance.

[krazen1211]

I also think the more liberals complain about "poor people voting against their best interests", the more some poor people will vote Republican.

And the same goes for assuming nefarious motives instead of considering the issue from another's point of view (not that I've never done the same thing).

The whole 'what's the matter with Kansas' arguement is fallacious, anyway; if social issues were so unimportant, then the Democrats would have no reason not to adopt the social issues of those voting against them in order to try and advance their fiscal agenda.  The truth is, the Democratic and Republican coalitions simply appeal to different 'social issues' voters.

That's a pretty good point, actually.

I find it amusing that so many people take for granted that people "should" vote their self-interest. Maybe some people simply have values playing a part in their voting?

A lot of people don't like being talked down to by some arrogant liberal who thinks they know what's best for everyone. Naturally there will be a backlash.

[krazen1211]

While I might quibble with the way you put number 1, I would agree with assessment.

The original OP though was about a poor conservative complaining about the idea of tax rates going up. Why would people like him care? Because they think it will affect their employment, salary, and standard of living even if the brunt of the tax increases aren't directed squarely at them.

Granted poor conservatives that focus on the list you just provided outnumber poor FiCons, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of poor FiCons out there(especially among younger folks). And its reasonably safe to assume that the people the OP is referring to that decry tax increases are more likely to be in the group I just mentioned not the one that you provided at the top.

But again we are also speaking in generalities here. There isn't a really a fine line between poor cultural conservatives and poor FiCons since there is large amounts of overlap.

But they do pay taxes. Here in New Jersey when they doubled the budget from $16 billion to $33 billion they increased taxes on poor conservatives.

Why?

Mostly to pay for massive increases in Medicaid and massive increases in the hiring of unproductive teachers and state workers. Neither of which benefits the common man.

[All Along The Watchtower]

While I might quibble with the way you put number 1, I would agree with assessment.

The original OP though was about a poor conservative complaining about the idea of tax rates going up. Why would people like him care? Because they think it will affect their employment, salary, and standard of living even if the brunt of the tax increases aren't directed squarely at them.

Granted poor conservatives that focus on the list you just provided outnumber poor FiCons, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of poor FiCons out there(especially among younger folks). And its reasonably safe to assume that the people the OP is referring to that decry tax increases are more likely to be in the group I just mentioned not the one that you provided at the top.

But again we are also speaking in generalities here. There isn't a really a fine line between poor cultural conservatives and poor FiCons since there is large amounts of overlap.

But they do pay taxes. Here in New Jersey when they doubled the budget from $16 billion to $33 billion they increased taxes on poor conservatives.

Why?

Mostly to pay for massive increases in Medicaid and massive increases in the hiring of unproductive teachers and state workers. Neither of which benefits the common man.

Seriously?

[Wonkish1]

While I might quibble with the way you put number 1, I would agree with assessment.

The original OP though was about a poor conservative complaining about the idea of tax rates going up. Why would people like him care? Because they think it will affect their employment, salary, and standard of living even if the brunt of the tax increases aren't directed squarely at them.

Granted poor conservatives that focus on the list you just provided outnumber poor FiCons, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of poor FiCons out there(especially among younger folks). And its reasonably safe to assume that the people the OP is referring to that decry tax increases are more likely to be in the group I just mentioned not the one that you provided at the top.

But again we are also speaking in generalities here. There isn't a really a fine line between poor cultural conservatives and poor FiCons since there is large amounts of overlap.

But they do pay taxes. Here in New Jersey when they doubled the budget from $16 billion to $33 billion they increased taxes on poor conservatives.

Why?

Mostly to pay for massive increases in Medicaid and massive increases in the hiring of unproductive teachers and state workers. Neither of which benefits the common man.

1) That is state level
2) Regardless they still are net receivers of benefits not net payers to the government.

[krazen1211]

While I might quibble with the way you put number 1, I would agree with assessment.

The original OP though was about a poor conservative complaining about the idea of tax rates going up. Why would people like him care? Because they think it will affect their employment, salary, and standard of living even if the brunt of the tax increases aren't directed squarely at them.

Granted poor conservatives that focus on the list you just provided outnumber poor FiCons, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of poor FiCons out there(especially among younger folks). And its reasonably safe to assume that the people the OP is referring to that decry tax increases are more likely to be in the group I just mentioned not the one that you provided at the top.

But again we are also speaking in generalities here. There isn't a really a fine line between poor cultural conservatives and poor FiCons since there is large amounts of overlap.

But they do pay taxes. Here in New Jersey when they doubled the budget from $16 billion to $33 billion they increased taxes on poor conservatives.

Why?

Mostly to pay for massive increases in Medicaid and massive increases in the hiring of unproductive teachers and state workers. Neither of which benefits the common man.

Seriously?

The teachers are not particularly serious, no. Else their productivity wouldn't keep plummeting despite new technologies.

[TJ in Oregon]

While I might quibble with the way you put number 1, I would agree with assessment.

The original OP though was about a poor conservative complaining about the idea of tax rates going up. Why would people like him care? Because they think it will affect their employment, salary, and standard of living even if the brunt of the tax increases aren't directed squarely at them.

Granted poor conservatives that focus on the list you just provided outnumber poor FiCons, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of poor FiCons out there(especially among younger folks). And its reasonably safe to assume that the people the OP is referring to that decry tax increases are more likely to be in the group I just mentioned not the one that you provided at the top.

But again we are also speaking in generalities here. There isn't a really a fine line between poor cultural conservatives and poor FiCons since there is large amounts of overlap.

But they do pay taxes. Here in New Jersey when they doubled the budget from $16 billion to $33 billion they increased taxes on poor conservatives.

Why?

Mostly to pay for massive increases in Medicaid and massive increases in the hiring of unproductive teachers and state workers. Neither of which benefits the common man.

Seriously?

The teachers are not particularly serious, no. Else their productivity wouldn't keep plummeting despite new technologies.

I would suspect that new technologies often make their productivity worse because instead of teaching, meeting with parents, and planning lessons, they’re dragged off to some conference somewhere so kindergarten teachers know how to use a SmartBoard while the students are left with an often poorly qualified substitute, who we are also paying by the way.
[/rant]

There are a lot of problems with the way teachers are paid and a lot of unnecessary beaurocracy about it too, but simply calling them unproductive is, well, unproductive.

[Torie]

Class size has little or nothing to do with the quality of education in fact, unless you get the class size down to 12 or less. That is yet another factlet that the teachers' unions don't want you to know about, along with the median academic performance level of the current crop of teachers.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Class size has little or nothing to do with the quality of education in fact, unless you get the class size down to 12 or less. That is yet another factlet that the teachers' unions don't want you to know about, along with the median academic performance level of the current crop of teachers.

Source?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Having reflected a bit on this thread, here's what I think now:

-America has a tradition of "rugged individualism" in its past. As late as the early 1900s, many Americans still lived on family farms, worked for themselves (self-employed), and didn't have many ties to the government or to big business. This is the Jeffersonian/Jacksonian ideal: America as a land of self-employed farmers, artisans, smallholders, etc.  Those people and their descendants think of themselves as being "self-reliant."

-Many of the poor who vote Republican are from rural, small-town areas. They are thus, less (or less obviously) dependent on government than a high-density urban area.

-Furthermore, the small towns that vote Republican, many of which have been hit hard by global economic trends, are often highly conservative culturally. This is understandable; if you or your neighbor loses his or her job, if the quality of life in the town has declined, you start voting based on you or your community's core values, rather than economic "self-interest."

-Republicans do a far better job than Democrats at appealing to rural areas and small towns. It's not merely cultural conservatism or hot-button "wedge issues": a lot of rural people genuinely resent the wealthier urban areas' influence and power, and urban usually means Democratic in voting habits. Reagan was from small-town rural America, and was himself a former Democrat; he understood and could communicate with small-town "middle America."


That's what I think, anyway.

[memphis]

So it seems the two answers we have are
1. A view that forcing a specific flavor of Christianity upon everybody is more important than their own economic well-being.
2. A view that if they just keeping on doing what they've been doing, one day they will magically be rich.
And there you have it. Why a poor chooses to stay poor.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So everyone who doesn't cling to gov't as the solution to their problems, is stupid and ignorant.

The arrogance, the certainity that no one else can form a different opinion unless they are of lesser intelligence. It is sickening, I tell you.

[phk]

Not many of these people exist.

[Gustaf]

I also think the more liberals complain about "poor people voting against their best interests", the more some poor people will vote Republican.

And the same goes for assuming nefarious motives instead of considering the issue from another's point of view (not that I've never done the same thing).

The whole 'what's the matter with Kansas' arguement is fallacious, anyway; if social issues were so unimportant, then the Democrats would have no reason not to adopt the social issues of those voting against them in order to try and advance their fiscal agenda.  The truth is, the Democratic and Republican coalitions simply appeal to different 'social issues' voters.

That's a pretty good point, actually.

I find it amusing that so many people take for granted that people "should" vote their self-interest. Maybe some people simply have values playing a part in their voting?

I think it's amusing what some people call "values."  Here are some values... I'll force a rape victim to carry her attacker's child to term, and I will slash her welfare payment so she can be destitute for 18 years while she raises the kid.  When I hear "values" voters... I stop listening.

You missed my point, I'm afraid.

[Gustaf]

So it seems the two answers we have are
1. A view that forcing a specific flavor of Christianity upon everybody is more important than their own economic well-being.
2. A view that if they just keeping on doing what they've been doing, one day they will magically be rich.
And there you have it. Why a poor chooses to stay poor.

No, it goes like this:

Why do some poor people support Republicans?

Democrats: Well, poor people are stupid. Because they are stupid their only way of getting a better life is receiving money from the state and yet they won't vote for that. Also, because they're stupid, they believe in stupid things like religion. Lol at those retards.

Poor person: I think I'll vote GOP. Those Democrats seem elitist.

[dead0man]

So it seems the two answers we have are
1. A view that forcing a specific flavor of Christianity upon everybody is more important than their own economic well-being.
2. A view that if they just keeping on doing what they've been doing, one day they will magically be rich.
And there you have it. Why a poor chooses to stay poor.

Seriously?  Have you even read the thread?

[memphis]

So it seems the two answers we have are
1. A view that forcing a specific flavor of Christianity upon everybody is more important than their own economic well-being.
2. A view that if they just keeping on doing what they've been doing, one day they will magically be rich.
And there you have it. Why a poor chooses to stay poor.

Seriously?  Have you even read the thread?

I didn't just read it. I summed up seven pages of anecdotes into two sentences b/c that's seriously all there is to it. And the right hates on poors WAY more than the left. Always saying they're poor because they're lazy and stupid and on drugs or whatever. And I never claimed to be an expert on persuading said GOP poors that what they are doing is self-defeating. I'm certainly not a hand shaker or baby kisser. If these poors want to continue to screw themselves by continuing to vote GOP with full faith that the financial system isn't crooked and all they have to do is work harder, that's their own problem. Most poors have the sense to vote Dem anyway.

[Link]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh look, it's this lame talking point again.

It's not a talking point.  It's reality.  None of the major things Republicans are discussing are theoretical.  It's all been tried before with varying degress of success (by which I mean failure).  There are numerous countries with weak central governments and low taxes on the rich that would love for US millionares to relocate.  Ever wonder why you don't see an exodus?  Think about it.

It is a talking point. It insinuates that the call for less gov't is a complete absolute desire for none at all. Hyperbolistic exaggeration of one's opponents is one of the most common of talking points.

Some people call it "hyperbolistic exaggeration."  I call it "reading the newspaper."

[krazen1211]

So it seems the two answers we have are
1. A view that forcing a specific flavor of Christianity upon everybody is more important than their own economic well-being.
2. A view that if they just keeping on doing what they've been doing, one day they will magically be rich.
And there you have it. Why a poor chooses to stay poor.

Seriously?  Have you even read the thread?

The Democrats don't really actually contribute to their economic well being. They just talk about it.

Poverty has skyrocketed under barack obama.

[Link]

-Many of the poor who vote Republican are from rural, small-town areas. They are thus, less (or less obviously) dependent on government than a high-density urban area.

-Republicans do a far better job than Democrats at appealing to rural areas and small towns. It's not merely cultural conservatism or hot-button "wedge issues": a lot of rural people genuinely resent the wealthier urban areas' influence and power, and urban usually means Democratic in voting habits. Reagan was from small-town rural America, and was himself a former Democrat; he understood and could communicate with small-town "middle America."

The last time I was in the South during election season I went to rural Texas and there were several Democrats running for local office unopposed.  There is a very strong rural Democratic tradition.  In the south it has to do with the Republican Lincoln freeing the slaves.  The growing Republican influence was due to LBJ (a Democrat) signing into law civil rights legislation.  It's as simply as that.  You take racism out of the equation and you have a very differnt picture.

[memphis]

So it seems the two answers we have are
1. A view that forcing a specific flavor of Christianity upon everybody is more important than their own economic well-being.
2. A view that if they just keeping on doing what they've been doing, one day they will magically be rich.
And there you have it. Why a poor chooses to stay poor.

Seriously?  Have you even read the thread?

The Democrats don't really actually contribute to their economic well being. They just talk about it.

Poverty has skyrocketed under barack obama.

I'm sure that Social Security and Medicare, two landmark Dem accomplishments, that the GOP fights to weaken every day, has done nothing to fight poverty

[anvi]

Class size has little or nothing to do with the quality of education in fact, unless you get the class size down to 12 or less. That is yet another factlet that the teachers' unions don't want you to know about, along with the median academic performance level of the current crop of teachers.

Oh, damn.  I was working on another thread prompting us to put together our dream cabinet of Atlas posters.  You were my first choice for Secretary of Education, Torie.  Then, you posted this.  

The OECD statistics, which I assume are the ones being drawn on here given the post from "education blogger" Jacobs above, compare educational systems across countries and cultures with markedly varying pedagogical expectations and foregoing circumstances.  I know because I've both been a student and taught in several of them.  In countries with more fact- and method-learning oriented pedagogical systems where student-teacher interaction is not a major feature of instruction, larger class sizes indeed tend not to impede the quality of education.  In countries where more student-teacher interaction and remedial intervention are required, class sizes do make a difference.  If it's disadvantaged children that we're trying to help, which includes children with bona fide learning disabilities or children whose previous educational preparation has been poor, putting them in smaller classes, where they can get more individual attention and access to teacher assistance, will positively impact the quality of their learning.  To the extent that smaller classes in our own pedagogical culture enhance teacher-student relations and ease disciplinary tasks, smaller class sizes better facilitate enhanced reading skills as well, and this tends to especially be the case for children in early grades who are just learning how to read.  

It should also be remembered that the number of students per classroom across OECD countries is relatively small; 21 students per class on average, and in the United States the average stands only slightly higher, at 23.  For someone who has been teaching for a long time, I can say that such class sizes are very manageable and easily allow for optimal teaching performance.  The single biggest incentive in our pedagogical culture for further increasing class sizes, and we all know it, is cost efficiency.  

As I've said many, many times, I'm not a member of a teachers' union, and I'd support eliminating teacher tenure and having teachers contribute larger portions of their earnings to their health and retirement packages--that's all fine with me.  But it's hard to see how steadily increasing class sizes is going to help the students you say need the most help, Torie.  

[All Along The Watchtower]

-Many of the poor who vote Republican are from rural, small-town areas. They are thus, less (or less obviously) dependent on government than a high-density urban area.

-Republicans do a far better job than Democrats at appealing to rural areas and small towns. It's not merely cultural conservatism or hot-button "wedge issues": a lot of rural people genuinely resent the wealthier urban areas' influence and power, and urban usually means Democratic in voting habits. Reagan was from small-town rural America, and was himself a former Democrat; he understood and could communicate with small-town "middle America."

The last time I was in the South during election season I went to rural Texas and there were several Democrats running for local office unopposed.  There is a very strong rural Democratic tradition.  In the south it has to do with the Republican Lincoln freeing the slaves.  The growing Republican influence was due to LBJ (a Democrat) signing into law civil rights legislation.  It's as simply as that.  You take racism out of the equation and you have a very differnt picture.

So rural white people are just a bunch of stupid racists who don't know what's good for them?  Because that's what you imply.

[lowtech redneck]

 The growing Republican influence was due to LBJ (a Democrat) signing into law civil rights legislation.  It's as simply as that.  You take racism out of the equation and you have a very differnt picture.

Enough of this bull, the facts fail to support your case:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-leave-southern-republicans-out-it_594542.html

At worst, the 'Southern Strategy' was a peripheral and sporadic effort that had little actual influence on white Southern voting patterns.