I am tired of outrage, and I don’t really want to go on rants for a while.

I ran across this article that gives a great explanation of what has been driving me crazy for so long about the Democrats. It’s thick and hard to read, so I will put some excerpts here to share the ideas.

Haidt gives us his bias:

In the psychological community, where almost all of us are politically liberal, our diagnosis of conservatism gives us the additional pleasure of shared righteous anger. We can explain how Republicans exploit frames, phrases, and fears to trick Americans into supporting policies (such as the “war on terror” and repeal of the “death tax”) that damage the national interest for partisan advantage.

But with pleasure comes seduction, and with righteous pleasure comes seduction wearing a halo. Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats. To see what Democrats have been missing, it helps to take off the halo, step back for a moment, and think about what morality really is.

I do not mean to simplify the sophistication of what he says. But let’s skip ahead:

the first rule of moral psychology: feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete. If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so. The Democrats have historically failed to grasp this rule, choosing uninspiring and aloof candidates who thought that policy arguments were forms of persuasion.

Preach to the choir…the are always appreciative. But the pews don’t fill up that way.

I would say that the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.

When Republicans say that Democrats “just don’t get it,” this is the “it” to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label “elitist.” But how can Democrats learn to see—let alone respect—a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?

You wouldn’t want to be narrow-minded. I think he’s not getting the whole “it”, but he’s at least trying.

Haidt admits he was a full Kool-aid drinker, and among those who were not interested in seeing a moral order different from his own. But life happens, and he went on a trip.

Travel is broadening.

He went to India, and wanted to be one of those cool anthropologists who got right in there and grokked the culture. But the Indian family he was staying with were SO uncool. Servants and servile women and everything. Not at all the liberal standard. But after time, he attained cool anthropologist perspective.

Once he was able to understand that other people sincerely held beliefs that were different from their own, he took that ability back to America with him and was able to better respect the Republican culture.

I had escaped from my prior partisan mindset (reject first, ask rhetorical questions later), and began to think about liberal and conservative policies as manifestations of deeply conflicting but equally heartfelt visions of the good society.

Now that he could concieve that there was a ‘there’ there in the Republican mindset, he was able to take his psychological toolkit and study it.

Here’s where we jump into the deep end of the pool:

In several large internet surveys, my collaborators Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and I have found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally. (You can test yourself at www.YourMorals.org.)

You have to read the whole article carefully to understand that. Or you could just read this analogy:

We think of the moral mind as being like an audio equalizer, with five slider switches for different parts of the moral spectrum. Democrats generally use a much smaller part of the spectrum than do Republicans. The resulting music may sound beautiful to other Democrats, but it sounds thin and incomplete to many of the swing voters that left the party in the 1980s, and whom the Democrats must recapture if they want to produce a lasting political realignment.

The democrats use a smaller part of the spectrum of morality than republicans? so the people afraid of being narrow minded are using a smaller section of their mind? a narrow slice of their mind? 

heh

But that’s not fair. Despite the hypocrisy, I don’t with these people ill. It is a shame not to hear the whole of the music. I would wish for these people who say they value open-mindedness to achieve a broader perspective.

So, this op-ed piece  by Lynn Forester De Rothschild framed a lot of loose ideas for me. She was a Hilary supporter, and the piece is focussed on the shortcomings of Obama. I will have to add a few thoughts at the end regarding Ms. Clinton. But here’s what Rothschild has to say: 

I’m a longtime Democrat. … But I must face the uncomfortable truth that liberal elitism has been a weakness of the Democratic Party for more than half a century.

She previously defined elistism:

While Obama supporters attempt to dismiss the charges about their candidate’s perceived hauteur, they confuse privilege and elitism. Elitism is a state of mind, a view of the world that cannot be measured simply by one’s net worth, position or number of houses.

And then, more directly:

Mr. Obama is not connecting to millions of middle- and working-class voters, as well as women voters of all classes. Not only is his legislative record scant on issues that make a difference in their lives, but his current campaign is based mainly on an assumption of his transcendence….

his creation and display of a mock presidential seal with his name on it, his speech at a mass rally at the Prussian Victory Column in Berlin, and his insistence on delivering his acceptance speech in front of fabricated Greek columns in a stadium holding 80,000 chanting supporters have crossed the thin line that separates galvanizing voters and plain old demagoguery.

 This makes room for my favorite politician:

In this context, it should come as no surprise that Sarah Palin, mother of five, hockey mom turned governor and maverick reformer, would instantly zero in on the inherent weakness in Mr. Obama’s candidacy, and contrast it with her own compelling life story.

So, Obama is a snob and has surrounded himself with other donkey-party snob advisors. He is the one who won the nomination.

But then there is the one who almost won: Hilary Clinton–the other female candidate. And the comparisons between Palin and Clinton are on people’s minds.

Before this election, I had often yearned for a female in the white house. I had thought, if a candidate comes up I will have to vote for her regardless of her political positions. Sister solidarity!

But then there came Hilary Clinton. As much as I wanted to like her, she gave me the heebie jeebies. Mostly because of:

                          ELITISM

Thank you, Ms Rothchild, for showing that I’m not the only one who sees it across the board in democrats.

So, my impression of Hilary is that she felt she was owed this position. I say, based on what? Being married to the president? The seat next to the heart surgeon doesn’t qualify the sitter to do a by-pass.

Oh, wait. Let’s be fair, she is a Senator. So, how about that?

My impression of Hilary Clinton is that she is like a compassionate wealthy aunt. When she discovers troubles in someone around her–and she is interested in finding troubles she can help, really she is–she would sit the gentleman down to hear his troubles. Then she would put on her reading glasses, get a fancy pen and her checkbook and say, “Tell me a number.”

Everyone repeat with me:

E-Mas-Cu-Late

Or to be colloquial: Ballbusting

Self-respecting men (and most of them are self-respecting, god bless them) do not want a hand-out. Men want to be paid fairly for a fair day’s work. They want to use their strength and their skills to take care of themselves and their families. And if their families need more, men want to know that they can pull together enough sacrifice and smarts to handle whatever comes. A man who knows he has, in himself, what it takes to pull everyone through is a secure, confident and happy man.

Being handed a check means “Your strength and your skills mean nothing.”

Most men would rather carry a bag of rocks around the world than hear that message. So, yeah. Hilary could be off-putting.

Feminists seem to be missing perspective on men. Okay, yes, men are very interested in the sexuality of women. But that’s the easy answer. The bigger picture is that men respect women who are their partners.

Some women look to men and say  “look at this mess you got us into!”

Others “I know you can get us through this. Let’s work on this together.”

I’ve been accused of ballbusting. I wear it proudly. For me, it looks like this:

Working with a vendor, and the job isn’t done quite right:

“Guys, it’s not working. It needs to do this. You have to fix it. I can stay here for as long as it takes, don’t worry. It’s got to be to the spec.”

And I do stay. And they do get it done. And they love me; they know I’m tough, but they know that I will give them what ever they need (from me) to get the job done as quickly as possible.

These guys rave to their bosses to me, and dont’ want to work with anybody else in the company. Yeah, I bust their balls ’til the get it done, but with ME, they can get it done. And they feel good about their work and about me.

 So…Palin is, in my opinion, that kind of ballbuster. She’s tough, she’s not asking for favors and she’s not dispensing largess to the less-fortunate.

 And she’s telling men–women, too, but this is the language men speak–that they can stand up on their own and she’ll help them.

Donny Deutch got a lot of heat for this, but I think I know what he means here:

“men want to mate her” is only partly about sex. It unfair to men to say that’s ALL they think about. Having a mate is different than getting it on. There’s the kind of girl you bring home to mother, you know? And Palin, unlike Hilary, presents herself as more of a tough partner (“lying in bed next to you”) who will hold you to the standard of your best self.

I see the feminists reacting squeamishly to this statement, but I can see that men are able to and DO hold women in higher esteem than the feminists give them credit for.

Hey democrat politicians…Drop the “we know better than you because we ARE better than you” elitism.  Don’t ever forget that Americans can handle themselves fine. We could use Washington to handle their business, and leave us alone to handle ours. Keep things legal and fair, and let us live our lives.
 

So, Salon.com…

I mentioned them before, and there are so many examples of new journalistic atrocities that I hesitate to even bring them to my reader’s attention.

However, this piece by Rebecca Traister struck me because of it’s introspection, unique  among the screedy panic. She professes to hold long cherished feminist beliefs, but takes stock about how this female is different:

 I’m…startled by how Palin herself is testing my own beliefs about how I react to women in power.

Good…baby steps…

My feelings about Palin have everything to do with her gender — a factor that I have always believed, as a matter of course, should neither amplify nor diminish impressions of a person’s goodness or badness, smartness or dumbness, gravitas or inconsequence. Why are my rules changing?

AHA! Is this the psychological breakthrough moment? Is this moment of honest introspection going to lead to greater acceptance and healthy broad-mindedness?

Wait, she goes deeper into her conflict:

In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism — a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin’s potential power — means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children’s books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education.

Let it out, Rebecca. That’s it! define what you find so contradictory. By acknowledging how very different this feminist’s beliefs are from your own, you can more thoroughly accept the diversity of females and therefore female empowerment…!

Palin’s femininity is one that is recognizable to most women: She’s the kind of broad who speaks on behalf of other broads but appears not to like them very much. The kind of woman who…achieves her power by doing everything modern women believed they did not have to do: presenting herself as maternal and sexual, sucking up to men, evincing an absolute lack of native ambition, instead emphasizing her luck as the recipient of strong male support and approval. It works because these stances do not upset antiquated gender norms.

oh…I’m so disappointed. Rebecca, Rebecca…Nobody said you had to be maternal and sexual, if you don’t want to be. But please understand, many women choose to be those things because they want to all by themselves. I know that your university’s masters degree program told you otherwise, but that was just an ivory tower not where real people live.

It’s not sucking up to men to follow your natural inclinations. And it is every woman’s right to speak up for what she believes is right. It’s every PERSON’S right to speak for what they believe. Even if it’s not what you believe.

You know what the music means…I’ll see you next week. We’ll talk more about how other people can have different opinions than yours and it’s still okay. And you can tell me more about your dreams.

My new friend Bethany, an Obama supporter and now commenter on my blog, brought up the point that Hillary was also mocked as a woman vying for power in politics. The below is my response to her. I realized I rambled on too long to bury  this response in the comments section:

Yes, I agree that sexism is rampant.

But the disparity is staggering…Hillary got dished on, but not to the extent that Palin is getting.
It’s been barely two weeks, and already they have Palin dolls in sexualized schoolgirl outfits?

And this from Salon: http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/09/09/mistress_palin/

The MSM (main stream media) is tipping their hand…Letting the broader public see the
usual chatter that is reserved for in-crowd-behind-the-palm-snide-snickers to be shared when the mikes are off.

[let’s pause and let this travesty sink in for a moment…Palin, her political power entirely sexualized. Can you imagine if this were a column sexualizing Obama, for example?  The racist stink off such a column would befoul the area for at least a 100-mile radius.  But who is taking Greg Kamiya aside to explain that he is an emabarassment to the freedom of the press?]

This post from Lileks is what I mean: http://lileks.com/bleats/archive/08/0908/091008.html
He is usually a mild-mannered homebody with a love of retro music and city history. But Mallik’s column was just too much for him.

I am not saying that every democrat is as bad as Mallik and Kamiya. But, to paraphrase Jesus, a little
leaven goes a long way. And these outrageous accusations toward Palin (not even fact-based…’Dominatrix’?!) are piling up really high.

So…I don’t ask that everyone I meet agree with me.

But maybe I should amend my guidelines for “How to have an open-minded discussion” …#9 in
particular…to include “Snobbery” along with sexism, racism and violence as a stopping
point where someone is morally obliged to speak out.

At what point do compassionate democrats start to feel guilty by association?

Oh, one more thing. This is hardly a new train of thought for me. Check this post from
three years ago:
http://writtenbymurphy.com/wonderblog/?p=626

“Conservatives have a bad history with The New York Times,” she said, looking at my press ID, still smiling and still very friendly. “How can I be sure that you won’t take my words and twist them to suit some agenda that you already have?”

 

Part of the  Palin thing…A big part in my mind…is for us conservative-types being able to point at how she’s being treated and stereotyped. We can point and say:

“See? SEE?”

Yes, the Main Stream Media has a bias. And it’s influencing the broader culture’s tone. I’m personally tired of it. I have a right to put forth my opinion, too, once in a while. Even if I don’t agree with you, nameless-person-i’m-trying-to-talk-with.

But I try to do it with respect. I wish I got more back.