Hey Kids,
I responded with a simple rejoinder meant to spark some fun dialogue. The author was tweaked enough to respond immediately (on a comment that is 5 years old) but not bite.
https://www.quora.com/Are-you-a-liberal-or-a-conservative-Why/answers/59120637?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=36484653156&comment_id=264972060&comment_type=2
There is one stark difference between how self-described conservatives and liberals see the world. This comment illustrates it pretty well. Ignore the highlights - those are for part II.
PART I | HAPPINESS DEPENDENT ON EXTERNALITIES
If happiness is a result of the sum of the parts in your life and dependent primarily on things that are out of your control…then it would make sense to focus on the things you don’t have or aren’t provided. The world would seem like an unfair place where Utopia is just a few more policies and laws out of reach. We would constantly talk about how much more fortunate the neighbors are than us. We would obsess about how our race and class keep us from reaching our potential. The good fortune of others wouldn’t cause us to look introspectively and we would be justified in coveting their “lottery winnings” even going so far as legislating fairness based on these arbitrary characteristics. You can see how this would be a powerful platform for a politician to stand on in order to curry favor with the masses. The question is…would it be able to make you happy? What is the formula for a happy and fulfilled life? Are the people who think this way the ones you would choose to emulate to generate predictable and consistent happiness in your life?
Speaking of would choose…the author poses this question quite a bit…
PART II | STAGE I THINKING
I have to chuckle when a liberal using this externality mindset and data from the Brookings institute starts asking what someone who is about to be born would choose…
He is unwittingly personifying what liberals frequently refer to as a fetus…projecting the ability to make choices that will affect its own wellbeing.
Imagine you’re about to be born.
You don’t know whether you will be aborted (which is highly unlikely if your mother is conservative)
You don’t know whether you’ll be disabled. (If you are, you are much more likely to be born if your mother is conservative)
You don’t know what your race or sex will be. (Or if your liberal parents will imbue you with gender confusion that will negatively affect your happiness and become a self-inflicted disability)
You don’t know whether you’ll be born to a single parent. (This is a luxury belief among liberal western elites - they play down the importance of being married for others, while marriage rates remain high among the highest social circles)
You don’t know whether the family that will be yours is rich or poor. (If your family is financially well off its almost a certainty that #6 does not apply)
You are asked to choose a set of socioeconomic policies for the society you’re about to be born into. (See below)
What do you choose?
Back to the highlights:
If you want to be born, assuming a liberal believes a non fully developed pre-born human can want anything, then the author is conceding that they are better off answering question #8 with socioeconomic policies that are far from what “liberals” legislate for today. Strongly supporting abortion does not help the child in this scenario…ESPECIALLY if they are disabled.
The author also presumes sex is a thing and doesn’t mention gender. In this scenario, the answer to #8 should be obvious. Conservative.
If you don’t want to be born to a single parent or more importantly - mixed in a tube and born by surrogate to same-sex roommates… Conservative.
He is unable to see the connection between the ideas/ideals he supports and how they create the things he believes are undesirable. This is stage one thinking. More evidence…
Brookings does a good job of identifying the problem without identifying the causes - so let’s use the author’s own example…
Born into favorable circumstances, ie born in a household supported by two incomes. That’s the code for “I have a married mother and Father” Is this a position that liberals are advocating? “Every child should be born with a married mother and father!” This is how you win the genetic and socioeconomic lottery. He admits that in that scenario and the adversity of working from the bottom, he became a physician. If poverty didn’t stop him from “Getting a chance to maximize his potential” then the only thing left is who is in the household. The statistics bear this out. This is a liberal stating that his conservative upbringing and lifestyle are causes of his prosperity. He makes a strong case. I hope he realizes the incongruity someday. It’s also curious that economic mobility is dropping in the USA somewhat proportionally to the premium put on conservative values by the cultural elite.
“Most of us would support policies that make us more like Denmark and Norway.” Some find it odd that liberals hold up the least diverse countries on Earth to model. I see the irony. They do not.
Stage I thinking. Choose wisely. Use long-term happiness & gratitude as your metric.
I love you,
Dad