The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by baker »

Greta wrote: December 18th, 2020, 8:06 pmWhy would anyone think that Trump would provide security and safety?
I don't think they look to him for that. Trump acknowledges the dog-eat-dog struggle for survival. This is what they appreciate about him.

The Democrats, in contrast, with their elite educations and safe middle-class status, are like a spit in the face of the poor and the underprivileged.
If one is worried about survival, why vote against universal healthcare?
Universal healthcare requires solidarity. Someone with a dog-eat-dog mentality will rather die than practice solidarity.
baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by baker »

One more thing:
Greta wrote: December 18th, 2020, 8:06 pmWhy would anyone think that Trump would provide security and safety? His whole shtick is dog-eat-dog - and if you're the one who's eaten, that's your fault. If one is worried about survival, why vote against universal healthcare?
In an economy where there is fierce competition for jobs (or government welfare), and for many, homelessness is one paycheck away, supporting causes that could help others to win against you is irrational.

In the long run, such an approach only exacerbates the situation, of course, making it progressively worse. But when someone has been living paycheck-to-paycheck for a long time, in a culture where this is normal, one simply doesn't have the luxury to think ahead or to think of the wellbeing of other people.

And like they say, "It's easier to get the person out of the ghetto than to get the ghetto out of them." People can earn high degrees, earn millions, but in their minds, they still think like paupers.


I think Trump's voters admire people like Trump and the owners of capital: they see them as proof that it is possible to come out on top, to win. That's why they don't hold it against them when jobs are outsourced abroad or to robots.

Also, Trump and co. are so immensely rich in comparison to the poor, that the poor don't see them as competition, and so don't feel threatened by them.
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Sy Borg
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Sy Borg »

I find it hard to make sense of the idea that Democrats are rich with elite educations when the most wealthy, powerful and educated people tend to be right wing professionals who have always voted for the right for the tax breaks.

Eight years ago I moved house - from the most left wing electorate in Sydney to one of the most right wing electorates, where I was raised. You know the difference I see? There are more rich and highly educated people here. (In both, I've most of the locals to be fairly pleasant and reasonable).

So my issue, again, is with misconceptions. Baker, I don't doubt your observations, just that the people's notions of left and right wingers is completely skewiff. The idea that lefties are elites is simply bonkers and it amazes me to this day that so many fall for these myths.

A gaggle out-of-touch university professors working in gender studies does not a political wing make - no more than the Proud Boys and KKK are representative of the right.
baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by baker »

Greta wrote: December 19th, 2020, 3:07 pmI find it hard to make sense of the idea that Democrats are rich with elite educations when the most wealthy, powerful and educated people tend to be right wing professionals who have always voted for the right for the tax breaks.

In general, it seems that people who vote Republican obtain education for the sake of being able to earn more money (and power). To them, education is another means to an end.

I said: "The Democrats, in contrast, with their elite educations and safe middle-class status." People who vote for Democrats seem to strive for good education for the purpose of cultivating themselves, to be better able to make a difference in society; earning money is not their primary motivation.
Eight years ago I moved house - from the most left wing electorate in Sydney to one of the most right wing electorates, where I was raised. You know the difference I see? There are more rich and highly educated people here.
Of course. But would you describe those right-wingers as "having class"?
So my issue, again, is with misconceptions. Baker, I don't doubt your observations, just that the people's notions of left and right wingers is completely skewiff.

In US politics, right-wing doesn't equal Republican, and left-wing doesn't equal Democrat.
The idea that lefties are elites is simply bonkers and it amazes me to this day that so many fall for these myths.
I was talking about US Democrats.
I don't know where people get the idea that "lefties are elites".
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Sy Borg
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Sy Borg »

Baker, I don't think it's nearly so simple. Many idealistic students shift to the right once they become wealthy. They seek education for the same reason as anyone else - interest and employment. What happens afterwards can shape their views.

People vote for Democrats for all sorts of reasons. I doubt that George Soros and other billionaire Democrat supporters see earning money as a secondary motivation any more than billionaire Republican supporters do.

By the same token, Republicans are not clones either and I am surprised that you bundle up Democrats as all being the same. Lack of familiarity leads to difficulty in telling people apart. I do not have that issue because my father was a fierce right-winger. Nor was he a cookie-cutter voter. He had his own reasons for voting for the Liberal Party, generally related to employment relations.

There are differences, as noted by psychologists: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/psyc ... als-2018-2
Decades of research have shown that people get more conservative when they feel threatened and afraid.

Threats of terrorism make everyone less liberal – researchers found this was especially true in the months after 9/11. During that time, the US saw a conservative shift, and Americans displayed increased support for military spending and for President George W. Bush.

Americans aren’t the only ones whose political leanings are influenced by fear. A 2003 review of research conducted in five countries looked at 22 separate tests of the hypothesis that fear fuels conservative viewpoints and found it was universally true.

Brain scans show that people who self-identify as conservative have larger and more active right amygdalas, an area of the brain that’s associated with expressing and processing fear. This aligns with the idea that feeling afraid makes people lean more to the right.
I don't understand your question about the local right wingers having "class". They are just people. Mostly I speak with other dog walkers and I can confirm that, despite Trump's loathing of animals, plenty of right wingers love their dogs too.

Okay, I agree that both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party are right wing; it's not a true right/left division. Both parties mostly represent the interests of capital, and they differ in the degree to which they support capital. Still, the idea that Democrats are elites and Republicans are not is a reversal of the truth. The Democrats more strongly support the working and middle class than Republicans, who are more tightly wedded to the "trickle down effect". That was Murdoch, an expert at engaging the prejudices of the masses to manipulate their alliances.

What both parties need to address is the fact that, after resources gush upwards for long enough enough, and trickle back down to the people meanly enough, then inequality becomes so great that the concept no longer works. So, either the wealthy will give a lot of money back through taxes or philanthropy, or they will preside over extraordinary suffering and destruction.

Due to China's pressure, and competition with peers, I suspect the latter will be the case, because if major corporations and their human components are sufficiently protected with advanced technology, what happens to the masses will not much impact them.

So it goes.
baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by baker »

Greta, you asked:
Greta wrote: December 18th, 2020, 8:06 pm
baker wrote: December 18th, 2020, 7:49 pm
No, I mean survival altogether. It's not like in modern society, one is somehow by default spared of dying starving and homeless. Death by starvation and homelessness is a very real possibility in the US, and in increasingly more so-called first-world countries.
I think this is what primarily drives right-wingers. They are people with a sink-or-swim, eat-or-be-eaten, live-or-die mentality. And they mean this literally.
Aren't those in the ghetto most at risk?

Why would anyone think that Trump would provide security and safety?
And I offered a reply to this, specifically, why I think that Americans who are poor or otherwise in a precarious socio-economic situation would vote for Trump, even though it seems counterintuitive.

It has been said in this thread and elsewhere, that people "buy into his lies", or that people "want to be deceived", or that they "can't handle the truth". I don't think that people are like that at all. If we start from the premise that life is a struggle for survival, a fierce competition between people, and that people are painfully aware of this, then this puts everything else into perspective, and it can explain why they would vote for someone like Trump.
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LuckyR
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by LuckyR »

baker wrote: December 20th, 2020, 11:43 am Greta, you asked:
Greta wrote: December 18th, 2020, 8:06 pm
Aren't those in the ghetto most at risk?

Why would anyone think that Trump would provide security and safety?
And I offered a reply to this, specifically, why I think that Americans who are poor or otherwise in a precarious socio-economic situation would vote for Trump, even though it seems counterintuitive.

It has been said in this thread and elsewhere, that people "buy into his lies", or that people "want to be deceived", or that they "can't handle the truth". I don't think that people are like that at all. If we start from the premise that life is a struggle for survival, a fierce competition between people, and that people are painfully aware of this, then this puts everything else into perspective, and it can explain why they would vote for someone like Trump.
But do you think that poor Trump voters think he will help them out financially or because they like his non-econonomic policies, such as immigration, supporting the police, the Proud Boys and Confederate statues?
"As usual... it depends."
baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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LuckyR wrote: December 21st, 2020, 3:38 amBut do you think that poor Trump voters think he will help them out financially
Not at all.
For two reasons, it seems: 1. Pride, as in "It's important to be self-sufficient, even if this means being dirt poor"; 2. Competitiveness, as in "Freebies mean not only that I will get something, but also that other people will get something. Other people are my competition, and I will not support in any way those who compete with me. I rather go without freebies than see other people getting them as well."
or because they like his non-econonomic policies, such as immigration, supporting the police, the Proud Boys and Confederate statues?
It seems to me that those are just the surface.
What matters is the dog-eat-dog mentality, the competitiveness.
Steve3007
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta wrote:I can say that I have not seen anything as outrageous in politics in my lifetime. His attempt to subvert the democratic process was so blatant that I did not think anyone could possibly believe him. The courts have found that, time and again, Trump and cronies have simply made up stories and claimed them to be true.
I don't remember seeing anything as outrageous, by a mainstream politician, in a previously relatively democratic country like the US. What people really believe inside their own heads is impossible to say for sure. If people have strong vested interests, then what they publicly state as their beliefs will, I think, tend to depend on where those interests lie. Obviously, as we've noted, it's not difficult to see why a lot of people have an interest in telling the emperor he is fully clothed.
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Sy Borg
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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baker wrote: December 21st, 2020, 6:51 am"Other people are my competition, and I will not support in any way those who compete with me. I rather go without freebies than see other people getting them as well."
You assessment makes sense but the people's attitudes do not.

Billions in handouts and tax write-downs are gifted to the largest corporations and wealthiest people. Yet so many of the little people approve of Trump paying $750 in annual income tax, cheating US society of millions of dollars annually, but they hate little people gaining necessary support to survive that will, in a lifetime, amount to a tiny fraction of Trump's tax evasion in just a year.

None are as dangerous as those who reject or abandon reason. When talk achieves nothing, there can only be violence.
Steve3007
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Steve3007 »

An interesting new development is that both Fox News and Newsmax are now broadcasting retractions of the various stories that were invented, and which they promoted in order to keep/gain the endorsement of Trump and the associated ratings boosts, about Dominion voting systems. They're apparently doing it because they've been threatened with defamation lawsuits by Dominion, and of course they know that the stories are lies and that they'll therefore lose those lawsuits if they were to go to court and have to try to defend themselves. Presumably the cost of losing the lawsuit outweighs the financial benefit of the ratings boost from the Trump endorsement.

It's an interesting example of a situation where the absence of completely free speech makes a difference. If an absolute right to free speech was enshrined in US law/constitution then presumably there couldn't be any legal basis for a defamation suit. People would be free to say whatever they like about any person or company regardless of whether that destroys their reputation and therefore their bottom line because it would be held that mere words could not be said to have had that effect.
baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by baker »

Greta wrote: December 21st, 2020, 7:27 pmYou assessment makes sense but the people's attitudes do not.
Could you explain why you think they don't make sense?
Billions in handouts and tax write-downs are gifted to the largest corporations and wealthiest people. Yet so many of the little people approve of Trump paying $750 in annual income tax, cheating US society of millions of dollars annually, but they hate little people gaining necessary support to survive that will, in a lifetime, amount to a tiny fraction of Trump's tax evasion in just a year.
Yes, because it's a matter of principles.
The clincher is, of course, "There's no such thing as a free lunch" / "A free lunch can only be found in mouse traps."
None are as dangerous as those who reject or abandon reason.

When talk achieves nothing, there can only be violence.
It's the policy of MAD (talk about a fitting acronym!), but applied to and by individual people. If people perceive eachother as dangerous, this ensures a measure of a tense peace. It seems this is the best that can be hoped for for humans.

With good reason. Once people relax, focus on harmony, cooperation, the advancement of culture and a relatively comfortable life for everyone, they tend to get sloppy and let their guard down, making themselves vulnerable to enemies external and internal. While the French were enjoying themselves, the Germans marched into Paris.

See some pictures here, as a reminder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_in_ ... C3%A9e.jpg
baker
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by baker »

Steve3007 wrote: December 21st, 2020, 8:59 amWhat people really believe inside their own heads is impossible to say for sure.
Still, it is possible to make intelligent guesses and test them, to see how much of the known facts they explain.

For example: What do poor Trump voters most likely feel about Trump? It seems it's awe -- a combination of respect and fear. This explains why they don't expect anything from him nor ask him for anything as far as they are concerned. (If you feel awe for someone, you're not going to ask them for help, nor for mercy.) Awe also explains why they don't take issue with anything he says or does.


It seems like a no-brainer why wealthy educated people vote for Republicans -- it usually means more wealth for them. But how come wealthy educated Americans vote for someone else?
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Sy Borg
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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baker wrote: December 22nd, 2020, 10:49 amIt's the policy of MAD (talk about a fitting acronym!), but applied to and by individual people. If people perceive eachother as dangerous, this ensures a measure of a tense peace. It seems this is the best that can be hoped for for humans.

With good reason. Once people relax, focus on harmony, cooperation, the advancement of culture and a relatively comfortable life for everyone, they tend to get sloppy and let their guard down, making themselves vulnerable to enemies external and internal.
If a society abandons harmony, cooperation, quality culture and relative equity, what is there to defend against? Why be vigilant for a society that abandons ethics, cooperation, decency and hopes to improve?

There is, obviously, a balance to be had between living and vigilant existing. Widespread acceptance of divisive and corrosive lies crosses the line, though. Have you checked how many Republicans now believe that the Democrat Party is cover for a global child trafficking ring? https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/ ... 5d8251c2a5

It's clear what the game is. The Republican Party has been closely aligned with religion for some time - and we know that the religions that GOP closely affiliated with were riddles with child molestation.

As always, in this day and age, the way to win the public battle is to pre-emptively accuse the other side of one's own sins. The strategy never seems to fail these days. Trump's lies about the election might not have swayed the courts but they has earned him over $200 million in donations, a ramping up of intensity in his adoring followers, and ensuring that their aggression keeps legitimate concerns about the ethics of his behaviours at bay.

Someone who is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of his people, who has at every turn done as Putin would have wanted, remains a potent political force, reaping record post-election donations. Here we see the power of completely ruthless and untrammelled lying today.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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baker wrote: December 21st, 2020, 6:51 am
LuckyR wrote: December 21st, 2020, 3:38 amBut do you think that poor Trump voters think he will help them out financially
Not at all.
For two reasons, it seems: 1. Pride, as in "It's important to be self-sufficient, even if this means being dirt poor"; 2. Competitiveness, as in "Freebies mean not only that I will get something, but also that other people will get something. Other people are my competition, and I will not support in any way those who compete with me. I rather go without freebies than see other people getting them as well."
or because they like his non-econonomic policies, such as immigration, supporting the police, the Proud Boys and Confederate statues?
It seems to me that those are just the surface.
What matters is the dog-eat-dog mentality, the competitiveness.
That's possible, though I believe that a substantial number of the Trump base figures that anyone who shares their views on social issues must be a good guy, and a good guy will look out for their interests financially.
"As usual... it depends."
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