I prefer to think it is pure class self-interest.

Geeze, I hope so. You guys were beginning to sound like you’re one step away from measuring skulls to decide someone’s political views.

As for the “conservative psychological pathology manifestos”, I hope you recognize that comes more under the category of malicious teasing and outright provocation, rather than any attempt at serious philosophical inquiry.

After all, we are talking psychology, right?. That is on an even shakier intellectual foundation than either economics, political science, or history.

Have you actually looked at who does the most “pounding” of political ideas on this board?

I let most of it go by uncommented, and most of what I do respond to involves correcting inaccuracies or providing new facts.

Tell you what, you guys give your “conservative psychological pathology” manifestos a break for a while, and let’s see how it goes.

Its not so much what you’re saying as how often you have to pound it down our throats. Give it a rest, for Chrissake. I’m sorry to have to phrase it this way, I don’t want to insult you or belittle what you feel strongly about; I do enjoy your posts, and even occasionally enjoy debating politics with you.

But its gotten to the point where every time I log on I cringe, my stomach is tied up in knots, wondering what new ambush you’ve prepared for the statists, a fight we’ll have to engage in, mostly for schoolyard reasons. I am not in the mood for combat all the time. Not even most of the time. But that male ego always demands the last word, doesn’t it?
We’ve been taught to stand up to bullies, that we can’t let them get away with it. Anything else would be cowardice, letting our team down.

I perfectly well know how important politics and economics are. But diet, exercise and getting plenty of sleep are important too, and nobody here feels the need to turn this forum into a health and wellness blog. To some people, being saved and accepting Jesus is all that matters, but not to everyone, not all the time, and not in the Habitable Zone. Like the Witnesses, or worse, the Hare Krishnas, you’re always there with the same old song, and its annoying as hell.

Sure, everyone is entitled to their hobbies. I’m sure I’ve bored all of you to tears with my boat stories and my nostalgia rants about the Navy and my rock and roll hippie days. We all have topics we tend to obsess about, and I hope the day I start outwearing my welcome someone straightens me out before I embarass myself any further. As you get older, you do tend to dwell on certain things. And we don’t notice about ourselves what is suddenly clear to everyone around us. Maybe that’s what Bobby Burns was trying to tell us.

But politics (like religion and anomalism) is different, because it invites controversy, not just debate. We discuss religion and anomalistic subjects here occasionally, and its fun, but we don’t meet every day to do battle about them. The political post demands retaliation, its partly a testosterone thing. And yeah, I know I’m responsible for starting my share of the fights, too, and for that I apologize. But I also plead pride, fatigue, anger, not to mention prior provocation.

Tempers flare, unfortunate things get said, and good people leave and never come back. Driving off your friends is too high a price to pay for showing them how mistaken they are.

So are laws which make employers accommodate handicapped workers. Very, very expensive. A burden.

And so is Union negotiated health insurance. Way too expensive, and Unions are corrupt to the core, unlike the pristine mega-corporations.

Conservatives fight those all the way. No self-respecting Conservative could would take advantage of corporations by utiliZing those mandates without admitting they are truly a hypocrite. Get government out of the way.

And it’s too expensive to do skilled engineering tasks in the US. Ship those jobs overseas, and let the Americans become housekeepers. Flip burgers. Work in nursing homes. Call it “retraining”. Conservatives promote that, think it’s good for the bottom line.

To paraphrase Robert Burns:

“And would some Power the small gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!”

Fortunately, one of the attributes of Conservatives is that they know no shame. Saves them a lot of misery.

Bullets aren’t the only options in a tyranny. When everything one does is controlled by the State, fines, imprisonment, and other non-lethal punishments are usually enough. The largest population in the Soviet Gulags at one time was about 1.7 million, less than one percent of the population. The rest just obeyed.

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II; Book Four, Chapter VI

If you have to go to guys like him for demonstrations of the righteousness of your cause, then you are in deep trouble. It would be like me pointing out the Teds, Cruz and Nugent, as typical Conservative Intellectuals.

But you’re right. Totalitarianism is a bullet in the back of the head. It is not the phony straw men you drag in here as examples of the coming left wing zombie apocalypse. Issues like health care, immigration, gun control, minimum wage, and unemployment insurance are not pit stops down the road to the Killing Fields. They are just positions held by people who believe they would be good for their country. And I happen to be one of them.

You may find it startling to consider that you aren’t the only one with an aversion to totalitarianism. But you may find it surprising that our definitions of totalitarianism don’t exactly coincide.

And as it turns out, it really wasn’t necessary to read this guy’s article to deduce how you were trying to use it. I couldn’t resist.

You have a much easier time arguing with what you want my positions to be than what they actually are.

My point was that ideas have consequences, and almost every horror of the 20th century started out with a Champion of the People. I don’t draw any significant distinction between communist, Nazi, fascist, or radical Islamist leaders. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, and a bullet to the back of the head is a bullet to the back of the head.

That there is an “actual position.” Make a note.

Myerson’s an “idiot” now? Did you finally read the article?

Back to the queries.

I’m not fighting any ideological wars. I just want to make sure someone who is doesn’t use it as an excuse to take away my Social Security.