5 ms·

In the US there's a strong belief in self reliance. Just because something is harder doesn't mean it's worse (so the thinking goes). You can't honestly say ever

In the US there's a strong belief in self reliance. Just because something is harder doesn't mean it's worse (so the thinking goes). You can't honestly say everyone that supported Regan is racist. People just don't believe in hand outs, to anyone (I know I don't). There's nothing racist about that. You're also ignoring many other social issues that Republican's have traditionally supported that have nothing to do with race. There are probably very few people taking race into consideration at all when they vote.

naravara 8y ago
>In the US there's a strong belief in self reliance. This is mostly a self-aggrandizing myth. According to the world values survey (here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inglehart_Values_Map.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inglehart_Values_Map...) the US puts LESS emphasis on self-expression than most of the Nordics and even the Anglosphere outside of the British Isles. All countries have much stronger safety nets than we do. It's Britain and the US where Thatcherism shredded the safety net, and in both cases the conservative parties went hard on racially coded appeals to get working class support to do it. Just from eyeballing it, I would guess traditionalism vs. secular-rationalism is the axis that determines robustness of the safety net. But that's a hard correlation to draw just because of how much variables like state capacity and literacy play a role. > People just don't believe in hand outs, to anyone (I know I don't). There's nothing racist about that. It's not a coincidence that all the talk about "hand outs" focused on racially coded language about who is receiving the hand outs. It's not an accident that the "welfare queen" narratives were always in the projects of urban areas and never in trailer parks. >You're also ignoring many other social issues that Republican's have traditionally supported that have nothing to do with race. There are probably very few people taking race into consideration at all when they vote. Plenty of other countries have socially conservative parties that still advocate for strong welfare states. Christian Democratic parties throughout Europe are like this. Christian Democrats start losing to right wing conservatives right around when a lot of immigrants or refugees show up. This too, is not a coincidence.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Do you think I'm speaking in coded racist terms and not being honest? I'm not, I just think we're all better off with the mindset that we should help ourselves first.
  - naravara 8y ago
    >It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Your feelings didn't just bubble up out of nowhere. They were incepted in you by the culture and values you absorbed growing up. When you're conditioned from the cradle to view social services as "hand-outs" being given to "underserving" populations who don't look like you, you're being influenced by a racially coded language and a racist cultural narrative. You don't even have to be consciously racist to be perpetuating it and influenced by it. Political advertising made you imagine a specific type of person when I ask you to imagine someone on public assistance the same way advertising made you imagine a chubby, rosy cheeked man in a red coat when I mention Santa Claus. And we have to be honest with ourselves about accepting that when asked to imagine a recipient of public assistance, and it's not an accident how many of those stories are racially coded.
    - malvosenior 8y ago
      How do you know that it wasn't you that was brainwashed by media to believe that your opposition are racists even when they tell you explicitly that their opinions have nothing to do with race?
      - naravara 8y ago
        Because I actually spent time consciously deprogramming myself as I become aware of the perniciously racist elements of our culture natch. And it’s not complete. We all harbor some of the racist conditioning, I’m just willing to be cognizant of it because I think perpetuating racist things is worse than being called out on it.

naravara 8y ago

>In the US there's a strong belief in self reliance. This is mostly a self-aggrandizing myth. According to the world values survey (here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inglehart_Values_Map.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inglehart_Values_Map...) the US puts LESS emphasis on self-expression than most of the Nordics and even the Anglosphere outside of the British Isles. All countries have much stronger safety nets than we do. It's Britain and the US where Thatcherism shredded the safety net, and in both cases the conservative parties went hard on racially coded appeals to get working class support to do it. Just from eyeballing it, I would guess traditionalism vs. secular-rationalism is the axis that determines robustness of the safety net. But that's a hard correlation to draw just because of how much variables like state capacity and literacy play a role. > People just don't believe in hand outs, to anyone (I know I don't). There's nothing racist about that. It's not a coincidence that all the talk about "hand outs" focused on racially coded language about who is receiving the hand outs. It's not an accident that the "welfare queen" narratives were always in the projects of urban areas and never in trailer parks. >You're also ignoring many other social issues that Republican's have traditionally supported that have nothing to do with race. There are probably very few people taking race into consideration at all when they vote. Plenty of other countries have socially conservative parties that still advocate for strong welfare states. Christian Democratic parties throughout Europe are like this. Christian Democrats start losing to right wing conservatives right around when a lot of immigrants or refugees show up. This too, is not a coincidence.

malvosenior 8y ago
It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Do you think I'm speaking in coded racist terms and not being honest? I'm not, I just think we're all better off with the mindset that we should help ourselves first.
- naravara 8y ago
  >It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Your feelings didn't just bubble up out of nowhere. They were incepted in you by the culture and values you absorbed growing up. When you're conditioned from the cradle to view social services as "hand-outs" being given to "underserving" populations who don't look like you, you're being influenced by a racially coded language and a racist cultural narrative. You don't even have to be consciously racist to be perpetuating it and influenced by it. Political advertising made you imagine a specific type of person when I ask you to imagine someone on public assistance the same way advertising made you imagine a chubby, rosy cheeked man in a red coat when I mention Santa Claus. And we have to be honest with ourselves about accepting that when asked to imagine a recipient of public assistance, and it's not an accident how many of those stories are racially coded.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    How do you know that it wasn't you that was brainwashed by media to believe that your opposition are racists even when they tell you explicitly that their opinions have nothing to do with race?
    - naravara 8y ago
      Because I actually spent time consciously deprogramming myself as I become aware of the perniciously racist elements of our culture natch. And it’s not complete. We all harbor some of the racist conditioning, I’m just willing to be cognizant of it because I think perpetuating racist things is worse than being called out on it.