What is the conservative mindset concerning the war?

They prefer a state of war to a state of peace.

They like the idea of killing Muslims. They consider aid spent on the tsunami to be aiding our enemy in the war on terror.

They have a blind spot somehow concerning oil. I think most of us have a blind spot concerning oil, though.

I think they don't want to admit that the war was based on false pretenses because they'd have to stop. They don't want to stop. Even if it could be proved to their satisfaction that the war on terror is based on lies, they wouldn't want to listen. For the most part, they're religious, and wouldn't believe a religious man would go to war based on false pretenses. I think that believing they're in the right is all they have to go on.

I don't have any hope that conservatives, especially religious conservatives, will see the other side on this issue. I consider it a lost cause, and I've pretty much abandoned it.

As sad as it is, I'm done with trying to convince conservatives that the war on terror is immoral. That said, I'm just going to move on with other issues.

They like telling the liberals to go f&%k themselves. They see liberals as fundamentally different from them. They like it when liberals tell them f&%ck you too.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but DU is a really insulting place to them. DUers have this attitude that conservatives are stupid, and DUers yell it to the mountaintops. DUers, for the most part, aren't interested in finding common ground with conservatives in order to move to a state of peace.

It's a pretty fucked up situation, and neither side is gaining by this. I go to some conservative message boards regularly because I have some interests in common with them. It's not that hard to find something you have in common with conservatives and simply agree on that with which you agree.

DU will make no progress with conservatives until you make an effort to stand in their shoes and understand what they think is important.

?

my bad

And I recognize you from... some other place. See you around.

I rather fight them, especially the neocon types. This is war.

The Conservatives believed Clinton was 'wagging the dog' and that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden weren't real threats.

This is outrageous.

And Saddam wasn't a threat to us. You realize that the people of the US are almost the only people in the world who were afraid of him? We could have had bin Laden with a phone call when Clinton was president. He actually passed up the opportunity when it was handed to him on a silver platter.

been hi-jacked by despots. Our hope lies in separating their herd. The best way to accomplish this is to point out their inconsistencies.

I have heard much talk of "capitulating" or maybe "assimilating" ourselves and values into the conservative camp. How will this accomplish anything?

You are dealing with a regime that will lie about anything and openly insists that it will not negotiate with anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

Your post sounds like you are a POW seeking the safety of your captors. The only way to turn this mess around is to pick our battles well, and to oppose their bullshit when possible.

You seem to be contemplating the question: If I morph into a republican, will it hurt less?

Peak_Oil, I think you're smart to expose yourself to other points of view. I do it myself, and find it helps me sharpen my own opinions. (I think of it as working out at the gym - hard sometimes, but makes you stronger.)

A lot of progressives have a cartoonish conception of repugs, which is a net disadvantage when engaging them in debate or an election. You have to get inside their heads a little (horrors!). They aren't stupid, and (here come the flames) aren't evil. They are, however, blind to many of the consequences of their beliefs, as all true believers are.

Now, to respond more directly to what you wrote. (BTW, these are just my opinions, subject to revision; I'm always hoping for civil debate, not to prove myself right or wrong.) It should go without saying, but I am observing here, not espousing.

1. They prefer a state of peace, but think that war is sometimes (or often) how you obtain it.

2. They don't like the idea of killing Muslims, except for those they think are terrorists. Problem is, their definition of terrorist is broad, and subject to redefinition as circumstances change.

3. They were genuine contributors en masse to the tsunami aid effort, and not because they were looking for quid pro quo. However, they seemed awful touchy about perceptions of American generosity. In the same way that an alcoholic can seem awful touchy when someone mentions how much they're drinking.

4. Most of them think the war is about re-ordering Middle Eastern politics, not about Saddam's WMD or whatever. They're afraid terrorists are going to sneak a nuke into the US and blow up a city, and they think that by turning Middle Eastern countries into Western-style democracies they'll get at the root cause. They also see the war as an affirmation of American values.

5. There are a lot of them that held their nose when they voted for Bush. If Kerry had picked off, on average, just one in twenty of those who voted for *, it would have been Kerry, not *, who was inaugurated. If Donks had put up a candidate who could have appealed to just a few more of them than Kerry, the world would be a different place right now.

The repugs often make the mistake of cartooning the left based on their perceptions of left extremists (Ward Churchill, for example), and then use that cartoon to avoid listening or understanding what we are really about and really saying.

We do the same about them. If we really want to prevail over them, we have to understand them, not dismiss them as mythical demons.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -
deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth -
persistent, persuasive and realistic.
-John F. Kennedy

I'm not talking about the leadership, I'm talking about the rank and file of those who call themselves conservatives. If I was going to label them, I think I'd use the term Dominionist Christian, but it seems that the Dominionist types have allied themselves with the rank and file conservative types to a very large extent. The pivot issues that divide the group are abortion and capitalism/socialism.

The only political party in the US that totally supports the anti-abortion platform openly is the Republican party. The Christians who feel abortion is murder are not going to leave the Republican party for any reason unless that plank of their platform changes. There's just no way to do it. Unfortunately, it means that as long as the Republican party stays the Anti-Abortion Party, they can do whatever else they want and still keep the anti-abortion vote. They can start wars, steal money, screw up the environment, tell the whole world to piss up a rope, and it doesn't matter. As long as they feel they can make abortion illegal, they're going to vote Republican.

Another faction is the gun rights group. The Democratic party, correctly labelled or incorrectly labelled, is the Gun-Grabbing party. It's a single-issue group that could change sides to the Democratic party, but as it is it's not going to happen. For some reason, the Democratic party wants to piss off the 80 million gun owners (about 30% of the US population) and appease the Million Mom March (who have pretty much disbanded due to a lack of funds) (contrast with NRA...). On a personal level, I am just totally at a loss why the Democratic party wants to de-pants itself in election after election after election over this. It's rampant stupidity.

Next up is the capitalism vs socialism debate. Conservatives don't see social security, Medicare, public roads, the post office, public schools, etc. as socialism, but they do see national health care as socialism. They're opposed to tyrannical governmental control over their personal lives and they want the government out of their hair. I don't know how to get them to see that large corporations simply move in to take up the slack, and at least you get to vote on what the government does. You don't get to vote on anything that happens at Haliburton.

As to the conservatives wanting to kill Muslims, you're 180 degrees facing the wrong way. Conservatives want to kill Muslims. They want to stack up piles and piles of Muslim corpses, and they see giving money to tsunami victims in (Islamic) Indonesia to be giving aid to the enemy. They see the war in part as a Christian crusade to kill the mongrel infidels.

You should try asking them sometimes. It's pretty clear.

I did it for the past four years. Constantly. Talked myself blue in the face and listened a lot too. Strove to find common ground.

Found almost ZERO.

I'm done.

Back when republicans were republicans and my main difference with them amounted an honest difference of opinions on how the government should be run and the government's role in people's lives, it was easy, especially compared to now. Civil discourse was not only possible, I engaged in it with them, all the time. We found some common areas we agreed on. For the most part, no one got ugly or engaged in blatant distortions of the other side's point of view.

Not so anymore. I don't know who the hell these pod people are, or what happened to the republicans I used to talk to during the Reagan and bush I years, but they are GONE. Either that or completely in hiding. I can't find them anyore.

Talk to a republican who voted for bush nowdays and not two seconds into the conversation they are spouting off stuff you KNOW to be complete lies, TOTAL fabrications. And when you calmly, respectfully try to point out why what they just said is untrue they fucking go off on you.

Screw that. I'm not willing to subject myself to verbal abuse, mind games, and crazymaking when nothing convinces them anyway.

By the way, too many people discount the effect 9/11 had on these people. I think there was already some predisposition towards groupthink and getting off on fear in them and that day just SEALED it forever for them. My mother in law, pre-9/11 was a republican and a conservative one, but she seemed to use her brain and still have half a heart in her chest. You could TALK to her.

After 9/11, she went off the deep end. Started talking about nuking Iraq and killing "ragheads" and became a born-again fundamentalist Christian. It's actually been quite scary to witness. I've seen this happen in other people, too. Normally rational people went all wild-eyed and stayed that way. When you try to talk to them calmly and rationally about terrorists, etc, they start yelling "YOU WOULDN'T BE SAYING THAT IF A PLANE CRASHED INTO YOUR HOUSE!!!"

You CANNOT have any rational discourse with someone who is

a) fear-tripping
b) sucking up lies so hard it's almost pornographic
c) voluntarily handing their critical thinking skills over.

You just can't. Good luck to ya.

...is because they secretly want it no matter what. Like you said, they think we should kill all the Muslims, and they know that's wrong, but they don't care. They're bigoted, hateful, blood-thirsty, vile people on the inside, and the any excuse they have for the war is a cover for that.