The one big reason conservatives don't get it

In my time debating politics on the web and face to face the one overwhelming attribute that conservatives don't have is empathy. That's it. Give it to them and we're on a level playing field. For some reason these people simply lack the ability to see the world through someone else's eyes. They can't, or won't, try to understand what it'd be like to grow up in a depressed, rotting, inner city. They won't try to understand why a Palestinian would be filled with so much rage that they'd be willing to murder, die, or rot in jail just to strike back. They won't understand why a scared 15 year old girl would get an abortion rather than go to her parents. All they know, thanks to the RW media, is that they make less money than they could so that their taxes can go to welfare mothers who'll use it for crack.

I honestly have no idea why we have empathy and they don't. I guess that's what makes us "bleeding hearts".

They lack many basic human emotions it seems.

everyone should just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps". Lazy welfare cheats and crack ho'mothers.

Interesting that a lot of cons who think this way are pretty much at the bottom of the gene pond.

"selfishness". They believe in the scarcity myth .. that there is not enough ** to go around. That in order for someone to be 'great', someone else must be 'small'. It is a separatist, black/white, us/them mindset based on fear.

They live on big chunks of land in the suburbs in big houses with at least two cars in the garage; their employer provides health insurance and vacation time; they have enough savings that if they lose their job they can take their time looking for a new one. Many just don't realize that not everyone lives this way.

I told a coworker recently that 40 percent of working Americans do not have health insurance provided through their employer. She flat out didn't believe me.

I doubt it. Most of them are over-extended just trying to keep up with an ad-based lifestyle.

it's always easy to get people to agree with you if you get them to accept your basic premises. The trick is how to do it.

Liberals (and true Christians): Do unto others...
Conservatives: He who has the gold makes the rules

I never thought that second one was very funny.

Except this lack of empathy doesn't apply only to the wealthy. There are plenty of blue collar and middle class folks living by the "I've worked my ass off my whole life, and I never got any help. Life's tough. I worked for everything I got, why should I have to give up for somebosy else?" mindset. These are the folks that believe the crack/welfare mother, lazy lowlife who won't work but is driving a Cadillac and eating steak, hype that's always spewing from the right wing.

only the wealthy. This attitude is big in the white working class.

My original response related to the prevailing descriptions in your post.

I wonder what the correspondence is between this inability for empathy and sheltered living. For instance, the rich do tend to be off in their own world, rarely intermingling with the rest of us, and it seem like many of the less moneyed repubs often are less educated and less traveled, due to not being able to afford either and learn other perspectives.

. . . calling the Iraqis who are fightning against the American forces terrorists, I started thinking the same thing. I gave up on making her see the light a long time ago.

I quit listening to Republicans about politics when Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia. You can't trust a damn thing they say.

Their brains have not grown with their bodies. They are in denial that anything could be something other than black or white. They have no empathy, yet they say they like "compassionate conservatism". But the truth is they like it for political reasons - not because they are really compassionate.

they are extremely selfish and see value only in things that directly benefit THEM. Very Christian.

Conservatives are less educated. That's why they're assholes.

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I went the other way.

Have you ever read the studies about infants deprived of 'cuddling'? As adults they are walking nightmares- no feeling for anyone beyond themselves. I honestly think many Freepers had something horrible happen to them as children and they have a stunted emotional develpoement.

The basis of the theory is that we progress through stages when we get what we need as children. But when, for whatever reason, we don't get what we need to progress through a phase...it will "haunt" us throughout our lives.

It is interesting that children have no empathy...that it must be taught. In this sense, conservatives are just less socially-developed and weren't taught correctly.

They live in an extremely social darwinistic way of life..

I myself believe in social darwinism but, I also can see things from different point of views..

Alot of rightwingers I used to discuss things with would refuse this.. or they would just answer with a standard answer, applying his way of life to the situation I asked him to see from the other persons point of view.

But stingy needs to be in there somewhere. They are just plain stingy!