Anthropolgy lesson~aka~Conservatives v. Liberals

[Kodiak Kid]

For the record, I don't buy in to 100% of this but thought some of you might find it amusing. Rave on.

The division of the human family into its two distinct branches, liberals and conservatives, occurred some 20,000 years ago. Until then all humans coexisted as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. A thousand generations ago, in the pivotal event of societal evolution, beer was invented. This epochal innovation was both the foundation of modern civilization and the occasion of the great bifurcation of humanity into its two distinct subgroups.

Once beer was discovered, our prehistoric forefathers decided it was time to settle down. Making beer required grain, and securing a steady supply of it ordained the invention of agriculture.

After that was accomplished, ancient man quickly, and unfairly consigned actual cultivation to women.

Men couldn't just run off, willy-nilly, however. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can had yet been invented, so it was necessary to stick pretty close to home, and the brewery.

This left our male ancestors with a lot of time on their hands, and led to the division of the species, which persists to this day.

Some men tried to conserve remnants of the old way of life (hence the term "conservative") by spending their days in the open field in the dangerous pursuit of big game animals. At night they would roast their prey at a big barbecue, and afterwards sat around the fire drinking beer, passing wind and telling stories.

Other, more timid, souls stayed closer to home. They are responsible for the domestication of cats and the invention of group therapy. Mostly, they sat around worrying about how life wasn't fair and concocting elaborate schemes to "liberate" themselves from inequity (thus their designation as "liberals"). In the evening they gathered around their fire, nibbling on fruit and nuts, sharing their innermost feelings.

Today some liberals try to pretend they're really sort of conservative, and sometimes succeed in confusing people. The following are a few tips to use in distinguishing the two types.

By definition liberals believe in big government and high taxes. Life is unfair and the government is there to do something about it. Most people are too stupid to spend untaxed income wisely, they say, and high taxes allow liberals in government to do a better job of it.

Conservatives don't like government, and, aside from the military, wish it would just go away. They hate taxes, regulations, speed limits, and small cars.

Typical conservatives are Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh and, up there with the Big Man in the Sky, the incomparable John Wayne.

Typical liberals are Dustin Hoffman, Shirley McLaine, Pee Wee Herman, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand, Ted Turner and his former wife, the traitor Jane Fonda.

All conservatives drink beer. American beer.

Some liberals like imported beer, but most prefer white wine or foreign water from a bottle.

Liberals like to drive Volvos and Saabs because they're made in socialist Sweden. They like to eat weird food because it's un-American.

Your basic conservative vehicle, especially in Alaska, is the Chevy Suburban. It's big, it's American, it's four wheel drive, and it sucks up the gas. Conservatives eat beef, which they (surprise!) like to barbecue.

Big game hunters are conservative. Interior decorators are liberal.

Liberals invented the designated hitter rule in baseball because it wasn't "fair" to make the poor pitcher take his turn at bat.

Conservatives, inspired by a remark of the legendary Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker Jack Lambert, believe quarterbacks should be required to wear skirts, so they can more easily be distinguished from real football players.

James Brown and Ray Charles are conservatives. Michael Jackson and Milli Vanilli are liberals.

Most social workers, personal injury lawyers, journalists, and group therapists are liberals. Most ranchers, loggers, professional soldiers, and steeplejacks are conservatives.

Liberal jurors distrust the prosecutors and police. Conservatives figure the defendant must be guilty or he wouldn't be on trial.

Most conservatives not only believe in the death penalty, they would cheerfully implement it, personally, if called upon to do so.

Liberals think capital punishment is a barbaric relic, and unfair to boot.

Liberals believe Europeans are, generally speaking, far more enlightened than Americans. Conservatives think Europeans are basically decadent, as evidenced by their complete absence in wars.

Typical conservative movies are "Raising Arizona," "Patton," and "Conan the Barbarian."

Typical liberal movies are "Prince of Tides," "Last Tango in Paris," and "The Big Chill."

The quintessential liberal is the handicapper, the person who decides how much extra weight to saddle the faster horses with in order to make the race "fair."

The American cowboy, of course, is your basic, full bore conservative. A hundred years ago an Englishman in South Dakota was trying to find the owner of a huge cattle ranch. He rode up to one of the ranch hands and asked, "Excuse me, but could you tell me where to find your Master?" To which the cowboy replied, "That sum***** hasn't been born."

[Wizardly]

I can't put my finger on who's rhetoric you're spouting...it look neutral, but <sniff> it smells awfully conservative.

[lochinvar]

I can boil it down to its essentials:

Conservatives believe government should keep its hands off the economy but involve itself intimately in everyone's private and family life.

Liberasl believe government should keep its nose out of your private life but jump feet-first into managing the economy.

Totalitarians believe the government should meddle in both the private AND the public sectors.

Libertarians believe the government should just butt out of everything.

There, now; clear?

[Kodiak Kid]

Of course it's conservative! Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to post it.

Kodiak Kid

[Wizardly]

As the saying goes:

"We can have a government in the bedroom, or we can have a government in the board room."

Which do you want?

[Wizardly]

"Conservatives evangelize. Liberals rationalize."

[Dragonfly]

Early man - the dawn of civilization. I too believe that beer or Meade was the precursor of overpopulation, the domestication of animals including cats in egypt [sphinx] was important to protecting the grain stores from vermin They did the most with ag/and the Nile was the primary cultivation area of the early world, as well as using salt/sugar/honey to preserve food.

Conservatives tend to be more fearful. Hence the re-entrenching; the 'gathering' in of resources leaving the perimeter of the circle open to the pickings of wolves; they were obviously not of the sheep herding tribes. But, there are wolves so, the conservatives invented guns to eliminate wolves, and learned to build fences to protect their herds.

Preservation of food, ushed in the beginning of the Food Industry, and small towns, leaving the nomadic tribes a relic of the past.

Government enterprises can be small enteprises, employing local people to take care of little matters such as the Post Office [one of the first Government things after the Pony Express and the Stagecoach]; if kept small and local, and if they dumped a bunch of their rule books, it wouldn't be so bad. Employees of gov't feel protected by buying into the rules and regs of a gigantic system, losing touch with the community. Periodically they drag out evidence of their humanity to display for the public, but it's shallow and people can see what it's about. It's like calling information 411 for a telephone number in your neigborhood and talking with a lady in a different state.
I remember calling for numbers for my town and speaking with an operator who knew my town. Your list of liberal movies is intriguing: I saw the Prince of Tides; I definetly read the book, it was very amazing, Last Tango I missed: I couldn't get past the farce of the aging male having an affair with the beautiful young girl. It's Lolita disguised; and it bothers me that this is dressed up as a politically liberal 'intellegent' thing; young men don't seem to stand much of a chance, in this historic struggle.

[Inquartata]

What a flawed hypothesis! "Thus I refute it":

I am a conservative, and I don't drink beer.

Though I DO like mead...

[Dragonfly]

I can't believe it, I should get out more often, I just got home and rereadin my stuff is just horrible, it's so slow, after talking with a roomful of people I feel a little more alive. The heck with Anthropology; let's make the future.
This is laborous

[jeff]

I imagine Kodiak Kid put the post up for fun, but the game can be played both ways. How's this: "Most KKK members are conservative." Not as funny, huh?

And what is "conservative" or "liberal"? Republicans in California are holding their noses to support Shwartzenegger: a pro-choice, pro-gay rights Republican. Is he a "C" or an "L"? Now its conservatives that make big deficits (Reagan, Bush) while liberals make surpluses (Clinton). Before Inq jumps in: yes, there are other factors, but the policies of the president are not coincidental.

Just for fun: "James Brown and Ray Charles are conservatives. Michael Jackson and Milli Vanilli are liberals." James Brown is a jailbird, Ray Charles narrowly missed being one (he was a junkie and is still a drunk). Michael Jackson *should* be in jail, and I don't think Milli Vanilli had enough brain cells to have a political opinion one way or the other.

Hey, Inq: classy reference to Dr. Johnson.

Finally, cats are not domesticated. According to them anyhow.

[Inquartata]

No---according to cats, WE are domesticated...

Anyway, Jeff, I'm sorry, but your apotropaic phrase has failed to ward off my inevitable response! Which is of course that yes, it seems that Republican Presidents have fallen into the habit of supporting cuts in revenue without commensurate cuts in spending, becoming almost as profligate in the latter regard as Democratic ones. However, they do not "make" the deficits---after all, it's Congress which has the appropriations powers, which draws up the budget, etc. And not only are there "other factors", but they are predominant over the wishes of the POTUS. Economies are the wind, and we are all feathers. Even Republicans!

To say nothing of the fact that deficits, while they make a convenient bogeyman for whichever side is out of power at the moment, and a great spectre with which the media can frighten an economically naive public, are really not terribly problematic for a government or an economy...

[jeff]

Hey, cool word (once I looked it up).

I would say "even more profligate" instead of "almost as profligate". It might be worth a discussion on some thread about whether deficits aren't much of a problem (and if not, why not for us, when its supposed to be bad for the 3rd world). But later for that, and I agree that whoever isn't in charge uses that as a hammer against those who are. But, it is alarming that Reagan and GWB have built up the two largest deficits ever. I always thought conservative meant something other than that.

You know, I fed you the line about that cats, and you didn't disapoint me!

[Inquartata]

I aims to please...

( Tell all your women friends, heh heh! )

[Soldier]

Hmm, where do I fall? I'm attending the Air Force Academy...

I'm giving up trying out for the fencing team, and hope to make the Combat Pistol Team. At their table the other day to sign up, they had four or five shotguns and a half dozen pistols out, plus three or four guys walking around loaded to the gills with pistols, bayonets, an H&K sniper rifle, an M-16... I don't care about ideologies or "safe" or "constitutional rights", but guns are fun to shoot. And the M-16 is one sweet rifle.

My open dorm room window is like a radio here on the quad. Probably the two most common songs I hear from other rooms, besides Linkin Park, is the one about rounding up bad guys (Refrain: "Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses"), and the one about "It's gonna feel like the whole world's comin' down on you...brought to you courtesy of the red, white and blue."

I have a perfect view of the chapel straight out my window. There are services every day but Saturday.

And hell, I'm out west in Colorado.

[pkt]

In4,

Who decided on giving the rich the latest tax cuts: Congress or POTUS?
Who decided on fighting the war in Iraq: Congress or POTUS?

These two are the biggest expenditure items in the budget.
Dare Congress oppose either?

Oppose the first, the rich get upset and they'll throw out the bastards.
Oppose the second, they'd be call unpatriotic. And we all know how likely that is.

The rock and the Hard Place: the typical political choices.

Furthermore, aren't you forgetting that Clinton brought in balanced budgets in spite of the fact that he barely has control of the House.

On the other hand, the Republicans control 2 of the three branches of government. One may even contend that the Republicans control all 3 branches of government with the appointments to the Fed. Supreme Court made by the previous Republican PsOTUS. [Help me out here, Philistine.]

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"...an economically naive public." Are these the same people whom you in the thread "Is the US a theocracy?" the owners and employees of business?

"Economically speaking at least, as goes business so goes the welfare of the people, who after all are the owners and employees of business."

hmm, food for thought!

PK

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by pkt
Furthermore, aren't you forgetting that Clinton brought in balanced budgets in spite of the fact that he barely has control of the House.

Only because he was forced to do so.

He inherited a situation which constrained him from really implementing any of his prospective spending programs, lest it really make the deficit balloon: the deficit which at that time the REPUBLICANS were using as the bogeyman ( bloody politicians ). And Congress was threatening to ram through a Constitutional balanced-budget amendment. He really had no choice....it probably wouldn't have been his idea had his hand not been forced.

Are these the same people whom you in the thread "Is the US a theocracy?" the owners and employees of business?

Probably.

[pkt]

In the 80s, when Canada had an almost out-of-hand deficit as well as debt, we had for the Govornor of the Bank of Canada an Englishman named John Crow(!) whose aim was to make 0% his inflation target.

As a result of his policy Canada went into a self-inflicted deflation with interest rates of 18%!!!!

Subsequent Gov. of the BoC now concede that 2-3% is not inflationary.

On the other hand, the last Minister of Finance, Paul Martin Jr. who by all expectation will be the next Prime Minister, did everything to pay down the debt. He raised everything and put the proceeds to pay down the debt. Some of these measures include hiking the Unemployment Insurance rates, reduce the period of entitlement. Of ocurse, the UI premium is unfunded... the surplus is in the billions in UI (now called EI Employment Insurance) and it is all in general revenue. Gasoline taxes that were emnt to pay for transportation infrastructure went to general revenue too. So what of crumbling freeways and highways? Greater Vancouver need at least another major bridge for the Trans Canada Hwy. So...? during the 8/14 blackout, Ontario went dark while Quebec has lots of electricity from the James Bay hydro dams. In Ottawa, there is no power. But across the river, in Quebec, the lights were blazing. So...?

Chinese saying, "All crows under heaven are black." referring of course to politiicans.

quote:
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Are these the same people whom you in the thread "Is the US a theocracy?" the owners and employees of business?
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"Probably."

This is the basis of democracy.

PK