I for the life of me can not fathom why normal intelligent people vote against their self interests

[greenbriar]

we had a curricular meeting after school today, and somehow I found out that in our building out of 8 social studies teachers, I am the only one who votes democratic??????


WTF


Educators in general should be pissed at this admin, but to admit to voting for the jack ass???



:argh:

[catmandu57]

Lemmings

People who need to be told what to do and think no matter that it is against their interests. I don't know why they do it, though i've seen it time and time again.

[greenbriar]

2. I got so pissed at one, I just told him not to talk to me...he was dissign Gore

and said that "an inconvient truth" was propaganda

[TnDem]

37. In Gore's home state of Tennessee...

"An Inconvenient Truth" is widely regarded as utter nonsense and total propaganda...

In fact, I would say that this view would be common in most southern states and several swing states.

I know because I hear this view from fellow DEMOCRATS!

[rusty charly]

1. maybe they figured, with the chimp:

there's be so much more to teach...

[youngdem]

3. In a sociology class in college, I got a glimpse of perhaps why

There is a famous study (in sociology circles anyway) that asked people all manner of things, in relation to their opinion of politics.

What it boiled it down to is that the poor and working class in this country has been sold a bill of goods about the bounty of opportunity in America, so much so that they view condemnation of their rich fellow Americans as self-defeating because one day soon they too will strike it rich, and need all of this. And, people are trained to look at some Democratic ideals as being unAmerican, in that it asks for the successful to contribute back, and that violates the selfish attitudes so prevalent among the rich (and even more so among the aspiring rich, as this class so charitably called them).

Mostly, it just boils down to lies people buy without realizing it that shapes their opinion.

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes of all time:

"It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place."

Jonathan Swift

Not sure I agree with 'impossible', but the gist of it is worth remembering for me.

[Raksha]

35. What an incredible quotation!

"It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place."

I've never seen that before. So sad but so true...I'm gonna remember that one!

[depakid]

4. The power of propaganda

It short circuits the reasoning process.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

5. I've always attributed it to . . .

. . . people being afraid to think for themselves.

But social studies teachers . . . wow.

WTF, indeed.

[greenbriar]

7. there are so many topics that bushco aligns with that as SS teachers

we should all be against him, but the biggest is the crap

NCLB

that alone should deter anyone in the education business from voting for that crap

[CrazyOrangeCat]

15. My sis-in-law

is a music teacher, and I've heard her say the same thing.

NCLB is a crock.

[ReadTomPaine]

6. The answer is simple and unsatisfying - many people pick a candidate like they pick a date.

How many smart friends have you seen hooked up with a hopeless loser/abuser they should have been able to spot a mile away? How often have you heard such a friend defend the indefensible from these types of people?

This isn't all that different a mental process.. think about how many times Bush has been likened to a wife beater in his domineering politics and his public/opposition to an abused spouse?

The shoe fits, as they say.

[gratefultobelib]

19. What do you mean by "his public/opposition to an abused spouse?" I must have

missed something somewhere, though I don't know how that's possible!!

[ReadTomPaine]

23. Both Bush's supporters and his occasionally cowed opposition...

have been likened to an abused spouse in the manner in which they behave or respond when confronted by the administration's latest outrages.

[MikeH]

33. I think you are spot on about this; a writer equal to Thomas Paine has an interesting analysis

The answer is simple and unsatisfying - many people pick a candidate like they pick a date.

What you say reminds me of something said by http://www.alice-miller.com">Alice http://www.naturalchild.com/alice_miller">Miller, the Swiss psychotherapist and writer.

I consider Alice Miller to be an equal to Thomas Paine, in her speaking out against the widespread acceptance of mistreatment of children -- done in the guise of "child rearing" -- as being something harmless, and in her challenging of the commandment to honor one's father and mother (one of the Ten Commandments, often attributed to God), and of the resultant duty to forgive one's parents and absolve them of any blame, regardless of how abusive or neglectful they might have been.

Thomas Paine challenged and spoke out against the English monarchy, the Bible, and Christian orthodoxy. Alice Miller has challenged traditional morality (or at least one commandment incorporated in traditional morality) and the psychoanalytic establishment.

And both have written to be understood by the common, average person.

The specific passage by Alice Miller that I am referring to above is in her book http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm">For Your Own Good:

When non-Germans watched Adolf Hitler's appearances in newsreels, they were never able to understand the adulation he was given or the number of votes he received in 1933. It was easy for them to see through his human weaknesses, his artificial pose of self-assurance, his specious arguments; for them, it was not as though he were their father. For the Germans, however, it was much more difficult. A child cannot acknowledge the negative sides of his or her father, and yet these are stored up somewhere in the child's psyche, for the adult will then be attracted by precisely these negative, disavowed sides in the father substitutes he or she encounters. An outsider has trouble understanding this.

We often ask how a marriage can last, how, for example, a woman can go on living with a certain man, or vice versa. It may be that the woman endures extreme torment in this relationship, continuing it only at the cost of her vitality. But she is mortally afraid at the thought of her husband leaving her. Actually, such a separation would probably be the great opportunity of her life, yet she is totally unable to see this as long as she is forced to repeat in her marriage the early torment, now relegated to her unconscious, inflicted on her by her father. For when she thinks about being abandoned by her husband, she is not reacting to her present situation but is re-experiencing her childhood fears of abandonment and the time when she was in fact dependent on her father.

...

I mention this example because it demonstrates mechanisms that may have played a role in the election of 1933. The adulation accorded Hitler is understandable not only because of the promises he made (who doesn't make promises before an election?) but because of the way in which they were presented. It was precisely his theatrical gestures, ridiculous to a foreigner's eyes, that were so familiar to the masses and therefore held such a great power of suggestion for them. Small children are subject to this same sort of suggestion when their big father, whom they admire and love, talks to them. What he says is not important, it is the way he speaks that counts. The more he builds himself up, the more he will be admired, especially by a child raised according to the principles of "poisonous pedagogy." When a strict, inaccessible, and distant father condescends to speak with his child, this is certainly a festive occasion, and to earn this honor no sacrifice of self is too great.

http://www.nospank.net/fyog9.htm#values

So certainly a major factor in a person choosing a date, a spouse, or a political candidate against their best interests is that person having accepted abuse and disrespect from one's parents, and not having questioned such abuse or disrespect.


Incidentally, I like your screen name, ReadTomPaine. I have read his http://dynamicdeism.org/library/modern_age_of_reason.htm">Age of Reason updated into modern English, on one of the deism web sites. And I am currently reading the book http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/06/02/har06002.html">Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey Kaye.


Regarding the original post, I would have to agree that it is especially distressing that social studies teachers, out of all people and out of all teachers, would vote for *.

[shain from kane]

8. A working man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

[greenbriar]

9. hehe

I like

[shain from kane]

16. It's from the internets. I don't know the original source. Here's a bumper sticker.

http://www.bumperart.com/

[Dr.Phool]

11. Have you been reading my bumper stickers?

[shain from kane]

17. See my reply #16. Do you know who originated it? Jesse Jackson?

[mondo joe]

10. They likely have more than one set of self interests.

There are people for whom some crazed sexual politic fascism is more important than getting a raise or having a social infrastructure.

[pnwmom]

20. And lots of us vote against our short-term or immediate self interest.

For example, I may vote FOR an increase in taxes that I will have to pay, even though they won't benefit me directly at all -- such as, an increase in the local school levies. (My child is in a private school.)

But I think I am better off in the long run living in a society where the people are well-educated.

On the other hand, if I were living in some area where the public schools were educating the students in fundie beliefs, I don't know what I'd do.

[Kelly Rupert]

12. Go read "What's the Matter with Kansas"

Now.

[mudesi]

13. They may be normal, but they're not intelligent

I disagree with your premise.

[pnwmom]

21. What about people who vote FOR tax increases that they will have to pay for,

but that will only directly benefit other people?

Are they unintelligent? Or just choosing to contribute to living in a better place?

[mudesi]

28. No tax increase only benefits others

The nature of taxes is that when spent on a social safety net, they will benefit everybody. People who are willing to pay a little more in taxes in return for an educated population, free healthcare, a microscopic violent crime rate, and secure jobs are far from stupid.

All I know is that living in Canada, I might pay more in taxes than you, but when I break my leg I won't have to worry about how much it'll cost me.

[Nickster]

14. Start reading George Lakoff. He's been a big help for me to start understanding that

very question.

[ismnotwasm]

18. If they are property owners--

I find some people vote for the party they see "lowering taxes" Another way to drive a wedge between people.

Also most people seem not to care much, or think outside of immediate self interest, ie; let's not address the underlying causes of crime, we can do something about, let's build more prisons and get "them" off the street immediately...

Social studies though, wow. I can't parse that one out either.

[Toucano]

22. I am shocked!

I'm fairly certain my only Republican teacher was for phys. ed.!

Boy, did he have issues.

[GOPisEvil]

24. Fear, ignorance and a lack of willingness to think for oneself.

[KG]

25. whut he sed!

:thumbsup:

[spooky3]

26. 1) fundy religion and/or 2) high income spouse (usually husband)

so they think it IS in their self-interests.

If they were self-supporting I would bet that more of them would see it your way.

I am just reacting to people I know who fit the description you gave--"your results may vary."

[DaveJ]

27. Hypocritically, as teachers my guess is they get

full health coverage from the government, and some kind of pension, things that most people don't get, and apparently they don't care about us since they have what they need.

[greenbriar]

29. we get that from our district..union negociated!

just don't get it

[ComerPerro]

31. classic "I got mine, fuck everyone else" Repig/libertarian mentality

Against government programs unless they benifit them directly

[ComerPerro]

30. the idea of Republicans teaching Social Studies is horrifying to me

[NNN0LHI]

32. There spouses may be mercenaries in Iraq and are heavily dependent on that blood money?

Or they may be invested in Halliburton stock? Who knows?

Don

[leftofthedial]

34. democracy (which we no longer have) works on the principle of enlightened self interest

when generations of unceasing attacks on public education and the conversion of the media into a propaganda tool take their toll, too few people qualify for the "enlightened" part of the concept.

[malaise]

36. That's because you start out with the wrong premise

Many academics are not educated. They are trained but not educated. Daily I get into arguments with students who have no interest in acquiring an education. All they want is certification to increase their income.

Some skillfully regurgitate material on course outlines. Others don't even see their own contradictions. Intelligence suggests that capacity to think, to challenge ideas, and to formulate new ideas. Sadly some people are not intelligent - they never even seek out ideas that challenge their own view of the planet.

Try getting some of these people to debate Darwin's evolutionary theory versus their religious beliefs and you'll see that any notion of intelligence flies through the window.

There are an awful lot of very stupid people teaching our children. What we have today is mass resistance to any notion of enlightenment. The only light these people want to see are the neon lights in a shopping mall.

Add.