Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

Over at salon.com, a certain Scott Christian has penned a bit of pseudo-psychology entitled “Republicans Don’t Just Happen, They’re Born That Way“.  Christian’s piece begins by referencing one of the most ridiculous articles I’ve ever wasted my time perusing by Jonathan Haidt, a clearly leftist associate professor of psychology whose four publicly-available political donations were all to Democrats, including two to Barack Obama.  Christian refers to Haidt’s article as if it’s some sort of peer-reviewed science rather than the juvenille “I hate Republicans because I don’t understand them” polemic which it really is.

Christian’s piece and Haidt’s piece on which it’s based says a lot more about liberals than about conservatives.

I penned a too-polite comment in response to Christian’s piece, as follows:

Scott,

The problem with your analysis is that you focus too much on social issues when describing what Republicans are about.  Furthermore, you lump all Republicans into the category of social-issues conservatives, which is simply not the case.

If you were to look at other areas, such as economics and free speech, it is the Democrats who support a “rigid structure” which impinges on liberty every bit as much, or even more, than the right wing’s pursuit of using government in the social sphere.

Also, your comments about Republicans somehow being more “tribal” than Democrats strikes me as ridiculous and just another not-so-subtle attempt by a liberal to paint Republicans as less evolved or otherwise inferior.

Your comments about Fox News perhaps show your liberal bias more than anything else.  You seem to miss the fact that a substantial percentage of Fox viewers are NOT Republican.  According to a poll a few months ago, “46% of those who watch FOX News “just about every day” are Democrats or Independents as are 50% of those who watch it “several times each week” or more."  And then you say that MSNBC “offers individual expression and a focus on individual rights"??? You must be kidding.  You can’t tell one MSNBC talking head for another, and they most certainly do not support individual rights on any issue outside the social sphere (and neither does our president.)  Meanwhile, there’s a huge difference between, for example, Bill O’Reilly’s populist so-called conservatism and Glenn Beck’s libertarian point of view.  Not to mention the fact that Fox routinely has Democrats/liberals on air to give that point of view.

While you’re pretending to write a non-partisan article about psychology, you (just like the people you admire on MSNBC) can’t stop your misunderstanding of non-liberals from causing you to misstate basic facts and obvious conclusions.