So what do you think of "traditional" values?

Traditional values was, if I remember correctly, used to defend the rotten boroughs. Elected representatives of areas that no longer had more than a handful of people living in them.

Traditional values, for the most part, nbed to be burned in a fire unless theres objectively good reasons to value them.

_problem is, usually people pull Traditional Values card because they dont HAVE any strong argument except appeal to tradition.

Well, it beats, say, trying to convince Midget why checks and balances and democratic input are a good thing. Axioms are good when the alternative is retreading all of history.

Hail Martin Septim!

Democratic inputs a great thing. Except when it turns from "input" to "Its traditional, therefore you will do it or else we will shun you from society and jail you"

Speaking about television, one thing to keep in mind is that there is a great difference between "No TV for my kids, ever" and "Not letting TV raise my kids instead of me". This one cannot quite agree with the first, but fully agrees that letting one's children be glued to TV so that you don't have to spend time with them is bad parenting.

Also, not sure if this distinction makes sense, but for this one, there is a great difference between "Watching TV" as a pastime on it's own - that is, turning it on with the intention to watch something and flipping channels until anything more or less entertaining is found, and watching particular programs one is interested in.

Anyway, if this one ever has kids, she is not going to forbid them to watch whatever. But she'll try to make sure that they have other things to do besides watching TV, and she would try to either watch TV with them or discuss what they had just watched.

edited 11th Nov '11 9:46:55 AM by Beholderess

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

And the Bill of Rights is supposed to be a check on, among other things, the tyranny of the majority. But IIRC, you'd rather ignore that bit, too.

Hail Martin Septim!

The protection from the Tyranny of the majority is a great idea. That never works in practice.

It works considerably better than just vaulting over the guard rail against said tyranny and trusting to the judgment of the elite.

Hail Martin Septim!

Except when the elite have enough money to convince the majority to vote against their own interests.

You might want to work on your grammar, there, Midget. You are saying that it's okay to trust to the judgment of the elite if they have sufficient money to... stop human nature in its tracks, somehow.

I assure you: your elite, the I'm-doing-this-for-your-own-good elite, can fuck things up just as thoroughly.

ETA: See, everyone, instead of going into that incredibly stupid debate, it's just a lot simpler to say, "this government is built a certain way - deal with it."

edited 11th Nov '11 10:12:22 AM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

All this "voting against their own interest" rhetoric is somewhat disturbing for this one. Because just who decides what their interest actually is? Can we dictate to people what they should do because apparently we know what is in their interest better than they do?

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Humans, Doma Doma, are far from perfectly rational actors. And much less so when megacorps control the media. People acting against their own interests is not only possible, but ubiquitous.

It is in one's interest to be as happy and healthy as possible, yes? To have power over your own life? I think that's fairly uncontroversial.

edited 11th Nov '11 10:19:05 AM by Wonderqueer

Well, given the contrast between media coverage of the Tea Party (a random lunatic shot a Congresswoman; clearly the Tea Party is to blame) and media coverage of the Occupy movement (a guy was killed thirty feet from a rally and at least some of the protestors wanted to keep reporters from filming the victim; let's ignore that), I guess the megacorps are acting against their own interests. Wheels within wheels...

edited 11th Nov '11 10:19:32 AM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

It becomes controversial once we start thinking of different ways one can be made happy and healthy. Not to mention that the concepts of what constitutes happiness and health can be different too. For example, should the people who think that homosexuality is a disorder "help" homosexuals to be as healthy as possible?

As for having power over their own life - isn't it exactly what interfering with their voting because one presumes to know what is better for them would deny them?

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Folks who use the phrase "voting against their own interests" suffer from godsized delusions of omniscience.

edited 11th Nov '11 10:29:44 AM by MRDA1981

Enjoy the Inferno...

Yes. The fact that the people must emancipate themselves is the hardest.

Yes, well, forgive me for having some conception of what is good in general for people. I suppose everyone is delusional then.

edited 11th Nov '11 10:33:22 AM by Wonderqueer

Everyone is, to an extent (shrugs). That's why we should be careful to not push our personal delusions to others - they cherish their own.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Thread Hop:I think the negativity of traditional values seem to be overblown these days.Speaking as a conservative,I think traditional values actually can do some good as long as they are reconstructed in a smart and non-bigoted way.

This sounds like the Bible...

This one suspects that if someone manages to reconstruct "traditional" values in a non-bigoted way, it would turn out that liberals also subscribe to most of them

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

I go along with The Bat Pencil's earlier post - "traditional values" is a bit of an empty phrase in itself. Practically everything has been or will be traditional at some point for some society, including cannibalism, infanticide and Coronation Street.

In the US in particular, traditional values is basically a code-word for a particular kind of conservatism, but there's not necessarily an automatic connection. There are lots of people in the UK, for instance, who vote for left wing parties but are patriotic or even admire the Royal Family and even the protestors outside St Paul's respect tradition enough not to want to disrupt the Remembrance Day services. They probably drink a lot of tea as well.

"Well, it's a lifestyle"

By the same token, people who vote against their own interests often suffer from the delusion that they are somehow "different" or "better" than others. Arguing that a person is "voting against their interests" is actually shorthand for "preventing me from moving towards my interests, because you don't seem to understand that we aren't so different." I don't think anyone is trying to dictate what is better for everyone else. Ironically, arguing Not So Different is an attempt to stop that kind of thing from the other side. It's fine if, say a 53 percenter thinks himself too good for welfare, is happy to be working three jobs just to survive, and thinks that bootstrapping works...that's his prerogative. But then, to vehemently press that standard on to everyone else is highly inconsiderate to say the least.

What I've never understood is that it usually seems to work out to this binary...you can either support progressive polices, help a lot of people, and provide for a safety net, should you choose/need to use it, or you can oppose progressive policies, screw a lot of people over, and be completely up the creek should you ever need the "entitlement" in question. A lot of people pick the latter. Are pride, corporate profit, and tax breaks for the wealthy so important?

edited 11th Nov '11 12:13:48 PM by sketch162000

Very few people think that their preferred policies "screw people over".

Sex, Drugs, and Rationality

I like traditional values.

What I meant by "vote against their own interests" is how often people will side with policies that wont actually likely benefit them any way out of some felt moral obligation to vote in line with their party, whether it be liberal or conservative.