Thursday, April 12, 2012

Who Are The Likely Anti- Totalitarians?

I have to disagree with this fellow's suggestion that religious folks are most likely to oppose totalitarianism in government. I think it's a bit simplistic, if anything.

My own experience has been that most folks support big government so long as it's run by those they like. For instance, you won't hear much complaining about the Obama administration by Democrats and you won't hear much complaint of the Bush administration by Republicans.

I've also notice a disturbing trend where more and more people assume government should be involved in every aspect of people's lives simply because it already is. Those kind of people won't be any help.

I've wrote here not long ago that lefties nearly always tend to lean totalitarian (or authoritarian, depending on how you use the terms). I still think that's true, but the bottom line is most groups of people- with the exception of philosophical libertarians- seem generally willing to put up with any sort of government involvement in their lives if it's done under the auspices of their own fraternal politics. I can't see how religion mixes into the equation at all.
*****
As an aside, this couldn't help but remind me of something that took place some years ago.

A guy came over to my house briefly. He's a fairly well know local Republican. I consider him among the "Religious Right", and have told him so. I was on the computer dealing with some political stuff at the time and came up with the idea of having him take the World's Smallest Political Quiz.

While I knew he was at the least fairly conservative, I was hoping maybe he'd score up in the Libertarian area of the quiz. Perhaps that might open some doors with him and pull him a bit from his conservative roots.

It didn't work. He began scoring Authoritarian from question #1. He was about half way through his way to scoring completely Authoritarian when I gave an excuse to quit the test and we moved on. It would have been contrary to the purpose of me having him take the test only to have him identify himself as an authoritarian so why continue?

That's at least part of the reason I had a hard time going along with the idea that religious folks are most likely to oppose totalitarian governments.
Link

3 Comments:

At 9:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fred, there is a MASSIVE amount of complaining about Obama from progressives. That you are unaware of it simply shows that you don't explore ideas that venture too far from your comfort zone.

That said, given the two choices at hand, there's no question we'll be voting for Obama against Romney. At this point, I'm just thankful the world has been spared a Santorum reign.

 
At 9:54 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Maybe so. I'm sure some are upset over civil liberties related stuff, maybe even military interventions, but even if he attacks Iran the Left will mostly stick with him.

I feel safe in saying that most "progressive" complaints against Obama is because he hasn't been big government enough.

 
At 2:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've also notice a disturbing trend where more and more people assume government should be involved in every aspect of people's lives simply because it already is. Those kind of people won't be any help.


*These are mostly people who play the game of conjuring government to provide services for free or less(subsidized lifestyles) because people know they can get it. On the flip, government uses the opportunity to grow, grow and grow in size and services...thus taxes go-up or need to go-up because more and more is wasted.

It is sinisterism by most who steal tax dollars for a low level lifestyle that is acceptible for the thief who cares not to advance anywhere in life because the free stuff being subsidized is enough to be content with........this is what alot of hardworking people don't understand or are not aware of - it is NOT that the handout types can't work for it in most cases (we can mostly agree that thiefs can work for their own keep), it is that they don't care to live a lifestyle that mandates the person must work more and more to pay for the more and more expensive lifestyle.......

that is a reason too why street people may be better prepared for the major change in society when any "big event" destabalizes our everyday routines.....maybe that is how the national debt will just go away, disappear,kmow one cares any longer, etc.....maybe why politicians in majority still play the game the way they do.....waiting for disaster to strike so as to let 'em off the hook!

HOJ

 

Post a Comment

<< Home