You are a proud member of a group. Your group believes in living a virtuous life and spreading those beliefs onto the non-believers. The leaders of your group constantly announce viewpoints that you should live by. They recently told everyone that whenever you want to toast bread your toaster should be set to the highest level, and you will always be assured that your toast will come out perfect. Not under done nor burnt. You enthusiastically follow this new directive. Every day you have a piece of toast for breakfast. You are confused because now every day your toast comes out burnt. You go to the group leaders looking for help. You are told that the directive is correct but maybe the ambient temperature in your kitchen is causing the issue. Or maybe you are just using the wrong type of bread. Regardless of the refinements that you make the result is always the same – burnt toast. This latest failed directive reminds you of other directives from the leaders that have yielded outcomes that are not what was guaranteed. At this point you need to decide whether you want to flee the group and live in reality or take a leap of faith and continue following the group directives. Many will remain as group members because it gives meaning to their lives. In just a short time they will convince themselves that the toast is actually not burnt and live the rest of their lives happily eating burnt toast convincing themselves that it just perfect.
We spend too much time with allegiance to political parties and individual politicians. It is always about policies and the provable outcomes of those policies.
This seems like an anti Christian parable. At least anti conservative.
Edit: sorry guys, I thought a post on c/conservative was trying to support conservatives. Apparently that was wrong
"Don't blindly follow leaders when they're clearly not leading you anywhere good."
"Hey, that sounds anti-conservative!"
Keep going. You're almost there.
Don’t follow leaders, and watch your parking meters. —Bob Dylan
It's certainly anti-traditionalist: it's clearly displaying how the traditions are false.
Look at how many elections the conservative faction in the united states lost because of their deranged obsession with opposing trans people and asserting the existence of some fabled trans """iDeoLoGy""". The projection is THICK.
The funny thing about "the other side" is that very, VERY few of the people voting for the "liberals" are ever terribly fond of liberalism nor interested in defending liberalism. They just don't want people in office who will ban their books; force women and girls to carry teratomas to term, let ectopic germ cell embeds rupture their fallopian tubes and shred their internal organs, or give birth to the babies of the men who RAPED them; arm domestic terrorists who enjoy shooting up their schools, churches, and grocery stores; and let cops kill their pets and family members with consequence-free impunity and "qualified immunity".
Not that the liberals even promised to FIX any of this shit; they merely did not profess a support of it. You don't vote "liberal" because you trust or believe them, but because you no longer trust or believe anyone. You don't vote "liberal" because you LIKE them, but because the conservatives FUCKING HATE YOU and take every opportunity to take away your freedom and make your way of life illegal. You don't vote "liberal" because you're drinking kool-aid, but because you're DONE drinking kool-aid.
You don't vote "liberal" because you'd EVER blindly follow their instructions about how to make toast at all, let alone attempt the mental gymnastics that this toast must not be burnt because you followed those instructions; People vote "liberal" because they're fucking sick and tired of being shovel-fed burnt toast and being told by the conservatives that this disgusting charcoal masquerading as bread is 'god's plan', 'patriotic', 'owns the libs', and undermines the 'woke agenda'.
Just because you like barely brown toast, it doesn't mean all the dark toast enjoyers are bullshitting about it just to fuck with you.
Yougotthejoke.jpg
It is not anti anything specific. It simply points out that if you follow any ideology that consistently does not produce a solution to a problem it might be time to rethink your position. In everyday life we see many things getting worse than they were. We are then told that those bad outcomes are not due to bad policies, but to various other factors that have nothing to do with the issue. This is a complete generalization but is seems to me that conservatives more than other groups deal with outcomes and not policies that simply make them feel good about themselves.
That sounds like textbook in-group bias. Do you have any evidence that conservatives deal more with outcomes instead of feelings? Because if not, you’re literally doing what you claim is wrong.
No and that is why I characterized it as a generalization.
It’s not a generalization, it’s speculation. At least until you provide evidence.
I mean -- Gestures broadly at everything conservatives support
I don't particularly like to use boring tropes. But in some cases they fit too well to avoid.
I mean, conservatives have a pretty solid track record of fighting against the science in favor of their opinions:
You’re right — I see a disturbing pattern here. Across a great diversity of topics, Republicans support policies that directly contradict the research.
Fine.
Both have costs and benefits, which I've never seen a conservative deny. Republicans have different value weightings than whoever you're comparing it to. They are scientifically proven to have certain benefits. They are also scientifically proven to have certain costs. Republicans weigh those costs more heavily and the benefits more lightly than others.
Your comment is about science. Legal scrutiny is not science.
Are government massacres concurrent with civilian weapons bans considered in these homicide numbers, or is it only citizen-on-citizen crime that's counted here?
I’m always willing to listen to counter arguments, if they are supported by peer reviewed studies. Got any recorded evidence for your claims?
If you think that, then maybe it's time to take a step back and think about how and why you got to that conclusion.
The thought process comes from seeing conservatives and Christians largely align on issues that seem, to me, to be based more on what their leaders are saying rather than critical thinking. As an example, I don't think many of them would even be considering trans restrictions if they weren't fed "grooming" rhetoric. As another glaring example, did you see that recent poll with conservatives being more trusting of what Trump says vs their own families? Best link I could find quickly. So no, I don't see any problems with my conclusion.
that is a very sound and logic conclusion.
not it's time to think about how this conclusion should inmpact your actions.
will you try to combat this and fix the conservative political landscape?
Not exactly like trump is a great person to trust, but tbf, friends and family can be stupid as hell
Weird, I thought it was anti-fascist...
Isn't that what I said?
It can realistically be anti-any ideological position
It's against the whole notion of basing your perceptions on your desire to fit in, i.e. of making any ideology fundamental to your social identity.
Why would someone try to support to prolong delusion and not attempt to rescue them?
Take defunding police as an example. Everywhere this has been done crime has significantly increased. Yet that basic correlation of less police equals more crime is denied. Other non relevant factors are given as to why we have a spike in crime. If you desire to remain part of a group because you believe it gives your life meaning is strong enough you will reject the undeniable facts and believe the delusion. And it is ironic that some of the comments posted here seem to be from people who don't even realize that the original premise is about them and anyone who simply toes the line of the group rather than evaluating if a policy that they endorse actually works.
I'm interested in the data behind police budgets and crime in recent years if you've got a good source.
Source: he’s pretty sure he read it in a magazine or on website somewhere a while back.
See also: his butt
though I'm sure it exists I do not have a link to specific data. but I did see something just the other day about Austin, Texas. It showed basically a cut of one third in funding and approximately a doubling in crime. But the specific percentages are not critical because this is a common sense issue. Less cops more crime. Then add to it that in cities that do defund the remaining police force realizes that the city administration does not "have their back" while they are doing their job. So police there are less inclined to do their job because they fear the possible illogical retribution for simply doing their job.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
My source: Trust me bro.
Okay so please provide evidence
This is not anti-Conservative nor anti-Christian. It's anti-groupthink.
Those are largely synonyms, especially the Christian part
Christians all think the same? Why are there literal wars between different sects of Christianity then?
From what I can tell, most Christians take whatever their church leader says at face value. As well American evangelicals more broadly and more extremely.