How can anyone with AS be a conservative?

Post Reply New Topic

I like the irony in the thread title and OP; presuming that aspies would default to liberalism because it's in their personal self interest to do so. So, a conservative aspie must be thinking of the greater good when they choose that ideology because it doesn't make sense any other way? Needless to say I'm certain that our board liberals would vigorously contest this interpretation, but it was a ridiculous question in the first place.

Ignoring your idiotic fallacy of composition, the people in Europe who first argued in favor of religious freedom, and the absence of state involvement in religious matters, were Christian.

Faith, and living one's faith by charity and love of one's neighbor is far more important than the display of symbols.
Also, it should be remembered that many of the early Protestants removed public displays of Christianity - more so Calvin, Zwingli, and the Anabaptists than Luther and Cramer. And it was even Luther who had advocated that marriage be stripped of it's religious sanctity, and be turned into a civil matter. And I doubt anyone is going to doubt their Christian sincerity.
And actually, the reason why so many Christian symbols have been stripped from schools and the public square is because we are such a diverse country, where not everyone are Christians. Are they supposed to be relegated top second class citizenship? And what of different Christian confessions? I'm a Lutheran, and I hardly want my daughter to be instructed in Baptist or Pentecostal theology in school.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Following Raptor's logic that the only way to be a good believer is to whine until you're beliefs are plastered over various buildings, I cannot wait until Muslims demand that Sharia principles be inscribed at state legislatures, Wiccans start demanding their Rede put on the walls of Congress, and LaVeyan Satanists start demandings passages from the Satanic Bible go up on City Halls across the nation. Given how economically conservative LaVeyan Satanism is, though, I'm sure some rightwingers will support that.

I really have a severely difficult time imagining what type of inane reasoning goes on in the minds of Fundie Christian rightwingers.

Uh oh, sounds like that infamous lack of empathy thing I keep hearing Aspies have trouble with...

I gotta tell you - - I find myself wondering what motivates fundies, too. Especially when their right wing secular ideology is passed off as Christian theology.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Well, I was mostly joking there, but since you asked...

I'm going to assume you mean religious fundamentalists, but the same general principle can be applied to ideological fanatics as well. It really boils down to the unwavering conviction that you are not just RIGHT, but so clearly, obviously, and unarguably RIGHT that anyone who opposes you doesn't merely hold a different opinion, but must know that they are WRONG and are maliciously pursuing their WRONG agenda for personal gain or because they're just plain evil.

How does a person get to that point? Indoctrination is one way, if all you're taught from a young age is one way of thinking as the unvarnished truth and everything else is wrong, you face an uphill battle in admitting contradictory information, it's easier to reject it out of hand than admit your whole system might be built on sand.

Peer pressure is another, if your entire community believes in this way and both reinforces the beliefs and inoculates against outside ideas (wicked outsides will try to tell you that you're wrong, don't be fooled!), it can be very hard to reject the resulting framework. Note again that this is not exclusive to religious zealots. I live in Seattle, and let me tell you, it is very hard to be "out" with personal non-liberal politics here, it's just assumed that they're right and correct and people act incredibly surprised if you say differently. The constant reinforcement makes it very easy to get intellectually lazy, and the ostracism you face for publicly stepping out of line is really quite daunting.

I think Aspies can be prone to it because we do have a tendency to be black and white, while reality is much more gray. Being a zealot, whether a political partisan or a religious crusader certainly makes thinking simple, everything is clear cut and people are either with you or against you.

Getting back to my original point, true empathy would be recognizing that even people holding seemingly foolish and/or harmful beliefs most likely came by them honestly and really do mean well, but were led astray at some point. Empathy is being able to see things from someone else's perspective, and aside from the humanistic part, being able to do this is a great debate skill because it allows you to anticipate and counter an argument before it's even made. See, it's win/win, you gain a better understanding of your fellow man, and become better at arguing with him too.

So true. It's just hard to be sympathetic or empathetic toward people who think I'm going to hell just because I haven't been baptized as an adult, or haven't had a born again experience. Or think that just because I believe in evolution, I'm damned to hell. I could go on and on about how they piss me off.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

True, it's not easy, but the right things seldom are. I have unusual personal experience in the area; I grew up in liberal Seattle with liberal friends, went to gunsmithing school in in Denver with an almost entirely conservative student body and made friends there as well, and married a woman who self describes as borderline-socialist. I suppose someone could fake their way through such a series of experiences by hiding their own beliefs from one group or another, but I've never been able to keep my mouth shut about stuff like that. I quickly figured out that most people are pretty friendly if shown a little respect, and that ideology and religion have a lot less bearing on day to day life than many people think. Sometimes I think I missed my calling as a social anthropologist, I'm always fascinated by different ways of life, especially subcultures.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm much closer to Ruveyn when it comes to what I think of as unambiguously evil deeds and the people who do them. Those judges in Pennsylvania who where selling kids to private prisons? Forget years in prison, I want millimeters in the head, nine in particular. However, I reserve that kind of anger for people who do wrong, not people who think wrong or advocate wrong. If I didn't filter like that, I'd be angry all the time, and that's no way to live.

150 years ago the religious right was so conservative that they endorsed slavery claiming a biblical justification. Although slavery in the Bible was limited to 6 years the religious right claimed that since Black people were Africans, therefore foreigners, that they could be legally enslaved for life. What the religious right failed to realize is that anyone born in this country is an American and if this is not so why were the European immigrants, who were indentured servants, not enslaved for life?

As of now, you're probably my favorite WP conservative. Sorry Ruveyn and Inuyasha. But seriously, you seem like a cool guy.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Those of us who are conservative are obviously not the "high functioning" autistics. Some "low-functioning" autistics, who watch Fox News, also post here.

Fanks and beans!! Fanks and beans!!

So you do oppose taxation....also you're not freaking superior just because your a conservative and you think taxation and then using the taxes for public services is stealing....and that conservatives are automatically morally superior...I think you tend to be a good example of someone who has the need to feel superior.

Especially when you feel the need to tell a severely depressed person they have given up and you haven't even though they have not killed themself. Not to bring up anything from the past but you do like to say very nasty things to people and then just move on like it never happened and you are trying to argue conservatives like yourself are morally superior?

Dox47 wrote:

For those MF'ers a 9mm in the head is too gentle. I’m thinking more along the lines of soaking them in gasoline and lighting them up.


Kraichgauer wrote:


You’re the one that initially implied that someone well versed in the bible couldn’t be a conservative.

My response:


I only said that most of the religious people I’ve known were conservative. I do not know or claim to know all conservatives or religious people and never have.

But whatever, if you want to insist that I stirred the hornets nest on this religious vs. political affiliation sub-thread I could care less. It’s become apparent that this forum is all about strife and mudslinging.

Yes sir Mexican cartel style