You're the one who's quoting it - I want to know where in the bible it is?  If you can't provide that information, then it probably isn't in the bible.

" but that her philosophy rejects Judeo-Christianity while his embraces it. That "the Lord helps those who help themselves" doesn't include helping themselves to a permanent posting to dependency, not at all, not at all."

What part of the bible or Christian teachings does this quote come from?

    Political campaigns do not follow Christian principles.   There's no turning the other cheek by either side. - jazzy

Hey, you were the one who brought Christianity/Atheism into the picture, not me. You stated that Alinsky was more in alignment with American's views (Christianity). I cited his tactics. It sounds like you agree with Alinsky that the ends justify the means. Since you agree with Alinsky's ends, you don't have a problem with his means. I don't agree with that and it is most definitely NOT Christian.

As far as I know, we were not talking about Lee A****er type tactics, were we? If we are now doing so,  I'd agree his tactics are not Christian either. I'm not a believer in the ends justifying the means.

We were talking about Alinsky/Rand. What I know of Rand does not include any ends justifying the means type tactics, since her philosophy is al about the individual.

 

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.

Ayn Rand

The Virtue of Selfishness

The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems,' and 'organizations must be based on many issues.' The organizer 'must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent. - Alinsky

Coming full circle now to some of the topics in the current discussion, the liberal and conservative applications of moral foundations (individual vs community focus) and the cognitive styles which follow from each application (analytical vs holistic cognitive styles), I believe, are reflected in both many of the views on either side on topics such as gay “marriage,” religion, and social issues in general, and are reflected even in the current discussion on this board.

For example, liberals tend to think in the following way not just about religions, but about many social issues. They tend to…

treat religions as sets of beliefs about the world, many of which are demonstrably false.

But conservatives, on the other hand, tend to see the issues in terms of their effect on the community as a whole, more like the way anthropologists and sociologists interpret religion.

Yet anthropologists and sociologists who study religion stress the role of ritual and community much more than of factual beliefs about the creation of the world or life after death.

In essence, the liberal morality says that if there's “no harm” to the individual then there's “no foul,” and the conservative morality says, “but there’s more to it than just that, the wider effect, the message which is sent to the community by (the liberal view of fill in the blank social issue) has a deep and profound impact on society and culture, which, for the greater good, must also be considered.”

The reason/experience difference between liberal and conservative thought styles can also be seen as the difference between analytical and holistic thinking. This has been corroborated by social science research. For example:

In five studies with more than 3,000 participants, we found that liberals think more analytically (an element of WEIRD* thought) than moderates and conservatives—even in China. We found that social liberals had more analytic perception in the framed-line task (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003) and categorized objects more analytically on the triad task, which asks participants to categorize a group of objects based on either abstract categories or intuitive relation (Ji, Zhang, & Nisbett, 2004). Social politics predicted thought style much better than economic and overall political identity. Studies 4 and 5 showed that briefly training people to think analytically made them form a more liberal opinion on welfare, whereas training them to think holistically made them form a more conservative opinion.

*WEIRD = Wstern, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD). In this study, we show that liberals think WEIRDer than conservatives.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2111700

The concepts of positive and negative liberty, and, I believe, many other of the differences between liberals and conservatives, can be traced to the foundational principles upon which each builds their sense of right and wrong; their morality.

Evolution has created in each of us six foundations of morality.

Three of those foundations are focused on the individual; they are care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression. These are considered the “individualizing” foundations.

Three of the foundations are focused on binding individuals together into groups, they are loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. These are the “binding” foundations.

Liberalism is based largely on the individualizing foundations, and of those mostly care.

Conservatism is based on balancing the individualizing foundations against the binding foundations.

Remember, these are trends and tendencies, averages in the aggregate, not mutually exclusive, black-or-white, either-or distinctions. Examples can be found of both sides focusing on, or using, the foundations of the other, but at bottom the two moralities are essentially as I described them here.

A lot of the discussion about the differences between liberals and conservatives seems to focus on only the surfaces of the issues. The reall differences lie underneath the surface.

For example, a lot of the material in Jazzy's recent posts seems reasonable. We all value freedom, equality, justice, rights, and caring for one another.

The differences are revealed upon examination of how each side seeks to achieve those things.

Liberals tend to want to MAKE people equal, free, caring, etc.

Conservatives tend to want to ALLOW people to be equal, free, caring, etc.

In that distinction is all the difference in the world.

RE: I'm not getting your reason/experience theory, winchester. To me it's more like liberals base their views on feelings. (Oh, there is poverty, we need to DO SOMETHING about it -- anything, so we'll feel better, if it doesn't really work, at least it shows we care). I would go with feelings/experience, or emotion/reason.


Think of it this way, you're walking with a friend through a museum neither of you has ever been in. You round a corner and see a painting for the first time, and you instantly say "Oh, I like that." Your friend asks "What is it about the painting that you like?" Only then do you use reason to come up with an explanation or justification for your intuitive like or dislike about the painting.

Your initial reaction to the painting is your intuition, your "feeling" about the painting. Everyone has this. It is not a liberal thing or a conservative thing, it is a human thing. Evolution has placed in each of us an instant, visceral, gut-level, instinctive, intuitive, reaction to like or dislike, approach or avoid, fight or flee, the things we see in the world around us. This is your emotional reaction to it to the painting.

Your explanation, your rationale, as to why you like it is your "reason." And just like with feelings, "reason" is not a liberal or conservative thing, it is a human thing. Reson evolved to defend and promote our intutions.

So in this sense, "feelings/experience", or "emotion/reason" are kind of apples/oranges comparisons.


The real root differences between liberals and conservatives lie in the foundations upon which our "feelings" and our "reason" rest.


The liberal intuition is based mostly on caring for the individual. It is based almost exclusively on a "feeling" of empathy towards others. When Clinton famously said, "I feel your pain" he captured the essence of liberalism in four words. I think that might be what you're getting at.

The conservative "feeling", on the other hand, is based on balancing the needs of the individual with the needs of the coummunity.

If, metaphorically speaking, humans were like bees in a hive, then liberalism would focus almost most entirely on the autonomy and health of the bees, and conservatism would focus not only on the bees, but on the hive as well, recognizing it as an entity in itself that also needs care and protection, because without a healthy hive it would be literally impossible for there to be healthy bees and concerns on their behalf would be moot.


The rational arguments each side uses to defend and promote its feelings rest on the exact same foundations. Liberal arguments, liberal "reason," is constructed mostly in terms of care/harm, fairness/cheating, and liberty/oppression, otherwise known as the "individualizing" foundations, whereas conservative "reason" is constructed on those AND on loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation,or an equal balance between the individualizing and the binding (i.e., community based) foundations.;



For more on this, see the following articles by a liberal social scientist who is making a career out of studying, understanding, and explaining these differences:

"What makes people vote Republican?"

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html


and

"Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion"

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html


-- Edited by winchester on Sunday 19th of August 2012 12:50:22 PM

 

"My only fixed truth is a belief in people, a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions."

(Alinsky in an interview with Playboy, 1972.)

 Asked if he ever considered joining the Communist Party, he answered:

 

Not at any time. I've never joined any organization—not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism.

One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.'

If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.

I'm not on my own computer right now, so internet searches are tough.   Besides, I'm not about to plow through Atlas Shrugged so I can use the quotes of characters in the book to illustrate Rand's philosophy ---- it's just too time consuming.

I do assert, though, that it's clear which of these two individuals adheres more closely to the majority held views espoused by Judeo-Christian teachings and which one does not.     And to that point, I add the question:   if the majority of Americans would side with Rand as the better role model, why did Paul Ryan go from making her books required reading for his staff a few years ago  to disavowing her altogether just as he becoming prominent on the national stage?    

I say it's because the majority of Americans would not embrace her unChristian point of view and would be more likely to embrace the person whose life's work is helping people with little power in society organize so they can assert themselves against the more powerful forces in society.    But that's me.

     

God (if he exists) has weighed scores of humans with much heavier burdens than being gay. It's the human condition.

Some of us are quicker than others! It took me thirty years. I was one of the twelve people who voted for McGovern. The funny thing was that in college I was conservative (really odd in that era), then switched when I saw Watergate coming. There was progressive work to be done in the '70's--problem was the liberal solutions didn't work. In the '80's and '90's I was too busy raising my kids to care about politics, but Clinton/Lewinsky and what I saw happening in the public schools with my kids finally turned me around in 2000. Well, better late than never!

Now, see, you're starting in with the spin......placing all the blame on Great Society programs for why we're "broke" as though waging wars on distant foreign lands while simultaneously cutting taxes had absolutely nothing to do with it.

No, rationalizations that Iraq's the reason we're facing Taxaggedon aside, we've spent the farm on war before and survived pretty well.

Social spending is the cliff, and the question would be which philosophy - Rand's or Alinsky's - could be argued as most responsible for how close we are to it.

 

I have time tonight, but I doubt you will want to play this game.  

 

 

 

Okie dokie, here's a list of top 25 Ayn Rand quotes:

http://listverse.com/2007/12/13/top-25-ayn-rand-quotes/

I'm sure everyone knows that Alan Greenspan and Ron Paul are also huge fans?

You can supply the Alinsky quotes, jazzy.

  Is an honest examination of "results" versus intentions possible given the subjectivity, rewriting of history, and outright spin that would be involved?

  In my fantasy experiment, we would strip the identities of both so no names attached and then lay out the facts of their lives and work, accomplishments and personal philosophies,  thoughts and opinions as stated in their own words and their points of view about what kind of society America should strive to be.   With the hot-button names removed, I stand by my prediction of whom the majority of Americans would choose to be a powerful influence on national leadership.

  Keep in mind I'm talking about a national majority, not a Texas majority. :)

Well, I would tend to believe PR has more conviction and more believable than MR, who I find to be wishywashy, stiff, blueblood trying to be a redneck, flipflopper, and who is hiding something about his wealth gotten by a favorable tax code.  And what MR is hiding, reminds me of W's 'missing' National Guard service records and W's reasons for War, and Bill's definition of sex. 

-- Edited by longprime on Saturday 18th of August 2012 09:53:01 PM

Rand had some interesting views:

Ethical standards: Objectivism holds that ethics is objective and factual; the standard of moral value is that which furthers the survival of man as a rational being. Objectivism rejects the view that ethics is a matter of opinion, that right and wrong are determined by social convention, ethnicity, personal preference or religious commandment.

There's so much there - win some with the rejection of relative mores but lose them with the the idea religion isn't an objective codification, win and lose others for the exactly opposite reason.

Morality: Objectivism holds that every individual is an end in himself—which means that each individual should be selfish, should live by his own mind and for his own happiness, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. Objectivism rejects the view that an individual’s moral worth is determined by his altruistic service to society, the needy, the nation or some deity.

Catch a lot of libertarians but lose some of the religous.

Politics: Objectivism holds that capitalism is the only moral social system and that the only proper purpose of government is the protection of an individual’s right to life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. Objectivism rejects the collectivist view that government exists to further the “common good,” the will of the majority or any particular group (e.g., the working class); and, unlike libertarianism, it rejects the view that government is evil by nature

Really strong stuff. Maybe the last bit might pull in a few leaning "it takes a village" but...

-- Edited by catahoula on Saturday 18th of August 2012 08:14:01 PM

I especially liked 9, 17 and 22 of those quotes, hope.  

I have read a good portion of Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" back in the day, when I was a budding left wing radical.   My history professor and mentor was a HUGE fan.  So, I found what jazzy said is pretty dang amusing.

Here are a few of Alinsky's quote that made me howl with something far beyond admiration.

“Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.”

“Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer. ” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

“Love and faith are not common companions. More commonly power and fear consort with faith....Power is not to be crossed; one must respect and obey. Power means strength, whereas love is a human frailty the people mistrust. It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

“To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

“The sit-down strikers began to worry about the illegality of their action and the why and wherefore, and it was then the chief of all C.I.O. organizers, Lewis, gave them their rationale. He thundered, 'The right to a man's job transcends the right of private property! The C.I.O. stands squarely behind these sit-downs!' The sit-down strikers at GM cheered.” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

“Last guys don't finish nice.”

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends...the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom--Lucifer.” “In the beginning the organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems.” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. “Those who are most moral are farthest from the problem.” ― Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

I have never read Ayn Rand.  However, based on just a handful of quotes, I wouldn't say the winner is Alinsky.  

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Saturday 18th of August 2012 06:20:08 PM

I hope you don't stop, Jazzy.  You're a worthy "adversary."  There is always something to learn from your posts.  But I know what you mean about the time suck that this can become!

I don't know. I don't understand why politics should dictate positions in social issues. Seems like the Republican way (freedom for all), would point towards not interfering or trying to control social behavior.

I agree with you, Hindoo. I am glad that jazzy hasn't given up with arguing, because it does give a different perspective that does make one think about things. Though I may take issue with it being the "good fight", it's good to hear from others that you disagree with, because it makes you think about your own biases. And I agree with romani too, in that I wish the Republican party would move in a different direction socially, or at least disconnect from those issues (that is, if that's what she is saying).

Jazzy,

You stand pretty much alone here, but I enjoy watching you fight the good fight. Keep it up.