On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:31:06 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Or is it merely a very vocal minority?
>>
>> Yes, unfortunately, one that manages somehow to wield political power
>> in order to advance their agenda.
> 
> I wonder how many people *actually* believe this insanity vs how many
> just go along with it because it benefits them.

Now *that* is a good question.  There are many followers of the 
Republican party that I know of who think the religious fundamentalist 
whackjobs are out of their minds, but they want fiscal conservatism and 
the only way to get that (that they can see) is to vote for the religious 
fundamentalist whackjobs because the alternative are those "pinko-commie-
socialist liberals" in the Democratic party.

That's how the whackjobs get into power - they have their loony ideas 
about science, but they at least *look good* on paper when it comes to 
fiscal responsibility (though in reality, they're really no better than 
the Democrats in most cases) or they appeal to the social conservatives 
for their stands on things like abortion and gay marriage.

Many people who vote Republican tend to vote on a single (or small number 
of issues), whereas liberals tend to vote more on 'big picture' (which 
has the unfortunate side effect of being very difficult to articulate, so 
often they get votes because they're *not* Republicans more than 
anything, I think).

>>> (I don't know about crazy, but all the American people that I've
>>> personally met have been notably stupid. Given the tiny sample size,
>>> that's not terribly significant, however...)
>>
>> You've met several up here (though not in person which is what I
>> suspect you mean), but you should know better by now than to make
>> generalisations about a society where you have a very small sample
>> size.  If you don't, it's time that you learned that lesson.
> 
> That would be why I tossed in "not terribly significant".

Fair point. :)

Jim

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