Conservatives take away options from women, minoroties and the LGBT community

Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of Moral development has been used to explain the difference between liberals and conservatives on several occasions in this blog.

In Charles  Hampden-Turner's early work, Radical Man,  he equated conventional thinking to conservatism and post-conventional thought to liberalism.

In the graphic, the top two layers of the pyramid are the post conventional levels

The next two levels are conventional. This graphic that follows explains this in more detail.

Conventionals also have two levels and the two levels explain why there is infighting among conservatives. The lower functioning Stage 3 conservatives, which are usually associated with groups, have the social relationship perspective of that peer-group. Most Christian conservatives, Rush Limbaugh ditto-heads, Tea Party and libertarians are Stage 3 conservatives.

The Establishment Conservatives are the big picture Stage 4s who are more focused on law and order and defending the nation-state's values.

Stage 3s and 4s are at odds with each other over the size of government and defence spending. For example, most libertarians are anarchist or minarchist and want the smallest possible government. These groups are also sceptical about defence spending and US military adventurism.

Likewise, the militia are anti-government people who think their function is protect other conservatives from the government.

The Stage 4s want to control the government. For example, GW Bush actually increased the size of government by creating the Department of Homeland Security and by increasing defence spending by 47 per cent. This is why Rush Limbaugh is suspicious of Establishment Republicans.

The Stage 5 post-conventionals view government as a social contract that can be changed.

The founders gave us a legislature to draft new laws that meet the circumstances of the day. This is also why we have democratic traditions in the US that allow people to elect new legislators.

A good way to contrast State 4 and Stage 5 was an article in which the conservative author stated the Second Amendment was in concrete.

The Bill of Rights was an afterthought and it was not in the original US Constitution. The Bill of Rights is actually the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.

Besides that the second amendment being poorly written and ambiguous, the Constitution has a rigorous  amendment process that would allow this amendment to be rescinded. The Establishment Clause or the first amendment could also be rescinded. Nothing in the US legal system is really in concrete.

Of course, many conservatives will argue otherwise and erect granite monuments of the 10 Commandments in front of court houses. Even monuments can be broken into pieces or removed. A man recently rammed a controversial 10 Commandments monument in Oklahoma with an automobile. The Devil made him do it.

Conservatives want to limit options for women, minorities and the LGBT people.
If a women marries an conservative, the husband may try to subordinate her to himself as the biblical head of household. A conservative  state government may deny the women the right to an abortion and birth control. If a man is a gay, the state may deny him the right to marry another man.

Minorities may have their right to vote suppressed by cutting back voting periods, locking bathrooms near polls, deleting voting locations in precincts and by sequestering minority voters into certain districts using gerrymanders. US Congressional Districts 13 and 15 are examples of this.

In Florida, if you commit a felony, you lose your right to vote permanently. "In 2007 Florida moved to restore voting rights to convicted felons. In March 2011, however, Republican Governor Rick Scott reversed the 2007 reforms, making Florida the state with the most punitive law in terms of disenfranchising citizens with past felony convictions."

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement 


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Al Jazeera English: The conservative closet

Columbus, OH - "Ultra-conservatives really love the closet. And no, I'm not just talking in a Larry Craig kind of way. Some of them use it to protect themselves, but many more use it to protect their agenda.

The closet can hide all sorts of truths among its shadows. Americans and any facts about the US that don't fit the right-wing narrative can be disappeared in this enclosed recess - either bullied into silence or simply ignored - and conservatism can continue to prosper. Because, quite frankly, conservatives need a big enough closet to house a combo Imelda Marcos/Carrie Bradshaw shoe collection if they are to continue prospering after the economic, foreign policy and social destruction they have wreaked upon this nation."

Rightardia has written articles about "in the box" conservative sheeple who hold conventional ideas and cannot be confused by the facts.

Lawrence Kolberg's Theory of Moral Development has both conventional and post conventional levels. Conservatives fit neatly into the conventional level of moral development. 

Of interest, postconventional people can understand conventional or conservative thinking because they functioned at the conventional level in the past. 

Conventional people have far more trouble understanding postconventional ideas and often attribute such ideas as being preconventional. 

graphic: http://www.edpsycinteractive.org

See The conservative closet - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

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Bay of Fundie: The difference between liberals and conservatives.

Bill Moyers interviewed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt has a yet unpublished book titled The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. 

Moyers’ intro sums up Haidt’s premise:

Haidt thinks that liberals misunderstand conservatives more than the other way around, and that while conservatives see self-sufficiency as a profound moral value for individuals, liberals are more focused on a public code of care and equity.

Lawrence Kohberg was also a psychologist who developed a theory  of moral development. Kohlberg followed in the footsteps of developmental psychologists like Piaget and Eric Erickson. Kohlberg classified people within three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Each level has two stages.

Charles Hampden-Turner, in his book, Radical Man, equated Kolberg's conventional level with conservatism and post-conventional thinking with liberal thought.

Kohlberg noticed that stage 4 conventionals had problems understanding Stage 5 post-conventional thought. Post-conventional thinkers understand conventional thought but reject many of the ideas as rigid and authoritarian,

Haidt's book describes six foundations. These foundations  are valued differently by liberals and conservatives.

Haidt's Foundations as valued by liberals and conservatives

Stage 4 conventionals have an authority and social-order maintaining orientation based on a law and order morality. Conservatives tends to look at the world as black and white with moral absolutes on homosexuality, abortion and the Bible. This explains why conservatives value loyalty, authority and sanctity more so than post-conventionals.

Because conventionals don't really understand post-conventional thought, they tend to see post-conventional thinkers as pre-conventional Stage 3 instrumentals egoists. Rightardia suspects Haidt is probably a stage 4 conservative.

This is why conservatives often view liberals as thugs, anarchists  trouble-makers. The Occupy movement is a good example. Yet more than half of the demonstrators are independents.

When Andrew Breitbart encountered some of the Occupy demonstrators, he became highly agitated and kept yelling, "you behave" over and over. This is because conservatives expect people to be conformist and adhere to their their pre-conceived nations of behavior.

Rightardia thinks Kohlberg offers a better explanation for the political divide in the US because he provides developmental approach. Haidt's moral concerns are arbitrary laundry list of abstract terms that he uses to contrast liberals and conservatives.

Rightrdia has mentioned scientists have discovered cognitive differences in liberals and conservatives. Liberals have larger corpus callosums. The corpus callosum is the largest white matter structure in the brain,

Self-proclaimed right-wingers have a more pronounced amygdala. This is a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion.

Haidt seems to fall into the trap that liberals and conservatives are just different sides of the same coin. Rightardia thinks there are intellectual differences between liberal and conservatives and this may be caused by brain structure and strikingly different intellects.

source: http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/

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