Hard right, hard religious, hard anything policies

[Aerows]

It occurred to me today that I honestly wonder why anyone would take hard, divisive issues and hardline stances against things like civil rights, women's rights and anything in general that most of the population goes "meh" about.

It's like these people are stuck in a loop where they have to be hard on the poor, hard on women, hard on minorities, hard on seniors, and ... surprise, easy on themselves.

Why are they entitled to be so easy on themselves? Are you telling me that a 49 year old woman has the same job opportunity as a 30 year old man that works in manufacturing?

I guess she should get a 30 year old man to make the money. Or a 50 year old heart attack waiting to have a heart attack fat dude that screams get me a beer and make me dinner.

That's pretty much the vision of a lot of white men, dear. Ugly, disrespectful, and has just enough power over you to put you in situations that you can't get out of poverty, disrespect and being in said persons power. You'd do a lot better by telling him to fuck off and utilizing resources to get out of that lifestyle.

GOTV - No matter how beautiful you are, it won't ever be better under a Republican.

[YoungDemCA]

1. Status anxiety

Mr. Hofstadter points to the fundamental rootlessness and heterogeneity of U.S. society, and the "peculiar scramble for status and [the] peculiar search for secure identity" that those qualities inspire. Without, say, a traditional class system - a "recognizable system of status," in Mr. Hofstadter's words - Americans suffer from "status anxiety." During times of great social flux, these fears play out in politics as people seek out enemies (which helps them reaffirm their own standing) and, at the same time, damn a social order they feel they can't dominate.

It's not a stretch to say that the election of the first black president, as well as the deep economic recession, have challenged Americans' sense of self. That a resulting status anxiety would play itself out on the right more than the left may have to do with the right's general discomfort with the kind of collective identities - unions, ethnics, gender - that the left tends to embrace. Instead of finding affiliations to secure their status, the right's "rugged individualists" get mired in the type of anomie that in turn increases the need to reaffirm one's place in a topsy-turvy world.

The personal, deeply vituperative tone of the debate over health care reform seems to suggest that Americans' anger is not just about whether a "public option" is part of a reform package. The fear is less about encroaching socialism than it is about getting lost and forgotten in a rapidly changing society. Change isn't slowing down, and the bad news is that these feelings of losing control are not likely to go away any time soon.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-09-08/news/0909070025_1_buckley-conservatism-resentment

Bolding mine.

Now that historically (and in many cases, currently) disenfranchised groups of Americans-women, the LGBT community, racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities, the poor, immigrants-are asserting their own rights through various social and political means, the historically privileged groups-groups largely consisting of white, straight, Christian men-are freaking out.

Globalization, and all the changes that it brings with it-technological change, automation, outsourcing, immigration, population displacement, community loss-are also freaking people out. And the people who were, relatively speaking, privileged under the old order, are the ones who are the most scared.

Whether we like it or not, the rate of change is accelerating. What are we going to do about it?

[grasswire]

2. do you have a link for the quoted material?

Interesting analysis.

Shorter version: more non-white babies were born this year than white babies.

[YoungDemCA]

3. Whoops...

Thanks, edited it.

[Aerows]

4. There is a sense of impending doom

among white male "evangelicals" and I put them in quotes because they are neither religious, believers, or anything but people that see religion as useful. And there should be, because society isn't composed of a singular sect of people anymore, and it is breaking their ability to control. Next, we'll take all of their money and power, and they will shit their pants.