The liberal machine runs on emotion. But what is the solution?

If you are anything other than a liberal (whatever other political ideology moves you) you might have noticed (if you've looked closely) that the fuel that the liberal engine runs on is emotion. Typically fear, anger and sorrow. Whenever they want to energize their base, you can expect some kind of an emotional preface just before the sales pitch. Almost always, this comes in the form of a sad story. There is almost always a villain and a victim. The villain is usually the guy who doesn't want the big government solution they're selling. The victim is almost always the most sympathetic figure you could possibly imagine. But you don't need your imagination for this because you've no doubt seen this pattern repeat itself often enough to know what to expect.

So, that's the easy part (believe it or not). Just noticing a pattern and spelling it out is easy enough when you've been watching liberals for a few decades. Unfortunately, there's a hard part. They didn't choose this tactic as their go to political strategy for nothing. It works! And it works extremely well. They always know that all they really need to do is to present one of these sob stories to a vulnerable audience.

What's the really hard part? Once they get vulnerable people feeling more than they're thinking, it's extremely difficult to argue with them. You cannot simply explain to them the fact that they are the victim of an emotional exploit. That kind of common sense bounces right off of someone who's crying their eyes out over some sad story that caused them to turn their brains off.

So the question is this. Is there any way to get through to these people? Will we ever come up with a strategy that works against this dirty trick?

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Right because Conservatives don't use fear, anger and sorrow to energize their base?

--Gun Control
-Abortion
--Religion

All of these use, on one level or another the whole America is no longer a Christian nation as their argument.

That's fear and sorrow and anger.

I could point out HUNDREDS of examples of Conservatives using FEAR in order to drive an agenda.

War in Iraq
Patriot Act
FEMA
Drug War
Same Sex Marriage
Abortion
Evolution ( education)

The list goes on and on.

Sorry boss, try again though.

( and FYI, I'm a conservative too )

Politically speaking , any of today's elected officials, save a few, are the same people wearing different colors. Most Conservatives are just liberals who have been fooled into thinking that what they support is a Conservative principle when it's actually not.

Most liberals think they are winning people's freedoms and 'rights' when in fact they are tearing them away from others.

No side is better than the other today, because in all honesty you are all the same people. Just confused and un-educated about what the hell is going on in the world at large.

Present company excluded ofcourse.

~Tenth

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: BrianFlanders

Right because Conservatives don't use fear, anger and sorrow to energize their base?

--Gun Control
-Abortion
--Religion

Sure. But there's a difference. The victims in the conservative sob stories are not always the most sympathetic characters you could imagine. A gun owner who might lose his rights is not nearly as sympathetic as a little girl who got shot in the face at school by a crazed gunman. You see what I mean? It's very difficult to argue with someone who's hiding behind a real victim.

Conservatives have tried to use this tactic but it usually doesn't work because even if the victim is real, the emotional impact often doesn't cross party lines. You can make just about anybody cry if you exploit something like Sandy Hook. A liberal minded person isn't going to lose much sleep over the prospect of the Second Amendment going away. A conservative minded person would probably still shed some tears over dead kids.

I think Eric Cantor's defeat in his home state primary served notice to both parties... the American people have pretty much had it. I think their constant use of emotional fear is akin to "The Boy That Cried, Wolf!"... and people have become numb to this approach.

Backfire.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

You see what I mean? It's very difficult to argue with someone who's hiding behind a real victim.

So you admit that that you cant' argue when they put a 'real' victim in front of you? Which means that you just stated the guy who might lose his gun rights, isn't actually a victim at all?

Seems like you are self defeating your own argument by saying that Liberals are just better at arguing their point in general because they use 'real' examples as opposed to hyperbole.

Conservatives have tried to use this tactic but it usually doesn't work because even if the victim is real, the emotional impact often doesn't cross party lines

Well now you're just being mean. Are you implying that Conservatives don't feel emotionally towards the issues that effect them most deeply? The south would disagree strongly with that in regards to gun control, abortion and taxation of churches.

( I'm being cheeky btw, I'm not trying to dig at you or anything, just analyzing your thoughts.)

A liberal minded person isn't going to lose much sleep over the prospect of the Second Amendment going away.

See that's a generalization. I now a lot of liberals who are quite content with the 2nd amendment being left as is, as long as there are better checks and balances to keeping the mentally unstable from acquiring guns, along withe closing loopholes in the gun show thingy.

I'm Canadian mind you, and I don't understand gun culture since we don't have it here, so I'm a bit ignorant on that specific topic.

Now mind you, on both sides of the aisle, both Conservative and Liberal, you have to admit that the crazies have been running the lead for a while now right? Both groups in charge on either side are batsh.t crazy regarding pretty much anything.

So take that into account and remember that MOST people are just following along what the box of lies has told them to think and say. They don't need that big a nudge to make them realize the error of their ways.

I showed a conservative friend the other day that Obamacare was just 1990s Gingrich care and made them totally change their mind regarding the validity of having Universal Health Care.

It's not as hard as you think to make a difference in the way people think about things, if you talk to them like they aren't stupid, don't generalize their behavior at large and simply provide them with facts.

Free of hyperbole, distraction and talking points. The aforementioned 3 things can cause the death of a critical thinking mind.

~Tenth

By the way, the purpose of this thread was not to say the liberals are the only people who use this tactic. Rather, that (in general) they are the best at it and when they succeed, the results are devastating to anyone who disagrees with the liberal philosophy. This goes for conservatives or libertarians or anyone else who disagrees with the big government philosophy.

The question was just a general one. How do you counter a political strategy that makes the audience cry and then sells them the last thing they should really want while they're too emotional to think?

The problem with the liberals is that they seem to just get lucky and get all the really good victims for their sob stories. And they are exceptionally good at knowing how to present their stories as unbiased so they cross political lines effortlessly. This is something conservatives and libertarians don't do well at all.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Well, unless you are a robot, or have a mental problem that doesn't allow emotions,
+ Disgust
+ Fear
+ Happiness
+ Sadness
+ Surprise
This are all part of what make us human, so to say that they are only part of certain individuals or groups in politics and exploited to target such groups is actually silly.

Same things can be said about the right wing. Just stop voting for dinosaurs,power to the people.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

If I'm not mistaken the point you are trying to get across is that conservatives use the average Joe everybody for the purpose of supporting an issue that is of concern to everybody in one sense, where as the liberal ideology uses the little girl who got shot in the face to push their personal agenda of taking rights away from people by exploiting this little girl who got shot in the face to force the gun control issue, so that anyone who disagrees with the gun control issue can easily be called a monster for not supporting what they want, but the fact is that they never do anything to actually help the little girl, instead after they use her as a poster child they brush her off to the side without actually doing anything to help the little girl, because she served her purpose so that the liberal contingent can push their agenda .

I really don't see a major difference here between the propaganda that the conservatives put out, and the propaganda that the liberals put out.

Of COURSE they will use different examples for selling their agendas.

The republican party and the democrat party know their roles really well....


In the political arena, propaganda has been used in every way you can imagine, in every single country, nation, or state you can name. It is nothing new.

The only reason the OP somehow sees liberals doing anything different, is because of his obvious bias. A few posts later, the OP states, "[My purpose for this thread is] that (in general) [the liberals] are the best at it and when they succeed, the results are devastating to anyone who disagrees with the liberal philosophy."

So, the purpose of this thread is to point out that some individuals who hold a liberal philosophy in politics use propaganda, and when they do, it results in laws being passed that the OP doesn't agree with.

In summary, the OP created this thread because he is conservative, and upset that liberals exist, am I right?

a reply to: BrianFlanders

How much of a " vulnerable audience " do you figure the liberals will have when they can't buy there base anymore ?

originally posted by: tothetenthpower

So you admit that that you cant' argue when they put a 'real' victim in front of you? Which means that you just stated the guy who might lose his gun rights, isn't actually a victim at all?

What I mean is that most people are just not going to care about this guy's rights even though the fact that he may lose them for no good reason does technically make him a victim. People are going to see the victims of school shootings as more important because emotions are simply more powerful than facts in the mind of a person who gives emotions priority. Or even worse, who gives one emotion higher priority than another. For instance, it might actually make sense to base your political views on emotions (at least partially). But liberals often find a way to hijack emotional people by figuring out how to get them to give an emotion like sadness or sorrow priority over an emotion like fear. Maybe people should be afraid but they will often be conned into being sad instead.

Seems like you are self defeating your own argument by saying that Liberals are just better at arguing their point in general because they use 'real' examples as opposed to hyperbole.

No. Like I said. They are better at making people cry and THEN slipping a hyperbolic argument in when their audience is in an intellectually weakened state. That isn't an argument. That's a cheap shot. Like kicking your opponent in the groin. You might win. Some people might not even have a problem with fighting dirty. Fine. In that case, my original question still stands. What is a good way to counter that cheap shot? Like I said, it's extremely difficult to counter when your opponent is someone who has spent their life thinking with their emotions.

Well now you're just being mean. Are you implying that Conservatives don't feel emotionally towards the issues that effect them most deeply? The south would disagree strongly with that in regards to gun control, abortion and taxation of churches.

No. I'm implying that liberals don't feel emotionally towards the same issues that conservatives do and that liberals are generally just plain better at making effective propaganda that is capable of reaching almost anyone of any political persuasion without being obvious that it's propaganda.

See that's a generalization. I now a lot of liberals who are quite content with the 2nd amendment being left as is, as long as there are better checks and balances to keeping the mentally unstable from acquiring guns, along withe closing loopholes in the gun show thingy.

Well, see. The problem with that is that they're not being honest. Or even if they think they are, they're supporting people who are not being honest (And those people are lying on purpose). They know that's a good way to put a gun rights advocate's mind at ease. Because they will think these are good people who are only trying to help solve a problem.

In fact, it is far more likely that gun control (and other such things) is really just a means to an end. An immediate and total ban is completely impractical at this point and they know it.

They need anyone who cares about the Second Amendment to believe there is no threat to their rights unless they're a lunatic. I just call it what it is. The low hanging fruit tactic. Once they establish laws against "the mentally unstable" acquiring guns, they will start inventing new mental instabilities so they can diagnose just about anyone as mentally unstable for any reason they deem appropriate. Once that's accomplished, being prohibited from owning a firearm won't be the only consequence of being considered to be "mentally unstable", if my guess is correct. Remember. These people also have a lot of influence over the people who control the mental health field. If they can make a law that says you can't do this or that if they call you crazy, they can define what "crazy" is.

Now mind you, on both sides of the aisle, both Conservative and Liberal, you have to admit that the crazies have been running the lead for a while now right? Both groups in charge on either side are batsh.t crazy regarding pretty much anything.

They might be crazy. Or they might be acting. I don't know. Whatever the case may be, the one that is typically referred to as the liberal/progressive agenda is the one that is making the most headway (regardless of which party is supposedly in charge) and if you're anything like a real libertarian in this country, you know that neither side is representing your views.

Anyway, this thread went towards the specific issue of gun control than I originally intended. Gun control was actually just meant to be an example of something they manipulate emotional people into supporting with sad stories.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Well, I'm not optimistic much can be done. Main problem is most people just don't give enough of a crap to pay attention to what is going on beyond the TMZ headlines. The little bit they do pay attention to is fed to them by the Media which are paid off to basically tell everyone how great the government is, and how the economy is recovering. In other words lie to them.

Now you are right some people are just much more susceptible to emotional pleas. They like to think about the world as what they want it to be and not the world as it is. They want to believe government exists to help the common man despite all evidence throughout all of history it is actually out to screw them. They want to believe banning guns will prevent murders, that taxing CO2 will save the earth, that paying people not to work for long periods of time will not result in people who decide it's easier to mooch than get a job. That despite the country being in more debt than can be paid off in a hundred years spending can't be cut on anything because some people will lose their jobs.

But some people just can't accept hard truths. It reminds me of a documentary I watched on the fall of Detroit. The union would not accept a pay cut even though they were told take it or the factory will be shut down and moved to Mexico multiple times. The majority didn't believe it, they thought it was a negotiating tactic, despite numerous other plant closings effecting the same union that had already happened in the city. For some reason they still thought this time was different. Well they didn't take the pay cut, and they all lost their jobs, and they were actually surprised.

Basically you are trying to argue with people to give up their hope. That is a pretty hard argument to win, especially if they are ignorant of the facts. Even more so when things are as bleak as they truly are right now.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
If you are anything other than a liberal (whatever other political ideology moves you) you might have noticed (if you've looked closely) that the fuel that the liberal engine runs on is emotion.

I would say that the liberal machine runs on an attempt to achieve "fairness."
The conservative machine runs on an attempt to find "justice."

Of course, both fairness and justice are illusions, and unworkable in a fundamentally unfair and unjust existence.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: BrianFlanders

Well, unless you are a robot, or have a mental problem that doesn't allow emotions,
+ Disgust
+ Fear
+ Happiness
+ Sadness
+ Surprise
This are all part of what make us human, so to say that they are only part of certain individuals or groups in politics and exploited to target such groups is actually silly.

No. It seems like you just skimmed what I've written and took what you wanted from it. I am actually not a robot. Nor do I have a mental problem that doesn't allow emotions. In fact, I have spent the better part of my life consuming liberal propaganda that made me cry. A lot. That is one of the things that has enabled me to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

I suppose I always (to a certain extent) knew that I was being manipulated but I (for many years) believed these were good people who (even if they were being a little unethical and manipulative) were doing it for all the right reasons.

I will be 41 years old this year. I did not start to back away from the so-called "social justice" agenda until I encountered a very big wakeup call sometime in 2010. I thought of myself as a liberal all of my life up to that very day. So I do not appreciate being treated as if I never put any serious thought or consideration into this. I have spent hours out of every day since then wrestling with my former self and trying to understand why I believed what I believed and trying to get a grasp on the closest thing to the truth.

It has not been easy. I spent most of my life as part of the majority. When I didn't like what George Bush was doing, I had A LOT of company. It wasn't a challenge to argue with people who supported him because there weren't many of them and once the initial shock of 9/11 wore off, they didn't have many good arguments. I never had to justify myself. I never had to explain myself. Anywhere I might have gone to talk about politics, I had plenty of support because I was a liberal.

Since I changed my political views (I consider myself to be a moderate libertarian now, in case you wonder), I have to argue with very angry people everywhere I go. I always have to explain myself. I always have to debate endlessly with people who don't really care what the truth is. I am always being insulted by people who hate me simply because I'm not one of them.

I am still vulnerable to liberal propaganda. Because even though I know what's up, I'm still human. The point of this thread was not that you should turn your emotions off. It was that too many people are turning their brains off and letting their emotions run wild.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Sorry, both parties are equally guilty. That is why I hate both parties equally.

originally posted by: DonVoigt
a reply to: BrianFlanders

If I'm not mistaken the point you are trying to get across is that conservatives use the average Joe everybody for the purpose of supporting an issue that is of concern to everybody in one sense, where as the liberal ideology uses the little girl who got shot in the face to push their personal agenda of taking rights away from people by exploiting this little girl who got shot in the face to force the gun control issue, so that anyone who disagrees with the gun control issue can easily be called a monster for not supporting what they want, but the fact is that they never do anything to actually help the little girl, instead after they use her as a poster child they brush her off to the side without actually doing anything to help the little girl, because she served her purpose so that the liberal contingent can push their agenda .

To a certain extent, yes. But the victims aren't necessarily just used and discarded. I used the term "exploit" a little more loosely than you apparently interpreted it. I'm sure that (to some degree) they actually do care about the victims. And I'm not saying they never do anything to help the victims. I'm saying that they fuse their political agenda with these sad stories so it's impossible to tell where it's just a cheap tactic and where it's actually a genuine tragedy. They don't have to be uncaring in order to use these people for political gain. They can do both.

My point was that the agenda is the point of the whole thing. The sob story is just a cheap shot even if they do help the victims in some way. They could generally help the victims without using them to further their agenda. They simply choose to do both.

originally posted by: calstorm
a reply to: BrianFlanders

Sorry, both parties are equally guilty. That is why I hate both parties equally.

And I have acknowledged that. But liberals are worse because they're more successful at it. They get more out of it. I didn't call the conservatives the good guys. I simply said if you're anything other than a liberal, they will use this strategy against you. Very effectively. Conservatives will attempt to do it too but when they do it, the consequences are usually not as far reaching and not as harmful to limited government advocates. And that's when they're successful. Which they are not as often nearly as successful as the liberals are.

This is why I chose the liberals as the primary threat. If a time comes when we lose all of our rights, it's more likely to come from the left.

originally posted by: Battleline
a reply to: BrianFlanders

How much of a " vulnerable audience " do you figure the liberals will have when they can't buy there base anymore ?

Actually, there is really no end in sight to the audience because they don't have to buy them in order to get them to go see a movie (for example) that has an extremely sympathetic victim in the story. In this kind of a scenario, most people simply don't realize they're being manipulated. How many people do you really think will understand that a movie is political when it isn't explicitly stated?

Bullet Proof Blankets?? really?? ..Freakin Bullet Proof Blankets!
That's how we are living now??.why I should not be emotional,why the F@$k should I not be pissed
Why should I not be saddened ,because of extremist nut jobs and the pols that coddled their madness.
Their Boy John Boehner couldn't even bring himself to call the killings of two police officers and another guy in Las Vegas..Terrorism!! why?? because it may touch on the fact we have a problem with guns and violence.

A gunman walked into an Oregon high school with a rifle and shot a student to death on Tuesday before he was later found dead, in the third outbreak of gun violence to shake a U.S. high school or college campus in less than three weeks.

www.reuters.com...
No nothing to see here,wanna protect your kids give-em all guns all the time..let lil Johnny have one in his sand box...Damn RIght I am Emotional