Why Do Working Class People Vote (proud2BlibKansan)

[CC27]

proud2BlibKansan Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Mon Jun-27-11 08:04 AM
Original message
Why Do Working Class People Vote Against Their Economic Interests?
   
Poor But Proud: Twenty Years Later
Auburn History Professor Wayne Flynt Answers the Central Political Question of Our Time

AUBURN, Ala. — In a state where intellectuals are generally scorned as “elitists” — or as former governor and presidential candidate George Wallace liked to call them for his own opportunistic political reasons, “pointy-headed liberals” — retired Auburn History professor Wayne Flynt is one expert who is widely known around Alabama. He is someone who people seem to listen to, at least those who pay attention.

Since moving back to my home state and city a few years ago after many years of chasing a journalism career and then an academic career elsewhere, and struggling to figure out what’s wrong with this place, a key question comes up over and over again in conversation. No one seem to have a simple, satisfying answer.

Why do working class people in the South so frequently vote against their own economic self-interest?

As a historian and author, Dr. Flynt tackled this question in great detail a little more than 20 years ago in a book called Poor But Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites.

Due to the sweep in state elections by the Republican Party in 2010, and in the wake of labor events from Wisconsin to Birmingham, I recently visited Dr. Flynt at his church, the First Baptist Church of Auburn, and conducted an interview captured on video. We talked for nearly an hour.

more . . . http://blog.locustfork.net/2011/06/why-do-working-class... /

ThomWV Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Mon Jun-27-11 08:22 AM
Response to Original message
5. In order to stop women they do not know or know a thing about from having abortions.
   
Jesus made them do it.

**** you.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1370

[Chris_]

2004 called.  It wants it's condescending bullshit line back.

[Bodadh]

2004 called.  It wants it's condescending bullshit line back.

Heh! I have a high five button now and you get to be the first one I use it on.

[FlaGator]

That should actually read, 'why to working class people vote against the interests of their self proclaimed intellectual superiors'

[Chris_]

Heh! I have a high five button now and you get to be the first one I use it on.

And you get one in return.

[marv]

No one seem to have a simple, satisfying answer.

There's the answer. Simple minds demand simple answers.

[Karin]

Well, what's wrong with these people?  We've answered this question many times in simple, soundbite-sized answers. 
It is condescending bullshit, isn't it?  Who the hell are these "pointy headed liberals" who assume to speak for my interests? 

They just don't like the answer, is all.  It reminds me of the task force from California, sent to Texas to find out why all the businesses and jobs went there.  They came back with a pre-formulated bullshit answer, IIRC. 

[Rebel]

These are jackasses that think they know what's best for you. Kinda how they treat black Americans.

[Wineslob]

George Wallace liked to call them for his own opportunistic political reasons, “pointy-headed liberals” — retired Auburn History professor Wayne Flynt is one expert who is widely known around Alabama. He is someone who people seem to listen to, at least those who pay attention.

After reading Mr Flynt's socialist clap trap, I agree with Mr Wallace, he's a pointy-headed Liberal.

[Bodadh]

These are jackasses that think they know what's best for you. Kinda how they treat black Americans.

I am starting to really like this high five button  

[jukin]

I guess there are some people (about 20%) are so dumb that they just love dictators. These are the same type of people that as they were being shipped off to the gulags in the USSR would ask the question "Does Stalin know about this?"

[JohnnyReb]

I have a simple answer........

I am old, retired, I had my chance at success. I want my 16 year old son to have a chance. You pointy headed liberals try to rob him of that chance before he even gets started....you've already gotten him and a few million more young people so deep in debt
voting for "YOUR" best interest that they are starting out behind the 8-ball....no...not the kind of 8-ball you're thinking of DUmmie.

[BannedFromDU]

I would imagine that there is quite a lot about working people that liberals would not understand. Beginning, of course, with the fact that they work.

[GOBUCKS]

Why Do Working Class People Vote Against Their Economic Interests?

There could hardly be anything more counter to our economic interests than tithing to our church.
In the minds of normal people, could there be considerations more important than purely economic calculation?

[thundley4]

The flip side to the DUmmies question is:  Why do liberals vote against the best interest of the United States, freedom and most Americans?

[Wineslob]

You get a Hi5 thundley4.

[Carl]

Hey DUmmies...maybe I just like holding my head high knowing that I am making it through life on my own without groveling for a handout.

[dandi]

proud2BlibKansan Donating Member (1000+ posts)     Mon Jun-27-11 08:04 AM
Original message
Why Do Working Class People Vote Against Their Economic Interests?
   
Why do working class people in the South so frequently vote against their own economic self-interest?

You know, I am really tired of seeing this stupid bullshit from people who think they can live my life better than I; especially a bunch whose personal lives are such utter train wrecks that they can't live them on their own.

Let me break this down for you, DUmmies:  A couple of hundred years ago, there was a group that decided they knew better how to govern themselves and how to live their own lives.  They believed in it so much that they took on the global superpower of the day and beat them.  In determining a framework of how they wanted to govern themselves and their descendants, they came up with a truly liberal idea - let the citizens decide with the minimal amount of government influence upon their lives.

Did you get that, DUmbasses?  Let the citizens decide.

They agreed upon a founding document, while not perfect by any means, established a government and society that allowed individuals the ability to change how it functioned and established no preference for any one group.  The trade off was that the individual remain engaged and educated enough to be able to decide how best to maintain that government and society.  The price of laziness and stupidity was to be a loser; a loser that society had no obligation to make sure they had the basic necessities at the expense of everyone else. 

IE, DUmbasses, we individuals owe you nothing for the mistakes that you have made. 

If we took it upon ourselves as individuals to set up charities to care for those less fortunate, we had the freedom to either do it or not.  Not have the sweat of our brow taken at gunpoint but donated as we saw fit.  It is up to us to make our way through this life using the best of our abilities with the least amount of interference from a faceless mob that seeks to rule our lives. 

As individuals, we have no need for a king.  You might, but I don't.  I am not lazy, willfully stupid, nor craven enough to think that I need some faceless "intellectual" tell me what is in my best interest - I already know what is in my best interest.  If enough individuals decide it is good enough, it becomes law.  That's how it works, ****heads, and that is what makes this country unlike any other in human history.

I don't need a history professor who did double duty as a journalist (spit) tell me what I should be doing.  And  I sure as Hell don't want any of you degenerates supposing what is best in my life.

So, shut up already, I'm tired of hearing it.

ThomWV Donating Member (1000+ posts)      Mon Jun-27-11 08:22 AM
Response to Original message
5. In order to stop women they do not know or know a thing about from having abortions.
   
Jesus made them do it.

Show me what a man holds in contempt and I'll show you what he is lacking.

[Bodadh]

You know, I am really tired of seeing this stupid bullshit from people who think they can live my life better than I; especially a bunch whose personal lives are such utter train wrecks that they can't live them on their own.

Let me break this down for you, DUmmies:  A couple of hundred years ago, there was a group that decided they knew better how to govern themselves and how to live their own lives.  They believed in it so much that they took on the global superpower of the day and beat them.  In determining a framework of how they wanted to govern themselves and their descendants, they came up with a truly liberal idea - let the citizens decide with the minimal amount of government influence upon their lives.

Did you get that, DUmbasses?  Let the citizens decide.

They agreed upon a founding document, while not perfect by any means, established a government and society that allowed individuals the ability to change how it functioned and established no preference for any one group.  The trade off was that the individual remain engaged and educated enough to be able to decide how best to maintain that government and society.  The price of laziness and stupidity was to be a loser; a loser that society had no obligation to make sure they had the basic necessities at the expense of everyone else. 

IE, DUmbasses, we individuals owe you nothing for the mistakes that you have made. 

If we took it upon ourselves as individuals to set up charities to care for those less fortunate, we had the freedom to either do it or not.  Not have the sweat of our brow taken at gunpoint but donated as we saw fit.  It is up to us to make our way through this life using the best of our abilities with the least amount of interference from a faceless mob that seeks to rule our lives. 

As individuals, we have no need for a king.  You might, but I don't.  I am not lazy, willfully stupid, nor craven enough to think that I need some faceless "intellectual" tell me what is in my best interest - I already know what is in my best interest.  If enough individuals decide it is good enough, it becomes law.  That's how it works, ****heads, and that is what makes this country unlike any other in human history.

I don't need a history professor who did double duty as a journalist (spit) tell me what I should be doing.  And  I sure as Hell don't want any of you degenerates supposing what is best in my life.

So, shut up already, I'm tired of hearing it.

Show me what a man holds in contempt and I'll show you what he is lacking.

Dats a H5

[delilahmused]

For people who spend their days being pissed that we in the US have too much and are using too many of the Earth's resources, not to mention that whole "me an' you and a dog named Boo, traveling and living off the land" philosophy, they sure place a lot of emphasis on money. Platitudes you don't bother to live by just make you a hypocrite.

DUmmies: There are things in life that are more important than money. You're whole concept of justice revolves around money. Every single day of your lives you lament what you don't have, even those of you who have more than most. And all you well off white folks over there practicing your elitism and soft racism (how many of us could actually claim our little black student would want her teacher to be her slave owner) greedily begging for more handouts would rather be dependent, holding your breath waiting for the next trickle down from your government overlords than be free. Because freedom means being responsible, dealing with the consequences of your choices, good and bad. I'd rather have a little and come by it honestly with the freedom to do as I please then be beholden to someone else, having to play by their rules, beholden to them. Why freedom is such a complicated concept for you, I'll never understand.

Cindie

[Tucker]

Maybe those hick hillbillies are smart enough to realize that the democrat party is no friend of working people and vote accordingly.

[I_B_Perky]

proud2BlibKansan Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Mon Jun-27-11 08:04 AM
Original message
Why Do Working Class People Vote Against Their Economic Interests?

OK dummie... one more time.  Who says we are voting against our economic interests? I earn my money and the government takes a portion of it and gives it to deadbeats. I save the money I have earned, what is left after the government takes some, and then I invest it. Now when I make money off what I have invested the government takes some of that and gives it to deadbeats. When I hear some politician saying he wants to cut the amount the government takes, I'm all for it! So I vote for that politician. Why? Because it's in my economic interest, that's why!!!!

[WinOne4TheGipper]

That's a great question, Proud2banignorantDUmbass.  I have often wondered why anyone would vote for a party that promises to tax the shit out of them if they so much as think about moving up the economic ladder.  Willful stupidity must explain it. 

Then again, I also wonder why anyone born after 1973 would vote for a party that considered them disposable for the first nine months of their existence.

[Freeper]

You know what DUmmies? There is only person who can decide what is in my best interests and it aint any of you.
Not one thing the democrats have done has served my self interests in the least. Yeah they make big promises of how 0bama care was going to drop my insurance premiums by 3000% and I was going to get a raise, then 0bama promised that in Jan of 2011 my paychecks were going to be bigger. Well guess what DUmmies, not one of those came true. At least if we put the repukes in charge we shouldn't have to worry about getting our taxes raised even higher while energy prices necessarily skyrocket.

[MrsSmith]

There could hardly be anything more counter to our economic interests than tithing to our church.
In the minds of normal people, could there be considerations more important than purely economic calculation?

You need to remember, to the DUmmies, their own economic interests reign supreme.  Greed is the most prevalent symptom of "liberalism."  Of course they can't understand a group that prefers to earn their own living, pay their own bills, tithe and donate to charities, and take care of their own.  It's a completely foreign concept to a group that thrives on "steal from the rich and give to ME!!!"