What would it take for Washington DC to vote Republican?

[dazzleman]

There would have to be a complete political realignment for DC to vote Republican.

Much of DC is non-citizens who can't vote, and many of the citizens who can vote are black.  Even the white citizens tend to be limousine liberals who vote Democratic.  It feeds upon itself - the atmosphere is so unfriendly to Republicans that they choose to live elsewhere.

It's no coincidence in my opinion that a city that is so strongly and mindlessly Democratic is also completely dysfunctional.  The two are usually strongly linked.

[dazzleman]

It's no coincidence in my opinion that a city that is so strongly and mindlessly Democratic is also completely dysfunctional.  The two are usually strongly linked.

...Whereas the areas that are strongly and mindlessly Republican are virtual paradises in comparison?  Not in my mind.

Generally, they're a lot more functional than DC.

[dazzleman]

Even Zell Miller would win DC.  Anyone who has that (D) next to their name on the ballot would carry DC.  No Republican would win unless maybe the Democrat raped their wife and then ate their children on live TV.  If enough saw it, DC could go Repulican, but it would be close.

I don't think even that would make DC vote Republican.  I think the people there are pretty much brain dead, and the state of their city proves it.  If Congress hadn't basically taken over because it was a disgrace to have such a dysfunctional city as the nation's capital, DC, aside from the national mall area, would have descended to the level of a third-world city.

[dazzleman]

The bigger question is, why are most cities so Democratic?

The more dysfunctional a city's population is, the more heavily Democratic it will vote.

[dazzleman]

The more dysfunctional a city's population is, the more heavily Democratic it will vote.

The more bigoted and racist an area is, the more likely it will vote Republican. Also, the least educated states are all Republican.

Really?  Apparently, you are not living in the real world.  There is just as much bigotry in liberal northeastern states as in the south.  New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts all have virtually complete separation of the races, and hostility where they actually meet.  If you can't see that, you are really kidding yourself.  Latte liberals who wax poetically about tolerance and diversity, while living miles away from the nearest non-white person, are in practice just as bigoted as those who are more honest about their views.

[dazzleman]

The more dysfunctional a city's population is, the more heavily Democratic it will vote.

The more bigoted and racist an area is, the more likely it will vote Republican. Also, the least educated states are all Republican.

Really?  Apparently, you are not living in the real world.  There is just as much bigotry in liberal northeastern states as in the south.  New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts all have virtually complete separation of the races, and hostility where they actually meet.  If you can't see that, you are really kidding yourself.  Latte liberals who wax poetically about tolerance and diversity, while living miles away from the nearest non-white person, are in practice just as bigoted as those who are more honest about their views.

Why do you still live in Connecticut if all us liberals are so horrible? Why don't you take the next flight to Oklahoma? Why? Because you know those places are horrible to live in and despite all the bad mouthing you actually like living in the Northeast.

Obviously that was a lot of assumptions but seriously, stop dissing the hand that feeds you (the "liberal" Northeast). You accuse me of having "a screw loose" and then you say that everyone who votes Democrat is "brain dead". Real intelligent dialogue there.

Can you refute anything I said about the northeast?

Quite honestly, I don't mean what I say as an indictment of the northeast.  It's simply a reality, and I myself am part of the behavior pattern I describe.  I have never denied that.  I live in a town that is all of 1% black, and I don't intend to move.  I am not particularly interested in more "diversity" in any case, at least not under the social conditions that currently exist, and neither are most of the people who live here, liberal or conservative.

I just think it's wrong to throw daggers at other sections of the country, when we have the same situation here, in a slightly different form.  There is no correlation between whether an area votes Democratic or Republican, and how tolerant it is of different races.  Right now, one of the most heavily Democratic counties in the country, Brooklyn NY, is in the grip of ongoing racially motivated violence from both blacks and whites.  It has been called the "borough of hate" and if I were to follow the philosophy of some people here, like Scoonie, I would think it had to be a Republican stronghold.

So just come down off your high horse, Pym Fortuyn.  If you can prove Connecticut to be a beacon of racial tolerance and integration, please provide some examples.  Otherwise, don't criticize me for telling the truth.

[dazzleman]

The bigger question is, why are most cities so Democratic?

The more dysfunctional a city's population is, the more heavily Democratic it will vote.

I would like to point out that this is not remotely true.

I hate to be one of the people who gives endless examples of local exceptions, but Seattle is hardly dysfunctional - it is one of the safest, wealthiest major cities - and it also is one of the most Democratic, being over 80% Kerry.

The solidly middle class Chicago suburb of Evanston is even more Democratic than Chicago itself.

Well then maybe it's true on the east coast.  West coast cities are different, with a higher percentage of latte liberal Democrats, as opposed to entitlement-oriented Democrats.

[dazzleman]

Well then maybe it's true on the east coast.  West coast cities are different, with a higher percentage of latte liberal Democrats, as opposed to entitlement-oriented Democrats.

The problem you're fundamentally having is that you are confusing correlation with causation.

You assert that the more dysfunctional a city is, the more Democratic it is.

Dysfunction is generally related to poor economics, which often correlates with minority population.  And poverty and minority status are both things that generally cause people to vote Democratic.  So, yes, tangentially, dysfunction and Democratic voting are related.

However, it's odd that you measure this as entitlement.  It's more self-interest - people vote for what in the short term gives them the benefit, which might be the pro-welfare Democratic Party.  And CEOs vote Republican, not necessarily beceause they have always believed in the values of the free market, but because it benefits them.

I've never understood why people use "latte liberal Democrats" as an attack.  Rich people voting Democratic - which generally negatively affects them - is supposed to be a cowardly thing?  They could vote in their interest, but they don't, and that is a grounds for attack?  I may not agree with their positions, but I do admire that they are voting against their own interests for what they see as the better good.

It seems odd to attack the poor for voting in their immediate interest while at the same time decrying wealthy liberals as "latte liberals."

On one level, you may be right, but on another level, I think I am right.

I think for a lot of people, being saddled with a Democratic victim mentality is at least partial causation for, and not just correlation with, their poor circumstances.  This mentality tells people that they should wait for somebody else to help them, that there's no point in trying to help themselves.  Our attempts to help people in the past 40 years have probably done more damage than hundreds of years of neglect.

If people are raised with a mentality that they have no power over their lives, most likely they will never get ahead of the curve, and will not be able to produce good circumstances.  I don't suggest that liberal policies are the sole cause of this, but I believe they have made a contribution.  Liberal policies may make the misery some of their voters are suffering marginally more bearable, but at the price of deepening the underlying problem.

Latte liberal is meant to be a derogatory term not because those voters vote against their interests, but because they are hypocrites who choose not to live with the policies they inflict on others.  They favor leniency for criminals, while living far from centers of crime.  Therefore, they don't really suffer the effects of putting dangerous people back out onto the street.  They oppose giving poor children better educational options, while making sure that their own kids have only the best.  And as far as taxes go, they have enough money that they don't really care about a few thousand more a year in taxes; the middle class is hit much harder by the tax level that these people favor than the latte liberals are.

[dazzleman]

The problem is, there's not much you can do to help yourself when you're stuck in Detroit.  There are plenty of Democratic voters who cannot escape their world because they do not have the money.

I don't think you really got my point.  I think their mentality is part of the reason they don't have any money.  In many cases, poverty is a thought process and state of mind first; the lack of money is the result that follows.

I am not trying to oversimplify this problem, but I think you have, in simply taking it as a given that poor people never had any control over their lives, and therefore are just responding to circumstances that have been pressed on them 100%.  Of course, I understand that many poor people were dealt a poor hand in life.  But maybe having that kid out of wedlock at 17 wasn't such a good move, either.  Many poor people simply keep adding to their problems and continuing the cycle, and a philosophy that condescends to them, and tells them that what they do is justified because of their poor circumstances, can only be part of the problem.

One thing I have noticed is that poor people who don't develop that thought process are far more likely to break out of poverty.  I've seen it many times.

Of course, I could say the same thing about conservatives:  they favour economic ideals that help large industry before they help the smaller workers, while liberal economics immediately helps the "little guy."

By the way, at least where I live, we have crime even though we are an affluent area because we live near an area with high crime.  Yet people here are by and large liberal.

I think economic policies are highly amorphous in certain cases.  I reject the notion that liberal economic policies definitely help the "little guy."  It may appear that they do in the short run, but if they undermine the economic foundation in the longer run by penalizing production, then they end up hurting the little guy.  I think your views can be shallow and short-term, while I am looking at a longer term model.  Economic policies must always be a balance, because neither big business nor workers can do well if policies tilt too far in one direction or the other.  The two are inextricably linked, even if they appear on the surface to have opposing interests.

As far as people living in an area with high crime and still being liberal -- well, let me pin a medal on them.  Your logic here is almost laughable, Alcon.  You think there is something inherently admirable about supporting a philosophy that puts criminals back on the street, even when that philosophy is hurting you.  I don't call that admirable; I call it masochistic and stupid.  And I resent that these latte liberals take a tone of moral superiority and try to force this stupidity on the rest of us.

I don't understand the northwest at all.  It seems the liberals there are even worse, and more out of touch with reality, than the liberals here, if that's possible.  I find that what most latte liberals seek is not the greater good, but to expiate the guilt they seem to feel for their superior position in society on the backs of other less fortunate people who don't enjoy "protected" status.  I think that in general, this is reprehensible.

[dazzleman]

I don't disagree with you on race, the situation in Connecticut is fine with me. But throwing around terms like "latte liberal" and "dysfunctional population" as if they actually meant something is not contributing anything to the debate. I've never had a latte in my life.

And you can stop trying to accuse the Northeast of being more segregated than the South. No one will ever buy it. Why do you defend the South by default yet only disparage the Northeast? So we have a superiority complex, there could be worse things.

Pym, I would not use the word segregated.  That term means that racial separation is imposed by government, so it does not apply.  The bastardization of that term by liberals to describe any situation without what they consider an optimal racial balance is typical of politically correct corruption of the language.

What we have nationwide is large-scale racial separation, imposed by millions of individual decisions.  That in its own way is worse than government-imposed segregation, because it's much harder to change.

Keep in mind, Pym, I am not criticizing the northeast for its racial situation.  I am a part of it, and I'm not clamoring to mix the minority-dominated cities with the white suburbs, considering the conditions that prevail in those cities.  People move to the suburbs to escape all that, and I am no exception.  What I do criticize is the tendency of people from the northeast to call others racist, when the situation here is not terribly different from the situation in, for example, the south.

As far as the northeast not being more "segregated" than the south, let me quote you a couple of statistics:

Percent of black students in schools with more than 90% minority:

South
1968 -- 77.5
1980 -- 24.6
1992 -- 26.5

Northeast
1968 -- 42.7
1980 -- 48.7
1992 -- 49.9

Percentage of white students in schools 90% white
South
1968 -- 68.8
1980 -- 32.2
1992 -- 26.0

Northeast
1968 -- 82.5
1980 -- 79.5
1992 -- 66.7

So by these measures, the northeast has a greater degree of racial separation than the south, at least in education.  That is largely because school districts in the south conform to county lines, while in the northeast they conform to municipal lines. 

Would you support creating regional schools in Connecticut whereby cities and suburbs were placed in the same district, and busing was used to achieve a consistent racial balance over the whole region?

As I said Pym, I am not criticizing the northeast for the degree of racial separation that exists here.  I think it is the natural and inevitable result of social conditions and a clash in cultures.  But perhaps with the numbers we have, we shouldn't be so quick to call southerners names.  And look up some numbers the next time you tell me that I can "stop trying to accuse the northeast of being more segregated than the south" because "nobody is going to buy it."  Numbers don't lie, my friend.  Your perception is a bit skewed, which comes as no surprise, but numbers don't lie.

[dazzleman]

Latte liberal is meant to be a derogatory term not because those voters vote against their interests, but because they are hypocrites who choose not to live with the policies they inflict on others.  They favor leniency for criminals, while living far from centers of crime.  Therefore, they don't really suffer the effects of putting dangerous people back out onto the street.  They oppose giving poor children better educational options, while making sure that their own kids have only the best.  And as far as taxes go, they have enough money that they don't really care about a few thousand more a year in taxes; the middle class is hit much harder by the tax level that these people favor than the latte liberals are.

And yet you mock me for wanting to live in a minority and crimed filled urban center than a lily-white suburb.

I'll say this about you.  Unlike a lot of hypocritical liberals, you seem to embrace the dreadful results of the idiotic policies that you advocate.  You will probably end up living your life poor and in unpleasant surroundings, just as the policies that you advocate dictate.  I guess that's better than advocating ridiculous policies, and then exempting yourself from the results they produce, as most liberals do.