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Is There an Empathy Gap Between Democrats and Republicans?

Is There an Empathy Gap Between Democrats and Republicans?

  • Yes, Democrats are more empathetic

    Votes: 14 45.2%

  • Yes, Republicans are more empathetic

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • Yes, and that's a good thing, people should look out for themselves, others will for themselves

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • No, there is no empathy gap

    Votes: 13 41.9%
  • Total voters
    31
trfjr said:
1 does it matter to the middle class man when the poor are allowed to buy what he doesn't for reasons of being responsible
2 why not you are allowed to blame the rich for anything with no evidence why cant the tables be turned
3 so result to personal attack when truth is reveled as it not being common sense liberal modus operandi
4 im done with you like im done with any liberal that results to those tactics it shows I have won the debate when you do so
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what is the test to prove that we are a civilized society?
 
trfjr said:
1 does it matter to the middle class man when the poor are allowed to buy what he doesn't for reasons of being responsible
2 why not you are allowed to blame the rich for anything with no evidence why cant the tables be turned
3 so result to personal attack when truth is reveled as it not being common sense liberal modus operandi
4 im done with you like im done with any liberal that results to those tactics it shows I have won the debate when you do so
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Oh yes, claiming that you can blame the poor for your problems with no evidence to support you because you think people blame the rich without evidence? Yes, I can see how you win the debate with logic like that.
 
aberrant85 said:
Oh yes, claiming that you can blame the poor for your problems with no evidence to support you because you think people blame the rich without evidence? Yes, I can see how you win the debate with logic like that.
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it is called playing by the same rules that you have established

this is what is so screwed up about the left they want to be able to play by a different set of rules and then when we play by their rules you scream foul. it would be so funny if it wasn't so sad
 
There is no empathy gap. It's just empathy being pointed in different directions. One or two of those directions are, I believe, misguided.
 
trfjr said:
it is called playing by the same rules that you have established

this is what is so screwed up about the left they want to be able to play by a different set of rules and then when we play by their rules you scream foul. it would be so funny if it wasn't so sad
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It's not the left or the right. It's poor debaters of all persuasions that refuse to acknowledge evidence or facts, then referee their own debates, that are sad.

Look: Some 95% of 2009-2012 Income Gains Went to Wealthiest 1% - Real Time Economics - WSJ

That's from the Wall Street Journal, no liberal rag. In case you are wondering where your money is.
 
aberrant85 said:
You've got a 5 year old opinion article that says one thing, and there's the Washington post article above with numbers saying something else.

In either case, sympathy is not the same as empathy. Sympathy is one-sided. You feel sorry for the man on the street. You project your emotion onto them. You are judging their situation. You can still do good things out of sympathy, but the connection is very one directional.

Empathy requires you to put yourself in the person's POV. You do not have to feel sorry for a gay couple to ask yourself how you would feel in their situation if you were not allowed to marry the person you love. From their POV you can make conclusions you might not have on your own.

There is a cognitive leap between the two. With empathy you are able to recognize diverse viewpoints in order to question your positions and to foster negotiation and compromise.

In short, you sympathize for someone, you empathize with someone.
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Sorry to pile on here aberrant. How does one measure empathy? Is this just something that you feel, and liberals in turn simply feel like they are more empathetic so they can slap each other on the back and call it a good day in Congress? "Oh, we feel much better now that we have legislated charity". I guess if you want to say liberals are more empathetic, that's one thing...but how do you back it up other than referring to yourselves as "bleeding hearts" or "progressive"?
 
I don't know about an empathy gap - people's politics don't make them decent or not - but I do know that there's a definite "confidence" gap between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives believe in the unlimited ability of individuals to work hard and thrive, building a life for themselves and the people they love, while liberals believe that individuals are at the mercy of fate, through no fault of their own, and must be saved by the hand of big government. That is the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals - conservatives believe in the greatness of people and liberals believe in the greatness of government.
 
SBu said:
Sorry to pile on here aberrant. How does one measure empathy? Is this just something that you feel, and liberals in turn simply feel like they are more empathetic so they can slap each other on the back and call it a good day in Congress? "Oh, we feel much better now that we have legislated charity". I guess if you want to say liberals are more empathetic, that's one thing...but how do you back it up other than referring to yourselves as "bleeding hearts" or "progressive"?
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No problem, SBu. Empathy would be hard to measure. I suppose a test might be how broad your coalition is, whether it is represented by people from many walks of life. Of course that only measures who is in your camp, not how much empathy they have. And of course if you have poor people in your party and they vote for things beneficial to the poor, that's not really empathy at all, that's self interest. But it would reason that if the majority of your party are not like you but they accept you and work with you to achieve things in your interest, they are displaying empathy.
 
CanadaJohn said:
I don't know about an empathy gap - people's politics don't make them decent or not - but I do know that there's a definite "confidence" gap between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives believe in the unlimited ability of individuals to work hard and thrive, building a life for themselves and the people they love, while liberals believe that individuals are at the mercy of fate, through no fault of their own, and must be saved by the hand of big government. That is the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals - conservatives believe in the greatness of people and liberals believe in the greatness of government.
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There's some truth in that. I'd also say that conservatives believe more in competition while liberals believe more in cooperation.
 
Republicans, or more rightly conservatives, are more empathetic because all evidence points to the vast majority of voluntary charitable giving comes from conservatives. Conservative policies also are aimed at lifting the whole person, body and soul, not just limited to providing for temporary needs.
 
There is and that's a good thing. Empathy is not something that we want in politics. Sympathy is. We can understand that people have problems and we can be sorry that they do. We should not be putting ourselves into their places and finding out what they want because we're trying to feel what they feel. Empathy is a net negative.
 
aberrant85 said:
No problem, SBu. Empathy would be hard to measure. I suppose a test might be how broad your coalition is, whether it is represented by people from many walks of life. Of course that only measures who is in your camp, not how much empathy they have. And of course if you have poor people in your party and they vote for things beneficial to the poor, that's not really empathy at all, that's self interest. But it would reason that if the majority of your party are not like you but they accept you and work with you to achieve things in your interest, they are displaying empathy.
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How is legislating charity showing empathy? Is it empathic to the people you're forcing to pay this legislated charity? Sorry, I think when you're acting on one party to help another you aren't being empathic at all.
 
johndylan1 said:
Republicans, or more rightly conservatives, are more empathetic because all evidence points to the vast majority of voluntary charitable giving comes from conservatives. Conservative policies also are aimed at lifting the whole person, body and soul, not just limited to providing for temporary needs.
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I agree. Is it really compassion to help someone out with someone else's money?
A quick search shows that conservatives are significantly more likely to give of their personal income to charity than liberals.
 
Paratrooper said:
I agree. Is it really compassion to help someone out with someone else's money?
A quick search shows that conservatives are significantly more likely to give of their personal income to charity than liberals.
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that all depends on if you believe we pass the test of a civilized society
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
that all depends on if you believe we pass the test of a civilized society
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What is a civilized society to you? I don't see anything civilized about government welfare.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
the test of whether or not we are a civilized society is if we care for our neediest members of society.
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So if we use government to help the neediest members of society is for some reason how you measure that?
 
Henrin said:
So if we use government to help the neediest members of society is for some reason how you measure that?
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the point is that we do care about what happens to the neediest members of society.

the wrong thing to do is to abandon the people who are in most need.
 
Henrin said:
Supporting government welfare, forced commerce and involuntary servitude is not a sign of empathy towards your fellow man.

As for gay marriage, the liberal position is just more government power in peoples lives.
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true, supporting welfare etc is no different than a pusher cutting his prices in order to get more people addicted
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
the test of whether or not we are a civilized society is if we care for our neediest members of society.
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Which is why this argument will always break down along ideological lines.

The old give a man a fish versus teaching him to fish.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
the point is that we do care about what happens to the neediest members of society.

the wrong thing to do is to abandon the people who are in most need.
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Government imposed charity is about market activity, not the poor. If anything it is a subsidy to the rich and there is little doubt that is one of the reasons behind it. The wrong thing to do is to use government force to coerce people to be charitable towards their fellow man. Simply ending this practice doesn't mean that somehow society as a whole will forget about the neediest amongst us. All it does is stop a legal practice that abuses people to help others.
 
Henrin said:
How is legislating charity showing empathy? Is it empathic to the people you're forcing to pay this legislated charity? Sorry, I think when you're acting on one party to help another you aren't being empathic at all.
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Don't get hung up on charity as the benchmark. Is granting marriage equality charity? Is reforming immigration charity?

Charity has more to do with sympathy than with empathy.
 
aberrant85 said:
Don't get hung up on charity as the benchmark. Is granting marriage equality charity? Is reforming immigration charity?
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Government involvement in marriage is about government power, while the immigration reform efforts going on are about votes.

Charity has more to do with sympathy than with empathy.
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If you say so. Care to answer my question?
 
aberrant85 said:
Don't get hung up on charity as the benchmark. Is granting marriage equality charity? Is reforming immigration charity?

Charity has more to do with sympathy than with empathy.
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And acceptance isn't the same as being empathetic. One could truly be empathetic toward homosexuals who want to marry, and yet not accept that it is good for society.
 
When it comes to pretty much every social issue, the conservative stance is entirely rooted in selfishness and a lack of empathy. The idea is "that doesn't work for me, so it can't work for anyone". That's homophobia, misogyny, racism, and religious bigotry in a nutshell. And when it comes to a lot of economic issues, sometimes it comes from genuine skepticism about whether or not we can afford things, but it is mainly a matter of "I don't want my tax money going to things that will primarily help people who aren't me".

The modern conservative movement is almost entirely based on a lack of empathy. It is about the white, male, Christian, heterosexual, rural and suburban, non-lower class getting theirs and maybe sharing if it benefits them, such as with women they view as "their women", or sometimes their own kids who come out of the closet. Exclusivity and "other"-ness are basically all that conservatism has to talk about. How bad the other people are and how they don't deserve to share this amazing country with conservatives. They're extremely lucky that liberal minded people are inclusive, even to our selfish neighbors. But they are wrong, and we're tired of listening to them whine about how much better they are then the rest of us, and we're tired of catering to their tantrums.
 
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