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I remember when I voted for George W. Bush. It was my first time I was eligible to vote and I just assumed, being from Utah, that’s who I was suppose to vote for. Politics at home weren’t of huge importance although I always knew my folks labelled themselves as “hippies” growing up. My folks just decided to either not openly discuss the issue or they were in such agreement that there was no need. That’s until I came home one day and repeated something stupid to my mother that I’d heard on the radio. My mother looked at me and asked where I’d heard something so dumb, I said “Rush Limbaugh”. That’s the first time I remember meeting a liberal. It wasn’t long after that I moved to Colorado for school and quickly opened myself to new ideas and ways of thinking. Most of my views come from what I believe are logical deductions. I had many friends at school from all political backgrounds and remember many all-nighters discussing current events. Never once did I feel my opinions where of more importance than theirs and I always tried to put myself in their shoes. This even carried over into my career, I had many lunches with co-workers where we talked about politics. Never once was there even a hint of rage or resentment of my beliefs or theirs.
Now to Mormons… Last year I relocated to SLC and have one close co-worker with whom I get along with greatly. He and I where on very opposite side on the political spectrum but our conversations where always so productive. Over the past year he’s swung my direction pretty rapidly and I’ve conceded on a few of his view.
BUT, I’ve found this to be rare. I had the mishap of over hearing an office conversation on a current event and I made a small comment in passing. I’ve never seen emotions fly so rapidly and so fierce. To this day I’m constantly being emailed these individuals views, and these views are extreme. All who are involved are TBM’s. Most of the topics I believe, and I think most non-LDS would as well, are certifiable. Most of the groups they associate with are beyond things I can comprehend. It’s like they’ve never heard of Christ’s teachings. I know sites like this and podcast such as Mormon Stories are labelled progressive and the more I listen the more I assume the people listening are politically as well. I myself enjoy calm political discussions, so I’d like to try and have some.
I tried to find in the rules if there was a no-no in regard to politics and either I’m blind or there isn’t one. If there is I’ll nuke this thread
Frankly I try to stick to the old adage about religion and politics – that is, I don’t generally discuss them. I’ve actually used this as an excuse to not do missionary work, and I have had success in doing so – it’s hard to argue the point. I’m sure things are different in the Mormon Corridor, but here politics and church rarely mix. I have seen stories here and other forums where such is not the case and I am sure it happens more than I’d like to believe. Really, I have never heard anyone in my ward (or stake for that matter) discuss politics at church and very, very rarely even outside church (like home teaching, ward picnics, etc.). We do discuss our views as a family, my wife and I are quite conservative, our adult daughter is more liberal and our missionary son is pretty moderate. He did mention not long ago that his mission president is a Democrat, which surprised me, but he is apparently a conservative one. This may be simply a result of where I live (Northeast US, MP is also), but I perceive most of my ward members to be conservative with moderate leanings – there are few rabid members of either brand. Most of them probably voted for Mitt Romney, but only because he seemed better than the alternative (which is why I voted for him). FWIW, I consider myself an independent and I lean libertarian – I’m a fiscal conservative, believer in small government, but I’m a social moderate.
The extreme situations tend to be concentrated in the Mormon Corridor, but there are pockets of extremism in other places. Generally speaking, the further you get from that area, the less of an issue it tends to be. I refuse to discuss politics at church – except when someone starts something that might be extreme or partisan (on either end) and I smile broadly (or grin wickedly) and say something like:
Quote:“You know this isn’t the place for politics. Back to the Gospel discussion.”
I consider myself a moderate with democratic leanings. I am a registered Republican. I try to see both sides of an argument and like you I enjoy discovering the thought process of people with different views.
I believe that there is some alignment/overlap between religious groups that see themselves of the embattled preservers of conservative family values and political groups that see themselves as the embattled preservers of conservative family values.
Why am I a Republican? For one, that is where I started out and I see no reason to jump ship. For 2, I believe that all parties need more moderates. What would truly scare me would be for extremists to take power…of the church, of the political party, of the country.
And so I occupy the middle ground trying to build bridges of communication because it seems to me to be the right thing to do.
In Colorado politics never came up in church. Although I did work with a LDS Bishop that had a crazy story about his Stake President meeting with the local bishops to push the Mitt Romney thing, but I’ve always felt it was pretty clearly left out of Sunday discussions. I haven’t found that to be the case in wards I’ve been in in Utah. My wife and I lived with my folks until we bought a place and their home teachers would come over and try to discuss a “call out”. Which I had never heard of until I researched it. In our current ward’s Sunday school it comes up fairly often with regards to LGBT. I don’t know many ward members outside of work, minus our neighbor who’s the high-priest group leader. He has a sticker of Calvin relieving himself on an Obama logo.
Surprising how in a state where most people are all in agreement they speak to have the loudest voice.
I’ve been in wards recently where the SP, HC and AA and area PR department hosted a 3rd block politics combined activism for the obligation to social media share(civilian and covenant). The central talk showed central PR deportment videos with no LDS logo or wording for easy sharing across denominations to generate politically united organized religious denominations and people together on certain issues especially freedom of religion(. It’s a attempted united approach to convince people to vote with their religious beliefs on various issues that there is a grave threat and danger of it being destroyed. The PR did say “I know this seems like political issues and may make you uncomfortable but these are religious issues which you are under covenant to not just defend but actively be involved and to get others involved. Weird. Most of it was framed around “facts” as reasons to do those things though. Interesting because the studies that he cites don’t say the things he said they said. The “facts” of the studies say something quite different then what was presented in the videos. I guess we we’re suppose to take the videos word for it and not to have actually read such studies. Again weird, I’m not sure if it’s indication of things to come.
I’ll probably delete it soon. I feel uncomfortable sharing this but wanted some thoughts if anyone cares to share.
Forgotten_Charity wrote:I’ve been in wards recently where the SP, HC and AA and area PR department hosted a 3rd block politics combined activism for the obligation to social media share(civilian and covenant). The central talk showed central PR deportment videos with no LDS logo or wording for easy sharing across denominations to generate politically united organized religious denominations and people together on certain issues especially freedom of religion(. It’s a attempted united approach to convince people to vote with their religious beliefs on various issues that there is a grave threat and danger of it being destroyed. The PR did say “I know this seems like political issues and may make you uncomfortable but these are religious issues which you are under covenant to not just defend but actively be involved and to get others involved.
Weird. Most of it was framed around “facts” as reasons to do those things though. Interesting because the studies that he cites don’t say the things he said they said. The “facts” of the studies say something quite different then what was presented in the videos. I guess we we’re suppose to take the videos word for it and not to have actually read such studies. Again weird, I’m not sure if it’s indication of things to come.
I’ll probably delete it soon. I feel uncomfortable sharing this but wanted some thoughts if anyone cares to share.
Yes, that would definately make me feel weird. I’m perfectly ok with being told to vote my conscience. I’m not ok being told what my conscience should be saying.
We keep hearing about PR people being involved in local meetings. Again… that strikes me as weird.
Fun post! I love talking politics, but it doesn’t usually mix well at church which is why I don’t bring it up there. One of the things I have found a bit odd is that a lot of the more non-literal Mormons seem to lean more progressive politically. Perhaps that is just my perspective or the more progressive Mormons have a louder voice among the non-Orthodox voices. Would be interested in others perspective on this.
I often find myself politically in no-mans land. I would say I lean more moderate Libertarian. I fiercely believe that freedom of speech and worship is paramount and abhor authoritarianism in all its forms (even the smiley we are just here to help kind). I lean fiscally conservative, but socially moderate. Which puts me at odds with many conservative LDS, and at odds with the more big government progressive Mormons.
And I would say that reading “Capitalism and Freedom” by Milton Friedman was a spiritual experience.
SBRed
Ya I usually enjoy it to, with the right friends or people who don’t have river identity attached to a party. For that reason and to disassociate with dogma in a party I became unaffiliated. I like Thomas Jeffersons views on this.
It’s just impossible to talk politics or religion with people that won’t look at or consider all available research and information and defend their views dogmatically without considering, thinking and looking at it.
Quote:We find that responses to corrections in mock news articles differ significantly according to subjects’ ideological views. As a result, the corrections fail to reduce misperceptions for the most committed participants. Even worse, they actually strengthen misperceptions among ideological subgroups in several cases. Additional results suggest that these conclusions are not specific to the Iraq war; not related to the salience of death; and not a reaction to the source of the correction.
[…]
The backfire effects that we found seem to provide further support for the growing literature showing that citizens engage in “motivated reasoning.” While our experiments focused on assessing the effectiveness of corrections, the results show that direct factual contradictions can actually strengthen ideologically grounded factual beliefs – an empirical finding with important theoretical implications.
Quote:Does partisanship poison the brain? Not quite, but an ingenious new study suggests that having strong political views can compromise one’s ability to make sense of the mathematical underpinnings of complex and politically charged issues like gun control and global warming.
For the study, researchers led in part by Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale University, recruited more than 1,000 people and gave them the raw statistics needed to gauge the effectiveness of a politically neutral product (a skin cream for rashes) and another “product” that was politically charged (a gun control law).
Many of the subjects lacked the basic math skills needed to arrive at accurate answers — no surprise there. But what about the people who did have strong math skills?
When it came to evaluating the effectiveness of the gun control law, it all seemed to hinge on their political leanings: when the statistics pointed to a conclusion that was aligned with their political leanings — for example, pro-gun laws or anti-gun laws — they did just as well on the gun control problem as on the skin cream problem. But when the numbers supported a conclusion that went against their belief, they fared much worse.
The discrepancy suggests that even intelligent people allow their biases to cloud their quantitative decision-making skills when dealing with politically charged information.
Chris Mooney, Huffington Post blogger, science writer, and the author of Unscientific American, put it this way:
Our political passions can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills. More specifically, the study finds that people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.
And it doesn’t seem to matter when one is a bleeding heart or a rabid reactionary — the same math-compromising effect is believed to affect people on both ends of the political spectrum and everyone in between.
Even “people who do understand science still let their beliefs cloud their judgment,” Cambridge mathematician Dr. James Grime said in a video about the study. “If your conclusion reinforces your preconceived ideas, then you stop looking further” to make sure your conclusion is right.
This paper is part of a series designed to examine the tendency of people to bend or manipulate data or events in order to fit preconceived opinions, Kahan told The Huffington Post in an email.
The study, “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” was published online through the Social Science Research Network on Sept. 3.
The sane is true for religion. It’s why highly intelligent people can still hold beliefs even when known facts contradict them.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4060350/http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4060350/” class=”bbcode_url”> There is a huge lesson in here when talking about or to friends, spouse love ones even in a FC and thinking facts will help them understand. It only entrenches more if they are dogmatic or entrenched in the belief political, religious or otherwise.
SunbeltRed wrote:
I often find myself politically in no-mans land. I would say I lean more moderate Libertarian. I fiercely believe that freedom of speech and worship is paramount and abhor authoritarianism in all its forms (even the smiley we are just here to help kind). I lean fiscally conservative, but socially moderate. Which puts me at odds with many conservative LDS, and at odds with the more big government progressive Mormons.d
I gave up trying to find out where I fit in. I joked the other day to my wife about starting our own party called the “Logic Party”. She asked me if that’s a Star Trek thing. All-in-all I think people have the same political views no matter who you are. The term fiscally conservative kind of confuses me as I don’t know anyone who is fiscally “un-conservative”. I think everyone is fiscally conservative, we just don’t all agree on how to get there. Much like abortion issues, we all hate it, we just don’t agree on how to end it.
Agaetis, you might like the following post from my personal blog. It isn’t about politics directly, but it is about impossible divides of perception and experience. “
Thestrals, Dementors, Boggarts and Crises of Faith” ( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2012/12/thestrals-dementers-boggarts-and-crises.html Politics and Mormons. A topic I think about a lot. I think of myself as a left-leaning independent. I am conservative on most social and family values issues. But fairly liberal about most other things – economic justice, role of government, environment, taxes, corporations, anti-nationalism, etc.
Frankly, I find it baffling and rather alarming to see how reactionary (extreme right-wing) many Mormons are. 75% of Mormons are Republican, and many of those are very right wing, from what I can tell.
The situation is largely a function of politics generally in the US. We are a very divided nation, which is why Congress is so broken. People more and more live in “enclaves” surrounded by like-minded people. Gerrymandering has resulted in one-party politics in a lot of regions. Extremists get sent to Congress. It’s a perilous situation, I think.
But democracy can only work by compromise. By talking to the other side, by listening and trying to understand the opposing views. It seems to me the height of arrogant close-mindedness to think you are 100% right and everyone else is wrong – no matter what party you are in.
Even it the other side is wrong, you still have to work with them to get anything done.
When it comes to Mormons, I think the question of political party often goes no further than social issues. Which party is for traditional family values? – Republicans is usually the answer. End of question, in many Mormons minds.
Also, you have to understand that in the Far West US, there is a long tradition of suspicion of government and an ethos (if not a reality) of self-reliance. For everyone in the West, not just Mormons.
Add to the that the Mormon experience of being hounded by the US government in the past – the Feds doing nothing against violent mobs, the anti-polygamy laws, the 1857 Utah War, etc. and it’s not hard to see why the Mormon Corridor is Republican, the supposed party of less government.
I recently read a fascinating book about why different US regions are the way they are. I highly recommend it. It is the most eye-opening book I have read, when it comes to US history and politics:
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ From this book, it appears to me a lot of the (crazy, in my view) stuff from Republicans somes from the Deep South, and Mormons just drink the Kool-Aid and go along with whatever the party thinks.
Now, the intense Obama hate I can’t understand. To hear my Mormon relatives talk, Obama is literally destroying America. I don’t understand why they think this. Too much extremist talk radio, maybe? Personally, I think George Bush was a disaster greater than Obama could ever be.
I am very bothered by political extremism, especially among Mormons. I think the gospel transcends the ideologies and partisanship of worldly politics.
I find good in the Republican party, although in my opinion it seems to have become more ignorant and wacky in recent years (denying science, anti-immigrant, etc.).
I also find a lot of good in the Democratic Party. I’m not a Democrat, but I like reading the following “Mormon Democrat manifesto” from time to time, to balance out the reactionary stuff I hear so often. I especially identify with the idea that the Democratic party in many ways is more Christian, at least in intent:
Why I’m a Mormon Democrat
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Why-Im-a-Mormon-Democrat.html (be sure to read page 2)
I also find the Libertarians, the Greens, the Socialists, the Tea Party, etc all have some very valid points.
Mormonism doesn’t completely align with any political party to the exclusion of all other views. That’s my opinion.
I hope over time we Mormons will become more “one in heart,” like Zion will be, and less politically partisan. We need to transcend politics.
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