The conservative ethos distilled.

[Swede]

[Freddie]

1. This

Nancy Reagan was opposed to stem cell research until Ronnie got Alzheimer’s.
Dick Cheney was against gay rights until his daughter came out.
Countless examples of “pro life” women until they discovered the fetus they were carrying had no brain.
MTG was opposed to the ACA until she realized that the “big beautiful bill” was going to affect her family.
It ONLY matters when it affects them.

[NJCher]

10. some of us get it from empathy

others from "experiential learning."

[eppur_se_muova]

15. AKA FAFO nt

[RandomNumbers]

2. And if they get through it

(whatever "it" is), often they shrug it off as a problem and will say things like, hey I got through it so anyone else can.

edit to add: and often this comes with obliviousness to white male privilege, or at least white privilege.

[ck4829]

3. K&R

[lastlib]

4. What I found conservatives want to conserve:

1) Wealth for the wealthy;
2) Power for the powerful;
3) Comfort for the comfortable;
4) Poverty for the poor;
5) Weakness for the weak;
6) Affliction for the afflicted.

Along with the ethos you noted, that pretty well sums it up.

[sop]

5. John Kenneth Galbraith: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy;

that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

[mr715]

6. Meghan McCain, the greatest mind of our generation.

Hey, do you think Meghan McCain and Erika Kirk are actually just 3 Nick Fuentes in a prom dress pretending to be an adult?

[usonian]

7. Wilhoit's law.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” That line—written by Frank Wilhoit—has become a popular aphorism to sum up the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the modern Republican Party.

https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/

[Uncle Joe]

8. The life of living in a bubble

Thanks for the thread Swede

[xuplate]

9. Dipping her toe into the swamp

This smacks of someone taking the first steps of running for political office.

[William Seger]

11. It's the missing empathy gene again -- likely the leading cause of "conservatism" (nt)

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Empathy is the child of imagination, which conservatives apply in a highly selective' fashion. nt

[markie]

12. I was castigated

awhile back for saying every congressperson (well, just anti-gun control) ought to have a child killed/harmed by gun violence... ** now, I certainly didn't mean it, although it seems it may be the only way to get gun control in this country

[Tasmanian Devil]

13. I call it the Empathy Divide

The Empathy Divide:
• People with empathy don't understand those that lack it.
• People without empathy consider it a weakness.
So both despise and denigrate the others.

It seems (to me) to be the root cause of lots of our problems as a society ... behind racism, fear of immigrants, disdain for the poor, class entitlement, religious intolerance, anti-DEI, anti-woke, NIMBY ... the list goes on for so long.

The most charitable way I can think of those I view as empathy-deficient ... is that with the world becoming smaller and smaller, there's an overwhelming sense of fear if you're too empathetic; you have to block empathy out to be functional.

But usually I'm not so charitable and just furious at them for being stupid and selfish.

And yeah, my kids think I'm too judgmental

For both of you that have read this far, thanks for letting me rant

[Fil1957]

14. Republicans tend to be terrible on issues that don't affect them personally; usually pretty good on those that do.

A prime example of this is Meghan McCain's late father, John McCain. I disagreed with him on almost every political stance he took, except one -- torture. He was great on the issue of torture because he himself had been tortured.

Is it an empathy deficit? I think so. But I also think an important part of it is a lack of imagination. Republicans just can't imagine themselves being in the shoes of those who are less fortunate.