Offhand, my guess is that social liberals might be ruder than social conservatives, given that many on the left see social mores as disposable parts of the bourgeois legacy. But what's the definition of "rude"? Some women don't want the door held open.

For what it's worth, "ruder than liberals" got me zero hits on Google, while "ruder than conservatives" got a mere handful. "Rude conservatives" got 38 hits, and "rude liberals" 77. But maybe conservatives just complain about it more.

Hi -

My empirical evidence is that social liberals, especially limousine liberals, are incomparably ruder. I've been out to dinners where the waiters were extremely rudely treated and where the tips were stingy at best: that was with a bunch of higher-level NGO workers, limousine liberals at their best.

I've even gone back in and apologized, handing the waitress a fifty because the people I was with had basically stiffed her the tip because she hadn't been able to properly chill the wine.

Of course, these were New York liberals, who take rudeness to a new level. I say that as a native New Yorker.

Dalrymple's comparison is interesting. Conservatives: Everything is my fault. Liberals: Everything is someone else's fault. Is "fault" really worth dwelling on? It seems more important to look at your situation, determine which parts you yourself had control over and what you should do differently next time, and let the rest go. There's no reason to live some grim, tedious life where you constantly beat yourself up over mistakes, never have fun, and worry constantly. On the other hand, blaming everyone else for your own fuck-ups does absolutely nothing to make your situation better, either.

Yes, Pirate Jo, fault is extremely important. It's inherent to assessing responsibility, and it identifies who is in charge of seeing that a mistake is not repeated.

In addition to being dangerous, panicky animals (as Agent K noted), people are slimy, evasive and greedy, unless they have a moral code, not necessarily obtained from church BTW. Now, what moral code urges people to bleat, "It's not my fault!" at every opportunity?

As for the question: go look at Sadly, No! or Pharyngula and figure out which way they lean. Even the self-styled intellectuals abandon reason when they're outside their field, talking politics - and then it's my fault for pointing that out.

But worst is the tendency to claim moral or intellectual superiority while belittling others. I'll show you with a reference and/or explain why an idea of yours might be loony, and in a manner which might put you off, but I'm not forgetting you might be doing the best you can.

See also.

Radwaste, I think you misunderstand me. When I say, "look at your situation, determine which parts you yourself had control over and what you should do differently next time," that means accepting responsibility. But I also think that once you've learned your lesson, you should go on to do things differently and ENJOY YOUR LIFE.

There are people who spend way too much time in the self-defeating behavior of dwelling on past mistakes. There are also those who spend their time being pissed off at others' mistakes. They need to move on, too, and not dwell on being a victim.

Well, after reading left and right on the net for years now, I tend to think the question proves how stupid both sides are.

Both sides are filled with nitwits, jerks, and assholes.

Like a bad penny, they crowd out the genuinely wise and caring people that (used to?) populate both sides too.

Another example of rudeness by a limosine Liberals
Here's Stephen Bainbridge on Arianna Huffington barging in on the front of the line at the airport.
http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/arianna_huffington_and_me/

> worst is the tendency to claim
> moral or intellectual superiority
> while belittling others.

While both liberals and conservatives have their preferred methods of expressing this tendency, I think what Raddy's talking about is one of the fundamental needs of human nature.

Here are the basic human needs (listed in rough order):

1. Food
2. Shelter
3. Clothing
4. Community
5. Sex
6a. To look down on others
6b. Music.
7. Work.
8... etc.

I think 6a & 6b is about the same number of people. Some people really like music, and can't imagine spending a day without it. And some people's entire worldview is built around believing, or at least claiming, that they're better than their peers. They think humility is for the weak.

And yet.... I don't see much point in worrying about whether others are "doing the best they can." Few people in the world would define that in the same way. We have such a great variety of powers, and such personal interests, that I see no reason to pretend we're all on the same page in terms of aspiration.

Well, Crid, then I give you some benefit of doubt. If you're just blowing steam on line or in a letter to the editor, your Congressman or some company, you don't have to care, but if you want a solution you have to provide a way to get there.

I'm an enormous fan of Theodore Dalrymple and have read his columns and books for years. He has sat in a particularly unique position to observe a cross strata of humanity in England. Highly recommend his work. Oh, and I think he is equally despised by the left and the right.

I'd say liberals. I used to vote liberal, switched teams this election, probably for good. Obamites are downright nasty. I don't think they have a huge led, but they have some. In my experience, people in heavily red areas just are nicer. Maybe it's because that's the bible belt, maybe it's because they live in more rural areas where everyone knows you and your family. Liberal centers like Austin, and the coasts, are ruder.

There is a big difference between taking responsibility for your actions and merely assessing what you did and try not to do it again. Simply saying, "oh well, this is what I am in control of, and I will try not to do it again" is not taking responsibility at all!

This really irks me to no end, to see this rash of people who subscribe to "spirituality" as a way to claim they are still religious but don't want to take actual responsibility for their actions. This sounds like my ex again, who deemed herself "spiritual". She was quick to point out that in spirituality there was "no good, no bad, no right, and no wrong", which is a totally screwed up way to say "I want to do what I want, when I want, with absolutely no responsibility or accountability". WTF??? Must be nice to be able to do whatever you want and then if you mess up, just say "oh well".

Responsibility is admitting the mistake, making certain that you ask for forgiveness, making it right, and THEN thinking about how to correct it or keep from doing it again. If you can't accept the blame/fault then you are not being responsible or accountable. At least that is how I was brought up.

It's like playing baseball in the street. Sometimes you break a window: half the kids run away because they don't want to be responsible, but those with an internal moral compass will walk up to the house, ring the doorbell, and tell the owner they just hit a baseball through a window. Then you offer to pay for the window. That is taking responsibility.

Of course, this all my opinion, just like everyone else's opinion here.

Mike, I don't disagree with you - when I made my comments I wasn't even remotely thinking about the doing of things that hurt other people. No reason for that, other than when I read the words "personal responsibility" (Dalrymple) I thought more of people doing stupid, as opposed to immoral, things.

He has written extensively about the welfare class in Great Britain - so I thought along those lines. A dumb girl who becomes a single mother as a teenager, for example, can wallow in a "society let me down" attitude at one extreme, or at the other, become an grim, embittered old crone who always imagines her life might have been a lot better had she not screwed up. In the former scenario, she can't even admit she made a mistake. In the latter, her mistake becomes a crutch for never seizing life by the reins and being happy - she always has that one old mistake to blame for everything that goes wrong.

I guess my thinking went in a completely different direction.

But I agree - when people harm others, they should make restitution and THEN not do it again.

First of all, I want credit for linking the thing about Zsa Zsa Huffington 24 minutes before Belle did.

Secondly-

> if you want a solution you
> have to provide a way to
> get there

I'm not sure what that means, or what it has to do with other people "doing the best they can".

Here's what I want. I want people to understand that the "solutions" we seek are broadly distributed across the population. They can live in the hearts of people we don't really like and don't much agree with. We often don't recognize what it is we need from each other, let alone whether others are "doing the best they can" to bring it to us.

Meanwhile, that fact that you're absolutely certain that other people are wrong doesn't mean you get to disregard their opnions, or belittle their right to hold opinions. (Hi, Amy!)

People get terribly confused about this. Consider Mike's comment a couple hours ago:

> Of course, this all my opinion,
> just like everyone else's
> opinion here.

I think he's warning us that even if we prove he's wrong, he won't care. So we're left to wonder why he came to visit... He's not even pretending to be interested in persuasion.

I'm sorry Crid, is a blog supposed to be a forum in trying to persuade people that you are right? Or is a blog a simple device to let people know of your opinions? I guess I'm confused...

Your last sentence starts out with "I think...", implying that it only your opinion, instead of "I know" or maybe "it is a fact".

Get over yourself please.

Pirate Jo, I liked your comments, and being a long-time reader (but not often a writer), I have long admired your ability to cut out the BS.

mike

Sorry Crid,
I didn't mean to usurp your link.

Wow. Really great link belle.

Amy, would you consider yourself as part of the Secular Right?

> Or is a blog a simple device
> to let people know of
> your opinions?

If you have no faith in your opinions --or anybody else's-- why bother to get out of bed in the morning?

> I guess I'm confused...

Let me help.

Some people's opinion's are worth more than others! They describe the state of the world more accurately.

Sometimes they do that because they've seen more of the world.

Sometimes it's because they've had better friends and family who've explained things more thoroughly.

Sometimes it's because they've done more reading, and read better books.

Sometimes it's because they're older and they've had all their childish assumptions corrected by brutal experience.

And --my favorite-- sometimes it's because of a random mix of higher candlepower and deeper sensitivity such that they grasp the meaning of events better than others do.

So when someone says "this all my opinion, just like everyone else's", I know that it's not true. Some people's opinions are worth a lot more to me. They're not 'just alike'.

> I didn't mean to
> usurp your link.

Thief! Bandit! Rustler!

(I was only teasing you... The only concern is that too many people here all read the same things elsewhere, and thus forge the same beliefs. This is bad for the blog, and deleterious to the American Way of Life®.

> Wow. Really great link belle.

Agreed!

It has to be liberals, they feel they are entitled to everything.

Very, very, very many blacks are Liberals and if you have ever waited tables, you know they are the worst tippers; if you have ever sat in a movie theater with blacks, you know they are the noisiest talkers; if you have ever been waiting on a line, you know they are the worst line intruders; if you have ever been in a deli near a big city high school, you know they are the loudest and most annoying of customers.

Obviously not every single liberal black person in America is rude, but that's just my personal experience.

Now we read that they (mostly blacks) trampled a Wal-Mart worker to death. If you allow me a shameless plug for my article:
Controlling Chaos

Social liberals are always ruder. They're the ones who'll make the loud comments about the SUV, the fur collar, the wrong bumper sticker, the wrong college seal on a car window--since they're always aggrieved, they feel called upon the share it. Santa Monica is fuller of far ruder people than is Pasadena.

African American moms are very strict with little kids, esp. in public, so it's no wonder that as teenagers, they get crazy at the mall. In general, I think black adults have better public manners, though. (The movie theatre thing is different--it's not rude, it's more like performance. I'm not excusing it, but it's a different standard than say, WASPs at the ballet.)

I tend to think it's a lot more complicated than that. Ultimately, there are a lot of fucking assholes on either end of the spectrum and everywhere in between, it's just that there are differences in the way folks express their inner asshole, depending on their place on the spectrum(though that's not absolute by any stretch).

Ultimately, I think the rudest, most obnoxious people, are the people who cannot comprehend that they are ever rude. Folks who are shocked! Shocked! That anyone would find them to be anything other than entirely pleasant and infinitely charming.

The truly and always charming are exceedingly rare, though I suspect they exist and believe I have met one or two along the way.

I would add that tipping is a huge pet peeve of mine. First, if you don't have the money to pay for the meal and leave a twenty percent tip (at least), you cannot afford to eat out or buy drinks. Second, if the meal isn't right (taking into account how absolutely hammered the restaurant might happen to be), then it is entirely reasonable for the tip to reflect that (nor am I in any way defending "the wine isn't chilled perfectly").

Coffee shops are my biggest peeve. I know a lot of people who just don't figure they should tip in a coffee house. The problem I have with that, is that if it's a coffee shop where the person making your drink is making good money, they generally have worked hard enough to earn a fucking tip. If, OTOH, it's not a really high end coffee house, they make their money off tips, because they likely aren't even making minimum wage. I don't care if all they did was pump some coffee into your cup, you fucking well tip them.

Liberals usually populate the bigger cities (look at a map of the red blue populous if you don't believe me). Big city folk are inherently more removed from personal interactions then towns and cities (normally more red - conservative) and therefore, as I see it, don't feel the slightest need to be polite. My guess, demographically speaking, Liberals are more rude.

Personal experience also speaks to this. I ride public transit (BART). It mystifies me that many men (early twenties through mid fifties) absolutely WILL NOT GET UP for old ladies, pregnant women or disabled people on the train = even if they are sitting in the disabled section.

It fries my ass everytime. Sometimes I'll say something and ALWAYS i glare at them for the remainder of the ride...and NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN, these pooopsicles get off at the "Berkeley" or "Oakland Hills" exit. (I even started a tally on these panty wastes until it started to give me high blood pressure and i switched to Suduko to keep me entertained)

Yet, one time a veteran (WWII, bless his little heart) got up for a pregnant woman although he could hardly walk.

I say liberals, without a doubt are the rudeniks.

I ride public transit (BART). It mystifies me that many men (early twenties through mid fifties) absolutely WILL NOT GET UP for old ladies, pregnant women or disabled people on the train = even if they are sitting in the disabled section...and NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN, these pooopsicles get off at ... "Berkeley" or "Oakland Hills".... - Feebie

Don't forget the ginormous bicycle they bring on the train with them and expect everyone else to squish together to accommodate.

Hey, I don't bring my bike on BART because I hate feeling like it's in the way, but if that's how you get around, what are you supposed to do? The hours bikes are permitted are restricted, so y'all aren't being inconvenienced during commute times. My observation is that the people who bring their bikes are considerate, and the other folks who bitch about the bikes are the rude ones. Also, there isn't an Oakland Hills BART stop, so Feebie, I am skeptical of your familiarity with BART.