How do your political views develop from how you were raised?

Firist modern political debate, Kennedy and Nixon

Behavioral scientists recognize that people learn what they live and that child-rearing patterns produce behaviors that can continue later in life. Children are said to model their parents' behavior and to develop in certain ways as they are taught. So how does that child-rearing affect political choice?.

Experts tell us there are four patterns of child rearing that shape behavior.  These behaviors then become the cornerstone of an adult's future life, including how successful he or she may be and how an individual will think and behave in relationship to other people.

Children who are given strict rules learn to expect them. They value discipline and knowing good limits and often end up wanting to raise their children in the same way they were brought up. Strict definitions of rules that are said to be important lead people to define their world in terms of rules and laws and ways to behave that are said to be part of tradition.

The Republican Party emphasizes the Constitution, the rules, the need to have defined order and the importance of tradition in life. Those who have led their lives by these same rules as children find it comfortable to be within a political party where the rules of behavior are defined and where they can feel safe that those around them can be trusted to follow the same rules.

Those who lived by rules that were understood, yet changed when new things happened in families, and where information was explained as opposed to the message, "just listen and obey" are likely to want the same flexibility in adult life. This means rules might be important but can be broken if there is a new event that requires a different set. Democrats pride themselves on understanding change and being able to work within it as time and events bring new and important information where people must make adjustments. The child who has been taught to do that will choose a political party where those same behaviors are found.

Authority, who has it and how it is used is another way people learn to define themselves in childhood. The father in charge of a family who has unqualified authority and who exercises it with a strong hand will have a child who seeks a parent figure who has the same type of characteristics for leadership. The child who has a strong father in authority will want a political leader with the same characteristics,often Republican as well for that reason.

The person who has parents who share authority and where decisions are made through collaboration come to seek that same collaboration in how they conduct their lives. So the "big tent" of Democrats where negotiation takes time because of differences isn't as uncomfortable for those people where parents sometimes negotiated, or even verbally battled, over differences.

A nurturing parent who disciplines with a voice not the back of a hand often ends up with a child who wants to talk, negotiate and reach understanding, according to the experts. Politics that emphasize e a caring, nurturing pattern, reflected by social concerns for the poor, elderly, disabled and the underdog in general appeal to those individuals who were raised themselves in a caring, nurturing home where parents talked about sharing and caring for others.  Social liberalism defines the Democratic Party, according to social scientists and students of history, particularly in the 20th century.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt is one of those politicians who represents that social liberalism, as his programs to help the underprivileged and his New Deal ideas were oriented towards helping others in a nurturing way, and a way that said society has a responsible to care for its members who have less prilege than others. And FDR himself was raised in that nurturing style that is said to create the social liberal.  His mother was particularly nurturing in her raising of FDR, according to biographers,as she doted over him much of his life, including when he was President.

In the modern family parents often exchange roles, with the father and mother assuming different responsibilities at different times, according to the American Psychological Association.  Still there are differences in child-rearing according to the region of the country where the family resides that will also impact political views. For example, in the South the father often still retains the role as head of the family.  Rules are important, as reflected by the South's legislation that controls personal behavior.  And spanking as a form of discipline is still favored, including the physical discipline by teachers to enforce the rules, as observed in an article about child rearing and child education in Texas.  Still in most American families there has been some shift in how decisions are made within the modern family and a mixed style of how children are encouraged or disciplined, where one might receive a spanking one day or conversation about a behavior the next.. These patterns lead to behaviors where flexibility and independence are required and where this same type of independence and flexibility becomes the hallmark of the behavior and needs of the child as he or she grows up.  These are the people who often become the political Independents.

Political pundits agree that voter apathy is an ongoing concern.  Much of that apathy may come from a fourth pattern of child raising.  That pattern involves parents who are not that involved in the child's rearing, who don't set rules and who are not responsive to a child's needs. Children who are raised with this style have a higher rate of social problems than others and are therefore apt to have those same patterns incorporated into social and political behaviors.  They won't or can't vote, or they may be changeable depending upon emotions at the time.

Those who want to shape politics might examine the behavioral principles involved in how attitudes are shaped from child rearing practices, as these may make a difference in how people vote.  And the problem of voter apathy can also be examined from the standpoint of child-rearing practices as well, so that at the core behaviors can be shaped to encourage voter participation by encouraging parental participation with children in their developmental years.   Because how a child is raised, like a tree that is bent, will determine how he or she will grow and become the adult who helps to shape a nation.

Private vs government-run agencies: Either can fail in service delivery

[caption id="attachment_22101" align="alignleft" width="391"] United Parcel Service[/caption]

Gordon Matilla----While many people complained about the rollout of the Affordable Care Act's health care options and fault President Barack Obama and the Democrats for the inefficiency and errors that were dramatically displayed in the government website, the United Parcel Service is presently criticized for its delays in shipping Christmas gifts. One is a government program; the other privately managed.  It simply might mean that corporations and agencies must be individually evaluated for efficiency as opposed to criticizing one or the other as faulty or favored.

Many people complain about too much government and maintain that privately-run corporations can do a far better job at managing the affairs of business, and even social service and mental health programs.  On the other hand, across the board there have been examples of private companies failing in their attempts to provide services, just as government agencies sometimes fail as well.  The difference, however, is many in the private sector have had less oversight and therefore more likelihood of failure.

An example are the privately-run prisons.  Experts contend prisons managed by private corporations not only aren't necessarily more efficient in delivering services, often they exhibit poor management and poor outcomes related to treatment and recidivism.  In addition, many times the prisons themselves exhibit poor conditions and sometimes less qualified staff than those that are state or federally managed.  In fact some say that the promises made by private corporations seem to be like so much "fairy dust."

Criticisms should be given those who fail regardless of whether they are corporation or government managed, as experience has shown it is the individual situation or event that should be assessed as opposed to making generalizations about whether one way is right or not.  The post office may have its problems, but perhaps they did just as well delivering merchandise as UPS, or at least tried just as hard to get those gifts to the recipients as early as possible.

Two Paths to Reform: Violence or Convention

[caption id="attachment_9115" align="alignleft" width="168" caption="Liberty Bell"][/caption]

Joel S. Hirschhorn  --By every one of countless measures the US is in a death spiral.  Its political system, government and economy are hopelessly broken.  No wonder that the vast majority of Americans express severe dissatisfaction with Congress, both major parties, and increasingly with President Obama.  And only the wealthy elites have any reason to be positive about corporate powers, Wall Street and the whole banking and finance sector.  They not only own the nation, they run it.

Only the truly delusional still speak about the US being the leading and best nation.  About a third of the population is suffering from one or more of these epidemics: unemployment, underemployment, hunger, homelessness, home foreclosure, no useful health insurance, income so stagnated that keeping up with rising living costs is next to impossible, and slippage from the middle class into the working poor class.  What is to save the nation?

Once you acknowledge the profound and insidious corruption plaguing the political system which is nothing more than a dysfunctional two-party plutocracy or oligarchy serving the rich and corporate interests, then you must also see that elections will not deliver salvation.  Nor can you depend on the media to rise above corporate ownership to help fix the nation.

It matters little whether you vote for and support Republicans or Democrats.  All those politicians are corrupt and unable to exercise bold, creative solutions for the good of the nation, not those special interests that get them elected, on the left and right.

Once mighty nations and superpowers have fallen before.  History speaks truth, unlike just about everything spoken by today’s politicians.

There are two paths that have the power to bring about the major, radical reforms needed.  Everything else you hear is pure garbage designed to maintain the status quo.

First, there is what brought about the birth of the US and so many other democracies: violent revolution.  Not rebellion against some foreign power, but rather against domestic tyrannical forces.  There is a limit to what many millions of Americans will endure, especially as they see the rich Upper Class enjoy every conceivable type of luxury.  True, it is hard to understand how even now we have not seen millions of angry, suffering Americans protesting violently in the streets of all major cities, as we see happen in so many European countries.  Americans seem to have been drugged into a distracted, delusional state of mind, still buying the scam that they can depend on elections.  Eventually, however, as government is financially unable to provide various kinds of assistance because of the broken economy, those most struggling to survive will inevitably resort to violence. History speaks truth.

Second, is the peaceful route to dramatic, necessary reforms that the Founders had the wisdom to put into the US Constitution: an Article V convention of state delegates with the constitutional power to propose constitutional amendments.  At this time there are more diverse groups seriously examining and, increasingly, demanding the first Article V convention.  Why?  Because it has become crystal clear to more and more people that only through constitutional amendments that Congress will never propose is it possible to rid the political system of the corruption and dysfunction permeating it.  Get private money out of politics.  Remove the fiction of corporate personhood.  Compel Congress to balance the budget. Worthy ideas are everywhere.

At other times attempts to get the first Article V convention met stiff opposition from the right and left.  But times have changed.  It is clearer than ever that the political and government system is so broken and corrupt that the basic rules must be amended, just as the Founders believed would become necessary.

A major upcoming conference at Harvard, using the tag line “Democracy inAmerica is Stalled,” will surely help focus both support and opposition to using the convention route.

There are now many websites providing solid information and analysis about the convention option, particularly one by the national, nonpartisanFriends of the Article V convention that does not advocate for specific amendments.

Every time you hear some argument against using the convention option ask yourself whether the risk of sticking with the current system outweighs any conceivable risk of a convention that can only propose amendments, which still must be ratified by three-quarters of the states.  If you are not in the top levels of the economy, but rather are in the majority suffering and losing ground, then the answer rings as clear as the liberty bell.



[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]