the missing link

[metaphortunate]

American domestic policy...



...is missing a quadrant.

Comments

[snarp]

Nuns, basically. You should write "nuns" in un-aliased MS Paint letters in that corner. It would seriously up the tone of the discourse if there were nun-party candidates taking part in debates and everything.

Seriously, there's in general the sort of intensely religious people who get involved with food pantries and abuse shelters (of which a decent number are nuns). But this isn't really a cultural identity the way those other things are - they aren't a huge demographic, even in the South, and in my experience they're heavily female. They affect local politics by means of applying social pressure and baked goods to the elected and officials and businesspeople whom they lobby for funding, and then campaign for among their social circles if they get what they want consistently enough.

They tend to avoid the topic of national politics in mixed company, and the ones I know are mostly pretty resigned to having various Jews and Jains on the board with them. So, maybe they don't really care about who you're fucking that much? I've only ever found myself having that argument with such an individual once, and she was later to become a pariah amongst the nice church ladies for not-directly-related reasons.

[metaphortunate]

So yeah. But I realize that a thing that I did not get across, is that this is not so much "what I care about" as "what I want the *government* to care about". And for some reason, it seems like the people in that lower right quadrant with regards to personal caring, do not make the leap into wanting the government to care as well.

[jrtom]

Evangelical (non-hardcore-chiliastic*) Christians, Catholics, Muslims (although recent Republican policy has been doing its best to drive that category into the Liberal quadrant).

*The hardcore chiliasts presumably kind of care if you're starving, but figure that it will get taken care of soon enough when the Rapture happens, i.e., RSN.

[metaphortunate]

I learned a new word!

[marahmarie]

Me, too (well, one word and one proper name: "chiliasts" and "Jains")!

[hradzka]

Mike Huckabee and big christian populists.

[crystalpyramid]

My hardcore Catholic friends have been very frustrated this election cycle. (Romney's views on abortion didn't help, but neither did his views on anything else.)

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

Romney has views? When did this happen? :)

[crystalpyramid]

I think it's not so much that he had views, as that he didn't have the clear position they were looking for. (: Romney tried so hard to be unobjectionable to everyone!

[veejane]

You might consider coloring in the codpiece the Libertarian; I was about to ask why he was wearing a diaper when I figured it out.

(I suppose as many Libertarians wear diapers for fun as do codpieces, but I think a codpiece matches better with the combat boots. Heavens forfend that a kinky Libertarian should be unmatchy in his paraphernalia.)

[laurashapiro]

This is GREAT.

I agree with those who say evangelical religious types, but they don't have a handy political label like the other three groups.

[snippy]

I think this is clever and funny but not helpful or accurate.

Everybody cares about everything. Where they differ is in what action, if any, to take about it. After all, liberals want the government (laws) to *allow* you to fuck anybody. That's still caring. And conservatives care if you're starving, they just don't think that feeding you is an appropriate use of government and the power to tax.

[metaphortunate]

Yeah, I didn't get across that it's not so much what a particular person cares about, it's what a particular group wants the government to care about. A number of conservatives are personally generous, but they don't want the government to get involved. But then, of course, what makes them conservative rather than libertarian is that they're bang alongside the government outlawing your drugs and gay sex and whatnot. I'm interested in why we don't seem to have a group who is similarly into the government legislating your morality, but also into the government giving you welfare. Why does it seem to be one or the other, I wonder?

[marahmarie]

Compassionate Conservative? Moderate Democrat? Some already well-known group must fit this description and more roundly and commonly than most people are aware of.

[metaphortunate]

There is. It's not surprising when you think about it! (Mr. E spoiled it for me. :)

[snippy]

I think there are actually a lot of people who feel like that--see, e.g., the liberal-ish churches who are nevertheless opposed to gay-marriage. They're liberal on civil rights and on welfare, but not on sexual/moral issues.

But they're not a political party, any more than people like me who support both abortion and gun rights are a political party.

[dancingsinging]

Just wanted to say that I love the drawing in this comic and it totally made me laugh.

Apparently, I'm too sleep-deprived to have even considered actually answering the question you pose.

[metaphortunate]

Aww. Yay. :)