What causes politics?

This is a question I've been grappling with on and off for over a year. We all know the power of confirmation bias and groupthink. We're all inclined to seek out information that supports our biases, and succumb easily to pressure from our groups. But where do those biases come from in the first place? 

I've been wondering lately why I'm right wing. I really don't have any answer.  I've had a conservative political orientation ever since I was old enough to think about politics, as young as age 12, even as my position on the actual issues has changed and continues to change. Some may say it comes from how people are raised, and perhaps it does, but my family NEVER discussed politics (my parents weren't even registered to vote) so if your politics come from the way you are raised, it's a lot deeper than just indoctrination. Unless I'm the oddball. Everyone likes to think that their politics comes from mind and logic. We've thought about the issues, and the other side is just WRONG! But following politics is one of my hobbies. I read books about politics. I've wasted countless hours online debating politics. I like to think I'm pretty smart, but who knows. And it's pretty obvious to me that while my actual ideas on policies might come from a rational place, my gut level choice of a "side" was absolutely pre-rational. Both parties have issues I believe they are objectively wrong on, and in roughly equal proportion, but the things the left is wrong about offend my sensibilities WAY more. Why? I truly have no idea. 

This isn't meant to be a diary entry. I just doubt I'm uniquely irrational, and if this is how I am it's probably how most people are. I've seen good evidence that "conservatives" and "liberals" have different brains, and while they say physiognomy is a pseudoscience, there's an obvious physical difference between groups....at least among the extremists. Go look up the mugshots of antifa vs. mugshots of people at the capitol riot. What I would suggest to people above all is that political orientation may as well be an immutable characteristic, so please extend as much grace as you can muster to the other side. It's fun to debate and important to understand where other people are coming from, but don't get carried away. While you might be diametrically opposed your brains are probably different enough that it's not that they are simply stupid or evil, but that they truly see the world differently in a way so fundamental that you that you're unlikely to ever change them.  

 Suppose you were standing before God right now and He asked you, “Why should I let you into heaven?” What would you say?  I voted for Trump?

Politics wouldn’t enter into that conversation at all. In fact politics makes people into monsters, if anything caring about politics is a strong mark against me. If God asked me to morally justify my politics I believe that I could, but that doesn’t make them objectively true because I could just be wrong 

It comes down to what you prioritize, what principles appeal to you most, and to an extent, policies that appeal to you superficially. This is a combination of what principles are encouraged by your parents - to how you reacted to such principles being put on you. Even down to how you view the principles you don't align with. For example, a person in Europe who is a conservative is much more likely to agree with someone on the left-wing than a conservative in the U.S. The Overton window essentially.

Politics is all about power, and the most common political people are the ones deluded into thinking they have a share of the power people in Washington DC wield.

(The vast majority of us have no power in reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig )

It's all a feel-good illusion of power.

This is true but I don’t really know what it is I value that liberals don’t. I do have more old fashioned views around family, honor, etc and I can see how that translates to politics but where do THOSE come from. My sister is a progressive but I really don’t see THAT big of a difference in our values. I think we would come to the same conclusions on most moral questions.. my closest friends are conservative but all of my less close friends who I still hang out with are progressives. They’re good people, we get along (although I suspect some of them don’t even know I’m conservative. I don’t talk politics in real life.) We hardly seem different enough to justify hating each other and yet people do. It’s just weird

For sure. Torpedoing a real life friendship or family relationship over politics is the dumbest thing you can do...objectively none of our opinions matter 

I keep telling my roommate, stop watching the news and listen to old comedy before it got woke. (George Carlin, Chappelle etc.)

It's better for your health.

Well, for example, which would you say is needed more to solve discrimination - individual responsibility or systemic accountability?

It comes primarily from influences during your childhood and education. Even if your family isn't political, they probably had thoughts or feelings about issues which would color your political views. Maybe your dad said taxes are too high. Maybe your mom said people needed more jesus (or any other religion). These aren't inherently political, but they would color your views. If you heard these kinds of opinions from your parents young, theres a good chance that you would internalize that taxes should be lower or that people should be more religious. These are obviously just examples, I don't know anything about you or your parents. 

The other main influence is education. for the last few decades at least, generally speaking, the more education someone receives, the more likely they are to have left leaning views. The less education someone has, the more likely they are to have right leaning views. 

The only way to "solve discrimination" is to genetically engineer everyone to have no preferences.

Maybe you should word what you really want to say better.

That's only because the left has the power in all of public education to control the narratives. Try comparing the well-educated homeschooled, charter schools, or skilled tradesmen to people with no education for example.

that probably plays a role. There is also other stuff wrapped up in this too. For example, rural people tend to get less services from the government, and therefore would rather just be left alone. Whereas urban people get lots of services from the government and are more receptive to higher taxes and better services. Urban populations tend to have a higher percentage of people who get advanced degrees. So this also plays into this. 

Generally speaking, people who want more freedom from the government are going to lean away from the left even if there is no real party on the right since the Republicans are into big government.

-Greyparrot

What of people who seek to enhance other's freedom through government? I am legitimately curious as to what you think in that regard. 

You don't impose freedom through government. That's such a ridiculous idea. Government is supposed to protect voluntary social contracts, not impose its own mandates.

Almost all inequity in America has been created in part or in whole with the support of the imposition of unfair government mandates, including Jim Crow atrocities.

The entire premise of the Constitution is to mandate freedom FROM government: To prohibit the government from enacting laws that promote inequity. Sadly, there is no party left in America anymore unwilling to shred the Constitution for the sole purpose of increasing their own power.

we are getting into the area where "right" and "left" are useless. The republicans are really far "right". but there is no universal description of what that means. Originally, being right wing meant you were a monarchist. So saying that the "right" believes in small government is silly, because the term originally meant the exact opposite of that. And the right wing republicans advocate for lots of government control. For example, banning abortion is government control of people's bodies. It doesn't get much more "big government" than telling you what you can do with your own body, but the right would love to be able to do that. 

so right vs left isn't super helpful.

lol, they aren't though. Under every metric, the Republican party fails to provide anything close to the accepted wiki definition of right-wing.

-Greyparrot

So you think that the government prohibiting our freedom to kill another in order to let our lives be guaranteed - to allow us to be free - is ridiculous? 

Killing people in self-defense is protected by law, because it's a voluntary contract the people made. Killing people because you want stuff isn't, although the government makes all sorts of inequitable laws to protect selected classes of killers who support the creation of more government power such as groups of illegal aliens from totalitarian failed countries south of USA, or groups of people like BLM who riot that support totalitarianism and more government control, etc. Those groups get special allowances and exemptions from the established equal treatment under the law.

In a just and fair society, there would be equal treatment under the law and no exemptions. In a society where the government has unlimited power with no functional Constitutional blocks, there can be no equal treatment.

It's very likely within the next 10 years that the 1st 2 provisions of the Constitution (to be able to speak against the government and to provide self-defense against the government) will be functionally abolished. All because there exists a majority of people that support an unrestricted government.

-Greyparrot

You have spoken on sorts of killing, but not the majority of it, which is - the petty and desperate murder that is most common - do you or do you not think that such regulations are fair? Even though they limit our liberty? - We are not discussing the US per se, but what the US ought to be, so while I agree that a society ought to protect the freedoms of people, you seem to balk at the idea of protecting freedom by regulating. Which is surprising, because the entire idea of a social contract is that we give up some of our liberties in order to form a functioning society. 

The most inequality in the world exists where there is the most unrestricted government control. It's not an accident or coincidental that California and New York have some of the highest Gini coefficients out of all the States in the USA. It's axiomatic.

That is where you seem to miss my point - in fact you even agree with it - unrestricted regulation. Yet, even our prohibitions of killing is regulated, if someone attacks you with intent to kill, you are able to kill in self-defense. So it then seems that you would agree that freedom through restricted regulation is something we ought to strive for, no?

I'm for equal treatment under the law, not the current social justice bullshit that feeds into more unrestricted inequality forced upon us from unequal government mandates. We don't need another resurgence of Jim Crow type laws promoting more inequality in the form of critical race mandates.

The government doesn't need more freedom to do whatever increases its power. That's the road to inequality.

Why do people get so invested in politics? Same reason they like cycling or fishing. Some thrill in the exchange or general interest in how it works. There are people who are more interested in  Civil War politics than modern version and write books and study it. They find the people interesting.  Then there is feeling some kind of control or having a say in your own life.  Being able to vote should lead one to at least check out a person running. Then there is exerting authority over others. I don't like abortion you can't have one or helping others, I think you should have health care I will vote this way.  The current trend of hating the other side started back with Clinton. At least I think so. The impeachment over what some believed came down to he just humped an intern who cares leading to what people felt was a moral dilemma. The sides went from adversaries to enemies. Each Presidential election made it worse.  A leader would help bring some kind of unity but we don't elect leaders. Until we do or have a huge release of steam it's going to progress. 

-Greyparrot

You seem to believe that regulations are increasing inegalitarian principles when the opposite is empirically true, for example, the regulation of which citizens institutions are and aren't allowed to refuse has increased the freedom of Black, Asian, and Chinese Americans. Governmental policies have become increasingly egalitarian. These things are moving away from Jim Crow laws - "social justice" - as you put it - is increasing equality, not decreasing it.

As simple of an answer this is, I don't think it's any deeper than conflicting interests arising out of different beliefs. All else simply stems from that explanation 99% of the time.

-Greyparrot

So you think having minorities allowed equal rights to everyone else is "unequal" - I think you are fundamentally ignoring the point - and you didn't really answer my question, you only deflected.  I see you are stuck in your assertions, telling me to do research with your loaded terms and all, instead of just presenting the arguments yourself - you seek to apparently strawman and assert. That's fine, I just expect some proof beyond Wikipedia articles. 

-Greyparrot

You've moved your comment- the same comment - to under my own. I've already responded to that - please respond to my latest response or not at all - your choice.