Are conservatives or liberals more paranoid?

I’m in the middle, and extremity paranoid

Conservatives falsely claim Obama is a foreign born, socialist, muslim fascist.
Liberals claimed Bush hated black people, and knew about the 9–11 attacks ahead of time.
For pure paranoia, you gotta give it to the Right.

I do believe that Conservatives are coming from a place of fear.

Link to interesting article.

The PATRIOT Act is the biggest example I can think of off the top of my head, but there are tons out there.

What I don’t understand is WHY?? I’ve noticed that conservatives are completely fearful, to the point they’ll essentially disappear to protect themselves. I’m all about being private, but being afraid of things like the Census and other such things seems overkill to me.

Good question. It’s hard to say since there are so many examples on both sides. It will be interesting to see how this discussion shakes out. I’m neither, and my paranoia mirrors both fronts to a degree.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics from 1964 is a classic on the topic.

@filmfann While a small number of liberals claimed Bush hated black people, and knew about the 9–11 attacks ahead of time, they weren’t elected politicians or national television & radio hosts.
The Obama hysteria gets aired in the Congress and national broadcasts.

The left claimed Bush was illegally tapping phones. They said he was torturing prisoners. They said he was violating the constitution regularly.
And he was.
The Right says Obama is creating Death Panels. It’s laughable.

Many (not all) conservatives see themselves as defenders of a particular, rather specific way of life, moral code, worldview…which they group under the heading of “values”. They think of these ideals as defining what America is about. Having staked out this ideological territory, they see it as being constantly under attack by various subversive forces, international and domestic. Some of that is real, of course, but much of it is just the world changing as the world is wont to do. But because their idea of America is so defined and rigid, all of this shifting and evolution looks to them like a threat to the very essence of America.

Liberals tend to have a much fuzzier idea about what America stands for because they think that America was constructed so as to accommodate a huge variety of ways of life, worldviews, etc. They think that America should be as loosely defined as possible so as to allow for change and evolution, because these are both inevitable and potentially healthy. There is a certain element of secular faith in liberalism that America is robust enough to embrace new ways of doing things and unconventional points of view without losing its fundamental identity. Change appears less threatening from the liberal point of view.

I’m pretty sure it was Kanye West who said Bush hated black people and he certainly doesn’t speak for all liberals and now we kind of know that he is a major douchebag.

No one speaks for all Liberals. However, Rush seems to speak for all Conservatives.

He said Bush doesn’t care about black people. Judging from his mom’s reaction one might argue it’s a reasonable assumption.

I think it’s pretty equal on both sides.
There are those people who are paranoid, and those who aren’t, no matter their political views.

Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get you.

And if Rush thinks he speaks for all conservatives, where does that leave Glenn Beck?

@Wilma Just basing this on my personal perspective… so take that into consideration. I know of several conservatives and, to be honest, they’re over-the-top paranoid. It almost makes me wonder if they’re operating on all 8 cylinders.

@jennincincy Welcome to Fluther. Lurve.

@DrBill I can’t believe I was the first to give you a great answer. GA! btw

@filmfann No one speaks for all liberals? I disagree. MSNBC does.

Yes.

@jonsblond If you watch MSNBC, you will find them criticizing the Obama White House for not having the balls to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and for not ending the wars.
Obama said he would end DADT, but ran on the pledge that he would not abandon hope on winning in Afganistan.
Many liberals wanted to see the banks and Wall Street fail, rather than recieve all that bail out money. The Left certainly isn’t united.
Anyway, I am a moderate, and MSNBC sure doesn’t speak for me.

@filmfann I am a moderate, and MSNBC sure doesn’t speak for me

I could say the same for myself. :)

Nobody speaks for me except myself. I am a liberal on a lot of issues, a moderate on some, and a conservative on others.

@Darwin I could say that about myself as well.

Everyone is more paranoid then they should be.

I should know, they have been watching me for years.

It’s cool though, I take extra turns to make sure no one is following me.

@mowens Maybe you should consider meds… lol!

Paranoia exists in all political currents. I think it has more to do with the individual. Here are a few liberal examples:

- wars are being created to avoid job losses for arms manufacturers
– the financial crisis was engineered by secret CEO meetings
– the elite doesn’t want good education for everyone

@mattbrowne I’ve never heard of any of those examples… lol!! Maybe I’m just ill-informed, but I honestly haven’t heard of them. Guess I’m not paranoid enough… hehehe.

@jennincincy – There’s paranoia for almost everything.