I remember Molly once asked, "Why are rebublikans so damned mean"?

[Philosoraptor]

And her question really knocked me for a loop, for years after and to this day. I too have pondered on her fundamental question, what is it that has made these people so fucking nasty?

Underwear too tight? No grapefruit as a child? Picked on in grade school? Mom hated them? Just what the hell happened to them that we were spared from?

[cyclezealot]

1. Grade school memories?

Does it not seem most High school bullies were Repukes. ? I think so. It's just in their make up.

[Kurovski]

2. Career criminals are rarely kind people either.

Go figure.:shrug:

Perhaps one day science will find the key, and maybe that's another reason why Repubbers have such hostility toward science.:D

[hobbit709]

5. Aren't most repukes career criminals?

They all seem to be crooked.

[Auggie]

3. I think they function the same way as corporations.

It's about the bottom line -- the return on investment, the dividend, the stock price. People finish second.

[izzie]

4. My father was a real old time GOP guy and never mean.

Funny he hated unions but paid his help way over what he needed to do and helped every one he could. He drove kids back to school if they quit and helped every one in his family yet we all joked about FDR as he was so dis-liked in our family. Being kids my sister and I thought he was pretty good. Every one was an old time GOP person in the family. It maybe that mean people go to that party now. They used to be called zealots and being off the track. Now they run that party.:shrug:

[cyclezealot]

7. Maybe there used to be a more main street Republican.

Even if they were business oriented. Like Gerald Ford. Since Ford's demise a more hard core Repuke has taken over. Sort of a switch from Everett Dirksen to Tom Delay. A huge difference. HEck, Everett Dirksen was even likable.

[izzie]

8. Yes I left that party when RR came in. I had been thinking about

it for years. It just was going to far to the right that I could not stay with them. I liked Ike a lot and he seemed so far from Nixon it was hard to believe they were in the WH at the same time. My father would spin in his grave if he heard me say this but he was more like a moderate Dem. of our days than this GOP party. A big thing with him was the waste of money on wars and spending money you did not have as int. will kill you. Also he always said the it takes a village to raise good Am. and never mix church with state.

[cyclezealot]

9. don't feel alone

Barry Goldwater went to his grave spinning . Goldwater was wrong about many issues, but he did respect our First Amendment. If he were alive today, he might follow Bob Barr and bolt the party .

[SheilaT]

6. I first noticed this

back when Richard Nixon became President, although it wasn't as out-there as it's become over the years.

By the time of Reagan's inaugural, it was very noticeable. There was a meanness on the part of many Republicans that really bothered me. As a group (and I well know that there are many kind and good Republicans out there, but they don't seem to slow down the rest in their meanness) they are consistently nasty, make nasty "jokes" about Dems, lie endlessly about all sorts of things, claim to be "compassionate" and yet do things like let Americans drown in the aftermath of a hurricane, cut funding for schools and veterans while cutting the taxes of the wealthiest. I could go on, but you all know all of these things already.

I think for the ones who are like this it comes from feeling they are privileged, almost a "God's chosen' as it were, regardless of the church they attend or their actual degree of wealth.

[sakabatou]

10. Low self-esteem?

[treestar]

11. One guess is that it is because they are controlling and the meanness

often works to cow other people into submission.

They believe themselves to be in the right and that they have a God-given right to be in charge, and that those who fail to recognize that and submit deserve to be "punished" with meanness to get them back in line.

[Justpat]

12. I think their most dominant characteristic is arrogance.

They believe that the reins of government and finance belong to them.
Whenever they sense control slipping back to the masses, they start
a war or manipulate the financial world to regain control

The entire Reagan administration consisted of making the world safe for
plutocracy. Although we claim to detest monarchy, there is a certain
segment of our society that considers themselves to be the deserving
recipients of that title. Consider GWB, a son of unearned privilege
who simply believed that the only thing necessary to grab the reins
of government was his family name.

Their meanness stems from their disdain for the general public
and our belief that we are the rightful ruling class of this country.

[SpiralHawk]

13. Repressed and deviant sex practices will do it

republicons have no experience with mature, consenting adult love.

All their repressed and deviant sex practices scramble their hormones and then their brains.

Go figure.