Are Conservatives and Republicans incapable of experiencing feelings of guilt over their own nation's actions?

Question

Liberal Democrats have been portrayed by Republicans as overly guilt-feeling pessimists, worry warts, and negativists. It occurs to me, especially after reading many of the comments on yahoo answers, that I have never seen any signs of guilt-feelings, remorse or second thoughts among Conservative Republicans. If you can describe their P.R. front in a phrase, it would be "gung ho."

Why is this? If you are a Conservative Republican, do you think guilt is unproductive? A waste of time? Needlessly negative? You don't like feeling bad, and so, refuse to go there?

I would counter this sort of rebuff of Liberal guilt by saying that feeling guilt or remorse forces you to do the right thing. THAT is it's real value to society and the individual. If Bush felt badly enough about all the Americans who've died in Iraq, he might do something about it. But he has steeled himself, and can admit no guilt or remorse into his world.

Many party followers apparently follow his model.

Why is this?

Conscience is exactly what I refer to here.

If all your reading of philosophy and history has not resulted in your choosing to do the right thing, then of what good is it?

"Guilt should play no role since the government should have no conscience."

Cannot agree. Sounds like something Goebbels would say.

"Guilt should be associated with the feeling people get after they feel they have done something wrong, not before."

Guilt can only apply to actions past. Check. But as part of human memory, it has the power to alter future paths. It is part and parcel of collective conscience.

Guilt over Japanese internment camps should prevent our doing anything similar with Iraqi immigrants here, for example.

Answer 1

I think that we have all seen and had enough of what "Compassionate Conservatism" can bring. Without the "guilt" emotion, there might not be and awareness of the more positive results that reassessment of our values and position could manifest. I can see clearly the intolerance and injustice that conservative values has imposed on American Citizenship and freedom. This imposition has resulted in the failed leadership of the current Republican/ Conservative regime, and a legacy of shame: Katrina response by the President; Voting Rights violations since 2000; illegal, intrusive, and unjustifiable wiretaps; inflation and price gouging; tougher barriers to needed resources; unnecessary laws that do not improve the American quality of life; failed foreign policy; greater social, racial, economic, and religious divisions; appointments of unqualified individuals to High Public Offices; and various scandals and cover ups! Need I say more...www.democrats.org! Vote for Justice and the American way!

Answer 2

This is an extraordinary question; interesting, provocative, and enlightening. I say this because you are seeking insight and understanding to an issue that would seem irreconcilable.

To begin with, just look at how your straight forward question turned on the high beam Red and Blue lights of the respondents. The inability of all people to both listen AND hear what is being said is an amazing dysfunction of our country given our position on free speech.

It is counter productive to separate thoughts-feelings-actions when discussing political policies. Without ALL 3 of those principles in alignment, you can only deliver modest successes or grand failures. It leads some government leaders to actually think that you can do the wrong thing the right way.

To your question then: It is not really a question of do LibDems or ConReps have equal ability to feel guilt. They certainly do. The barbed, razor edged question is what ACTION do they each prescribe in removing their guilt. Their actions are driven by what they think (a combination of experience and expertise).

YES, they both feel guilt to the same depth and degree. But guilt is a huge emotion. EMOTION clouds the judgment. If you cry over even justifiable things, it leads to gross mistakes in rational thinking, fear, and loss of courage in the face of adversity.

Guilt is a good thing, though, because it keeps thought is some form of check and balance.

PLEASE, someone, anyone point out where a Guilt Driven Foreign policy in defending freedom and democracy has ever produced anything but failure and greater threat to our nation and way of life?

Thank goodness Lincoln did not let the fact, the guiltful fact, that EVERY enemy soldier killed in the Civil War was an American citizen. Look at that President, read his papers, public and private, and you will see the alignment of emotion-thought-action that was required 146 years ago. (For you thin skinned ConReps, visit the Lincoln Library in Springfield IL if you want to see what Presidential criticism and hostility is really about. GW is getting off easy with this modern press!)

And, NO, GW is no Lincoln, unfortunately for us all.

PS - It is time to turn off the red and blue lights and turn on the brilliant white light of America and become a nation united.

Answer 3

You would have to define what are these terriblr actions you so yearn to feel guilty about. While I am not a Republican i do certainly think of myself as a conservative. And far from "gung ho", my attitude could be defined by "all free men are brothers".

Guilt is unproductive? Dfinitely so. There are things you may do well, and things that you may do badly. It is normal, and that is what we call life experience. but wallowing in guilt is not only completely unproductive but paralysing. Any person full of guilt cannot do anything, and if they try they will do more evil than good.

A nice example of this is the modern history of Iran. Carter -seemingly acting out of spite- helped destroy the Shah. When faced with the Iran hostage crisis he was unable to do anything for over a year and half, and then tried to micromanage a military action- something that he did not have the training, the knowledge or the brains to achieve. End result- an unmitigated disaster and Iran turned from a reliable ally into an nforgiving enemy.

Do not confuse guilt with remorse or conscience. In the questions of war, you might do well by reading Clausevitz and Macchiavelli. I would also recommend Sun Tzu and Musashi. All these are classics.

To paraphrase things, going to war is like jumping with a parachute. Once you are in the air, changing your mind half way is not likely to do much good.

The men who died in Iraq all tried to achieve something. You will not honour them by destroying the very thing they died trying to achieve.

Answer 4

Some would say I am a Conservative Republican.

I would say that the reason that you don't see many Republicans showing emotion is because that is exactly what is wrong with liberals in government. They legislate on how something makes them feel. Republicans tend to legislate biased on facts, figures, the bottom line as well as Moral right and global positioning.

Say what you will about starting the war. But nothing the republican leadership has done surprises me at all from what the president said when the war started. He has stuck with it like he said he would. Not because it feels good but because building a free government in the mid east will give an alternative to the dictatorships around them. An example of what freedom can bring, as well as a trading partner.

I think we are doing the right thing and I am a month out from finishing my 2nd tour.

Answer 5

I submit to you that to feel guilt, one would need to be guilty. To feel sorrow is another matter. I feel sorrow and remorse for all the innocent people that are killed in all wars, and that includes Iraq. I do NOT feel guilty because we are there. MAYBE THIS WILL GIVE YOU A LITTLE INSIGHT AS TO WHY I DO NOT FEEL GUILTY AS TO WHY WE ARE THERE:::::::::::::
Quote: Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
Author: Patrick Henry 1736-1799, American Orator, Patriot

NOW, AS TO HOW THIS QUOTE TIES IN WITH OUR BEING IN IRAQ; THAT IS A WHOLE NEW ARGUMENT.

Answer 6

Why feel guilt for not doing anything wrong? Why feel guilt unnecessarily?
You may THINK they have reason to feel guilty, but that's just your opinion. Doesn't mean that it's the infallible truth. Sorry.

As for the answer above me, I consider myself to be a moderate conservative that identifies more with Republicans than Democrats. Excuse me, I've been HOMELESS. I've worked in fast food, 50+ hours a week trying to make ends meet. I've been poor. Most of my family is STILL poor. It's the wealthy relatives of mine who are DEMOCRATS. The poor ones are Republicans, and my mom has to go to a food bank every week.
So don't give ME that crap about "never being poor."

Angelthe5th and Paradigm_Thinker both have OUTSTANDING answers!

Answer 7

Your questions arent going to be popular in the response, but I will give you some answers you probably dont want to hear anyway.

Conservatives and Republicans are people too. They experience all the same emotions and feelings everyone else does- they just dont let it dominate their conscious being. Sometimes doing what you know is right hurts- whether it's yourself or another that is affected- but it must be done. You can ignore guilt- you cannot ignore what is right.

When dealing with ideals, that is what is thrust first and foremost because ideals are the goal, not the reality. When it comes to case-by-case incidents, there is a bit more flexibility in how you reach your conclusions, but if the ideal itself is flexible, there is no stability to base your conclusions from.

If the law itself is flexible, it is unenforceable. You can always make exceptions based on circumstance in the "spirit" the law was created, but you cannot make the exception the rule. If the law says killing someone is wrong, but you killed in self-defense, that can be taken into account- but if the law says you can kill in self-defense, suddenly everyone is afraid for their life. See the difference?

Guilt should play no role since the government should have no conscience. An ideal government does what is right all the time- that leaves no room for guilt. Yes, guilt is unproductive. If the Congress makes a bad law, they should fix it. They cant make laws retroactive or we'd all be in trouble. Imagine someone doing something wrong that wasnt against the law and they later made a law against it- should they be able to "go back in time" and give you the punishment they created "tailor-made" for your crime? Say they make a law banning tank-tops: would you be upset if they charged you with that as a crime if you wore one the day before the law was passed? It goes against the governing rules "ex-post-facto" which means "after the fact".

I disagree. Guilt does not force "the right thing": Morals do. Guilt should be associated with the feeling people get after they feel they have done something wrong, not before. Many people do the right thing without feeling guilty- some even feel good about it. That is the (or at least my) generic view of what morals are. That is the real value to society, not guilt. Guilt is a negative thing. That doesnt drive a society, it destroys it- because not everyone feels guilty and not everyone has morals, but based on the general views of morals vs guilt, you want a society leaning positive- guilt loses or worse, imposes those who do FEEL guilty to make everyone else FEEL the same way.

A child who has been bad can make you feel guilty even if you both know you're right. Think about that a moment.

President Bush has steeled himself and I see that as being necessary in a leader. Not everybody is going to like every decision you are going to make or how you made it. If he constantly changed his mind, he would not be effective because what he "felt" today may not be the same tomorrow- that's no way to govern.

Here are some quotes from various people you may be interested in pondering:

Melancholy and despair, though often, do not always concur; there is much difference: melancholy fears without a cause, this upon great occasion; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this torment procures them and all extremity of bitterness. –Robert Burton

Give me where to stand, and I shall move the world. –Archimedes

I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift nor lie at anchor. –Oliver Wendell Holmes

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. –Mark Twain

The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blessed above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swifly, by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks.
---William James

A sense of duty pursues us ever....If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, the duty performed or the duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.
--Daniel Webster

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.
--Ernest Hemingway

Answer 8

USMC says it all, the Iraqi war has cost 655,000 Iraqi lives, 3000 of our own, many, many more wounded, there is no count that I have seen on that but some estimates are as many as 30,000. Deformed for life all for a president that took us to war based on his lies. Worst of it is I think he did it for his own personal gain. He feels no guilt in this case. Neither do the neo-con faithful. As with USMC he has done nothing wrong. Living in denial it must be an awful thing.

Answer 9

Conservative patriots (i.e. nationalists) are ingrained with the idea that their beloved U.S. of A is morally infallible. I truly believe a Republican administration could launch an unprovoked nuclear attack against Mongolia, and conservatives would find a way to justify it.

Answer 10

i think many conservitives never had to work 45 hurs per week and have to go to a food bank to make ends meet..i think many of them were never gained empathy for those around them..the rest are just stupid.