Is this why political labels are wrong?

[Differ]

I am not part of a political party/ideology and I am not biased. I am merely trying to make a point. You could create an example for liberals as well.

Consider a hypothetical guy named Johnny. Johnny grew up in a small town that was strongly religious (let's say Christian in particular). From a young age, Johnny was raised in this community, and as a result he grew to identify as a strong Christian.

At a certain age he first became exposed to politics. He began watching news and reading politics online. He learns there are these two groups - Republicans and Democrats. He finds out one of the groups - the Republican party - identifies itself as a pro-religion (Christian) group. Because Johnny is strongly religious, he identifies himself as a Republican because of their religious ties.

Now Johnny continues his research, and finds that the Republican party also supports gun rights, free-market capitalism, and is strongly opposed to illegal immigration and social welfare. Because Johnny identifies with the Republican Party, he decides that he too supports gun rights, free-market capitalism, and opposes illegal immigration and social welfare. This all traced back to his religious affiliation.

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Do you see what happened? Johnny decided his views on several political issues, including:
- Gun rights
- Economic system
- Illegal immigration
- Social Welfare

...all based on his religious affiliation. His religion had VERY LITTLE to do with the subject of guns, economics, or immigration.

But because of partisanship, and identity politics, Johnny possessed a strong, predetermined bias towards certain platforms on each of these issues without even considering his position on them first. All simply because he decided he was a Republican just because of his religion.


Do you see why political parties are bad? They strongly influence your opinions on certain issues because they trick you into associating with their platform because of one or two factors that you feel you identify with the most.

Based on this one shared principle, Johnny formed his views on several other issues without even considering the for/against arguments for each issue. Party affiliation, not logic, dictated his positions on these issues.

[Rejji]

I don't necessarily feel that political parties are bad. What is bad is that there are people who like to influence the uninformed. There have always been leaders and followers. The leaders are the strong and determined, while the followers are the weak and credulous, therefore the strong convince and govern the weak with lies and/or innuendos, that the weak are either too brainwashed to do research for themselves or have convinced themselves that the 'leader' has no reason to lie to them, therefore taking the leaders word as gospel.

[Dempsey Dumpster]

I disagree. Take the Kennedy family as an example. Devout Catholics as well as Liberal Democrats.
One of Catholic Sen. Nancy Polosis' famous quotes, "God is the word." From their actions I find it hard to believe that their religious beliefs had much of an effect on their views on Gun Control, and the Economy as it might have had on Johnny but their views on illegal immigration and Social Welfare seem in-line with Christian teaching.