Why I Am A Conservative (1 Viewer)

[Sabertooth]

Question to conservatives.  Do you consider the Republican party to be conservative?  

 

[rockaction]

Question to conservatives.  Do you consider the Republican party to be conservative?  

For the most part, yes. For the President, no. Small summation. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Right here is a great example of why I can't support the alleged conservatives (and they aren't conservatives, they are profiteers) anymore.  

Senate Proposal to strike down Net Neutrality

Restoring freedom my ###.

What these ######bags will or won't do for a buck is ####### pathetic.

This issue always confuses me. Isn't this basically just a regulation issue? I think it's the 'neutrality' description that throws me off. We're just talking about whether the ISPs can charge what they like for various services, right?

Personally to me the bigger issue, in terms of conservatism or liberalism for that matter, is the tracking and sale of private information. It seems to me either the www is an individual and private thing, to the user, so it can be neither regulated nor intruded upon, or it's a public thing, so not only can Congress tell companies how they can manage it but also what they can extract from it. 

So along those lines I'd say yeah ok it's purely a data transfer between the site owner and the user - Adam Smith stuff - but neither the ISP nor the government may intrude upon that thus the transaction remains private to all. So I don't think the Republican Congressmen passing these rules are being 'conservative' here, not really, they're just selling out on both ends and that's their real motive. I find this very disturbing. If private companies can track your information then so could the government.

 

[Lutherman2112]

A basic rundown of Net Neutrality:

https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-redux-the-battle-for-an-open-net-continues/

 

[proteus126]

Question to conservatives.  Do you consider the Republican party to be conservative?  

Since I struggle to define conservatism, I struggle with this question.  Fundamentally, to be a conservative I think one must have a consistent political philosophy, and a Party will always have a hard time sticking to the philosophy in the face of practical matters like winning elections.

If one is religious and a conservative, it is hard to be a personal liberty advocate and also a strongly religious person and not be at times a hypocrite.

It is hard to reconcile advocacy of self-reliance (man raised to his highest and most free and happy state) with the awareness that certain segments of society need help.

It is hard to reconcile the fact that sometimes money must be spent with the fact that doing so grows the bureaucracy.

My answer:  certain segments of the party are conservative some of the time.  ;]  I'm a registered R still through inertia, but it has been a long time since I felt that the party really meant much to me.  I'd like to read more about Lincoln and TR and the folks in between, and learn more about the party.  It has a proud heritage, no matter where it is at now.  The past, I know...

 

[Zow]

TLDR...

I don't think there's a lot wrong with wanting to be a conservative. I think there's a lot of Conservatives today who are hypocrites in their A) adonishment of Big Government and its value in helping Americans AFTER many of them reaped the rewards of Big Government and B) their hypocritical nature in regards to preaching against those whom they feel social deviants.

To me, they get called out more of their hypocrisy than their ideals. 

This where I am. Philosophically, I line up far more with traditional conservative theories than I do with liberal ones. However, I struggle mightily with what I at least perceive to be hypocrisies when these theories or tenants apply to modern day issues. For example, the contrasting positions of being pro-life (in other words, criminalizing abortion or enacting legislation that significantly limits a mother's practical ability to get one) and anti-welfare boggles my mind. Other examples are the general denials of global warming and discrimination against immutable classes. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Morals are all we have. That is all. That is conservatism, in a nutshell. You may be a conservative, wikkid.   

I think there's something here about Natural Law. And I think modern liberalism  has a problem in having a blind spot to recognizing inherent, inalienable rights which are or must be out of reach of government because they exist independently and over and above government. I'd like to think the rise of Trump shocks the senses when it comes to that.

 

[rockaction]

This where I am. Philosophically, I line up far more with traditional conservative theories than I do with liberal ones. However, I struggle mightily with what I at least perceive to be hypocrisies when these theories or tenants apply to modern day issues. For example, the contrasting positions of being pro-life (in other words, criminalizing abortion or enacting legislation that significantly limits a mother's practical ability to get one) and anti-welfare boggles my mind. Other examples are the general denials of global warming and discrimination against immutable classes. 

Jesus, Woz, you're a lawyer. It's tenets. I hope that's auto-correct. 

 

[rockaction]

I think there's something here about Natural Law. And I think modern liberalism legal positivism has a problem in having a blind spot to recognizing inherent, inalienable rights which are or must be out of reach of government because they exist independently and over and above government. I'd like to think the rise of Trump shocks the senses when it comes to that.

Good work, SID. FYP to my liking.  

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Can we, as a fairly homogenized slice of the electorate, decide together what conservative principles are? 

Here's my take:

• Individual responsibility should be encouraged and rewarded
  
• Our rights, afforded to us by the constitution and its amendments, should be guaranteed
  
• Pay for an honest days' work should be enough to live a modest lifestyle (house, vehicle, schooling, healthcare, retirement)
  
• Our military should be used in ways that protect our citizens' interests
  

That's all I have so far but a reasonable starting point IMO. Notice I left religion off, as I do not see that as a core tenet. Also, there is purposeful ambiguity on all of them. 

thoughts?

The touch-points are the same I might frame this a little differently:

- Individual rights are paramount. This includes some rights that people might often think as 'liberal' so the 4th Amendment, the 8th. And some that people might not think about at all, like the 3rd, which is much more important today in a virtual, digital sense.

- They are not just guaranteed, they are un-alienable, over and above the Constitution. They belong to you, the USC just memorializes them.

- I might add: economic monetarism, monetary policy which calls for growth and careful management of the economy. This too was a pillar which was knocked out in the Bush years (and Clinton-Graham before that), and again has led to conservative crisis. I think the way you have it, yes people get their fair value for their labor 'as long as' the economy is behaving as it should be. As we know that has been oft challenged for some time. That's the classic marxism vs capitalism argument.

- I disagree on the last. The US military is there to protect us from foreign invaders, period. Now it's just a point of fact that since the Barbary War what the US considers to be a threat to its home shores has quite simply been far, far abroad from those shores. I think this has something more to do with the nature of America. However I will say that I think what you're thinking of is the policy of no nation building. That may be a pillar of conservatism, however George Bush killed that in Iraq and that's just one reason that conservatism is in crisis.

- Also: The role of government must be limited.  - I think an axiom to that is just plain "federalism". Again, it's funny how often liberals are relying on this these days. When I hear that the 9th circuit (like the 5th circuit before it vs Obama) beat down Trump's attempts to enact new naturlization laws, I think to myself, hey conservatives should be rejoicing here. This to me is one of the major dividing lines between conservatives and nationalists today.

 

[rockaction]

- The role of government must be limited.  - I think an axiom to that is just plain "federalism". Again, it's funny how often liberals are relying on this these days. When I hear that the 9th circuit (like the 5th circuit before it vs Obama) beat down Trump's attempts to enact new naturlization laws, I think to myself, hey conservatives should be rejoicing here. This to me is one of the major dividing lines between conservatives and nationalists today.

It is not substantive, but procedural things conservatives should relish in. The constitutional structure itself is a bill of rights, as an acquaintance of mine once liked to say. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

As opposed to what, globalism?  Letting leaders who we have no way of influencing determine the rules which govern us.  The reason most people dislike Washington DC is that the leaders are so far out of touch and don't really listen to the common folk.  Nationalism is treated today like some kind of boogey man that most liberals are irrationally are terrified of.

Spoiler

I am not debating Trump here, as I oppose to most of his ideas.  But just this idea that being concerned with policies which are best for our country (nationalistic) is code for being an evil NAZI. 

There are lots of other examples of nationalism other than Nazism. 

None of the others have been as monstrous or destructive, but very few of them were very successful over a long period of time.

Nationalism is basically just tribalism writ large.

Name one successful country which is not mostly nationalistic?  Much of our success relied on nationalistic policies.

What is your definition of nationalistic?

Post WWII Japan & Germany, Singapore and most of the Nordic countries are very successful and I would tend to put them pretty low on the nationalist spectrum.

Japan and Singapore are not nationalistic?  I would disagree.   

Well, I asked you for your definition.

Clearly any sovereign state could probably be said to have some nationalist policies, unless it is a complete failed state basket-case like Liberia or the Congo. Even they probably have some.

It is something that clearly has to be judged on a spectrum.

Japan probably isn't the best example on my part, because as a country they have some policies that could certainly be termed nationalist, though I would argue that many of them are more geared around protecting their culture. But since Japanese culture and Japan the country are tough to distinguish, it is splitting hairs. Again, it probably wasn't the best example that I came up with.

Most countries are motivated by a desire to protect their cultural heritage identity or in the case of the US it principles.  There are very few policies which countries adapt which are not looking out for their self-interest. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

^^^

I just want to say this whole Jon-Leghorn conversation is great. I think this is where it's at these days and where conservatism is in crisis.

Jon, I can't help notice how you say 'nationalistic' there. I think that's important. Yes all nations must be a little nationalistic but not be by definition nationalist to be democratic.

Every person must be egotistic too, a little bit, to survive. If you don't have some sense of self you personally will be beaten, robbed blind, maybe killed.

However if you are totally egotistical - to the point you are an egoist - then you will be taking what you want, doing what you want, offending others, feeling no sense of love or altruism for others. That is also dysfunctional and can land you broke, in jail or prematurely dead as well.

Nationalism has been a horse, sometimes a tiger, that both parties have ridden over the 2+ centuries of the USA. However the US has never ever been nationalist. Until now. Nationalism is not conservatism. Conservatives, and on occasion liberals, have used nationalism, but now it just so happens that it is the GOP and conservatives themselves who are being ridden. Nationalism is crushing and destroying conservatism. They are not remotely the same thing.

 

[Zow]

Jesus, Woz, you're a lawyer. It's tenets. I hope that's auto-correct. 

It was 4:30 am and I couldn't sleep. Insomnia typo. 

 

[rockaction]

^^^

I just want to say this whole Jon-Leghorn conversation is great. I think this is where it's at these days and where conservatism is in crisis.

Jon, I can't help how you say 'nationalistic' there. I think that's important. Yes all nations must be a little nationalistic but not be definition nationalist to be democratic.

Every person must be egotistical too, a little bit, to survive. If you don't have some sense of self you personally will be beaten, robbed blind, maybe killed.

However if you are totally egotistical - to the point you are an egoist - then you will be taking what you want, doing what you want, offending others, feeling no sense of love or altruism for others. That is also dysfunctional and can land you broke, in jail or prematurely dead as well.

Nationalism has been a horse that both parties have ridden over the 2+ centuries of the USA. However the US has never ever been nationalist. Until now. Nationalism is not conservatism. Conservatives, and on occasion liberals, have used nationalism, but now it just so happens that it is the GOP and conservatives themselves who are being ridden. Nationalism is crushing and destroying conservatism. They are not remotely the same thing.

Conservatism stands athwart history, yelling "stop!" Nationalism careens toward it. Well put, SID.  

 

[rockaction]

It was 4:30 am and I couldn't sleep. Insomnia typo. 

Fair enough, man. Just keepin' you on your toes, bro.  

 

[wikkidpissah]

Allow me to express my problem with classical conservatism in the 21st C by quoting a song - Old-Fashioned Values - from the Alice-in-Manhattan musical i've been writing for the last six years (ETA: the bit before the break of theme is real barbershop-y, the rest, pure vaudeville yat-tat-tat-taaaa - wish i had more'n a tape):

PROFESSOR DODO

O, whatever happened to

Those old golden days,

The gentler ways of the past?

Kids behaved and flags were waved

Life, simple and sure

And all good things were built to last.

Who doesn't wish for a time

When every line had to rhyme?

What about old-fashioned values

Makes me just want to......THROW UP?!

Women kept mum,

Darkies under the thumb.

Lock up the bums

With the deaf and the dumb.

Why would we want to go back to

A world where no one had a voice

When a handful of fools

Made up all of the rules

And nobody else got a choice.

What about old-fashioned values

Drives me straight out of my mind?

Closet the gays

In those Gay Nineties ways.

Win on a field

Where nobody else plays.

The good old days were awfully easy

With so many people left out

Still waiting to see

A world where all can be free.

Real liberty what we're about.

 

[RedmondLonghorn]

Allow me to express my problem with classical conservatism in the 21st C by quoting a song - Old-Fashioned Values - from the Alice-in-Manhattan musical i've been writing for the last six years:

You really are a unique fellow.

P.S. I like the lyrics.

 

[wikkidpissah]

You really are a unique fellow.

P.S. I like the lyrics.

Thank you. You're a gent.