|
Post by Jeremiah Hill on May 12, 2017 23:37:41 GMT
Texas representative just added an amendment to STOP foster children from being vaccinatedThere is nothing wrong with wanting to save the government a bit of money and traditional family values (two parents and some kids) but why has conservatism become synonymous with irresponsible idiocy, half baked reasoning and xenophobia? The last two conservative president's that we've had were Clinton and Eisenhower if you really think about it. I'm not quite sure what the heck these past few republicans have been. The following is something I took out of an article I found when trying to understand WTF happened to conservatives that has them in this current state. ------------------------------------------ What passes for conservatism today would have been incomprehensible to its originator, Edmund Burke, who, in the late eighteenth century, set forth the principles by which governments might nurture the “organic” unity that bound a people together even in times of revolutionary upheaval. Burke recognized that governments were obligated to use their powers to improve intolerable conditions. He had, for example, supported the American Revolution because its architects, unlike the French rebels, had not sought to destroy the English government; on the contrary, they petitioned for just representation within it. Had King George III complied, he would have strengthened, not weakened, the Crown and Parliament. Instead, he had inflexibly clung to the hard line and so shared responsibility for the Americans’ revolt. “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation,” Burke warned. The task of the statesman was to maintain equilibrium between “[t]he two principles of conservation and correction.” Governance was a perpetual act of compromise—”sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.” In such a scheme there is no useful place for the either/or of ideological purism. The story of postwar American conservatism is best understood as a continual replay of a single long-standing debate. On one side are those who have upheld the Burkean ideal of replenishing civil society by adjusting to changing conditions. On the other are those committed to a revanchist counterrevolution, the restoration of America’s pre-welfare state ancien regime. And, time and again, the counterrevolutionaries have won. The result is that modern American conservatism has dedicated itself not to fortifying and replenishing civil society but rather to weakening it through a politics of civil warfare." But, if it’s clear what the right is against, what exactly has it been for? This question has haunted the movement from its inception in the 1950s, when its principal objective was to undo the New Deal and reinstate the laissez-faire Republicanism of the 1920s. This backward-looking program mystified one leading conservative. Whittaker Chambers, a repentant ex-communist, had passed through a brief counterrevolutionary phase but then, in his last years, had gravitated toward a genuinely classic conservatism. He distilled his thinking in a remarkable sequence of letters written from the self-imposed exile of his Maryland farm, and sent to a young admirer, William F. Buckley Jr. When their relationship began, Buckley—a self-described “radical conservative”—was assembling the group of thinkers and writers who would form the core of National Review, a journal conceived to contest the “liberal monopolists of ‘public opinion.’” Buckley was especially keen to recruit Chambers. But Chambers turned him down. He sympathized with the magazine’s opposition to increasingly centralized government, but, in practical terms, he believed challenging it was futile. It was evident that New Deal economics had become the basis for governing in postwar America, and the right had no plausible choice but to accept this fact—not because liberals were all-powerful (as some on the right believed) but rather because what the right called “statism” looked very much like a Burkean “correction.” Chambers witnessed the popular demand for the New Deal firsthand. He raised milch cattle, and his neighbors were farmers. Most were archconservative, even reactionary. They had sent the segregationist Democrat Millard Tydings to the Senate, and then, when Tydings had opposed McCarthy’s Red-hunting investigations, they had voted him out of office. They were also sworn enemies of programs like FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act, which tried to offset the volatility of markets by controlling crop yields and fixing prices. Some had even been indicted for refusing to allow farm officials to inspect their crops. Nonetheless, Chambers observed, his typical neighbor happily accepted federal subsidies. In other words, the farmers wanted it both ways. They wanted the freedom to grow as much as they could, even though it was against their best interests. But they also expected the government to bail them out in difficult times. In sum, “the farmers are signing for a socialist agriculture with their feet.” ----------------------------------------------------------- The article ends with this: What our politics has consistently demanded of its leaders, if they are to ascend to the status of disinterested statesmen, is not the assertion but rather the renunciation of ideology. And the only ideology one can meaningfully renounce is one’s own. Liberals did this a generation ago when they shed the programmatic “New Politics” of the left and embraced instead a broad majoritarianism. Now it is time for conservatives to repudiate movement politics and recover their honorable intellectual and political tradition. At its best, conservatism has served the vital function of clarifying our shared connection to the past and of giving articulate voice to the normative beliefs Americans have striven to maintain even in the worst of times. There remains in our politics a place for an authentic conservatism—a conservatism that seeks not to destroy but to conserve. ---------------------------------------------------------- I used an older article. Any new article on the subject just talks about Trump ad nausea and I think we all hear enough about him in our daily lives. Conservatism is DeadI encourage anyone interested in what has happened to republicans to take a look. It's a very interesting article and gives a good bit of insight into American History. I hope conservatives can once again be for something as opposed to being against everything. I appears to me that traditional conservative voters have been warped by misleading propaganda and trash politics against their interests.
|
|
|
Post by Charles Barkley on May 13, 2017 0:20:42 GMT
The fuck is this, Politico?
|
|
Vlade Divac
Former Kings GM
Sophomore
Posts: 629
Feb 23, 2024 23:40:50 GMT
|
Post by Vlade Divac on May 13, 2017 1:01:49 GMT
Texas representative just added an amendment to STOP foster children from being vaccinatedThere is nothing wrong with wanting to save the government a bit of money and traditional family values (two parents and some kids) but why has conservatism become synonymous with irresponsible idiocy, half baked reasoning and xenophobia? The last two conservative president's that we've had were Clinton and Eisenhower if you really think about it. I'm not quite sure what the heck these past few republicans have been. The following is something I took out of an article I found when trying to understand WTF happened to conservatives that has them in this current state. ------------------------------------------ What passes for conservatism today would have been incomprehensible to its originator, Edmund Burke, who, in the late eighteenth century, set forth the principles by which governments might nurture the “organic” unity that bound a people together even in times of revolutionary upheaval. Burke recognized that governments were obligated to use their powers to improve intolerable conditions. He had, for example, supported the American Revolution because its architects, unlike the French rebels, had not sought to destroy the English government; on the contrary, they petitioned for just representation within it. Had King George III complied, he would have strengthened, not weakened, the Crown and Parliament. Instead, he had inflexibly clung to the hard line and so shared responsibility for the Americans’ revolt. “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation,” Burke warned. The task of the statesman was to maintain equilibrium between “[t]he two principles of conservation and correction.” Governance was a perpetual act of compromise—”sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.” In such a scheme there is no useful place for the either/or of ideological purism. The story of postwar American conservatism is best understood as a continual replay of a single long-standing debate. On one side are those who have upheld the Burkean ideal of replenishing civil society by adjusting to changing conditions. On the other are those committed to a revanchist counterrevolution, the restoration of America’s pre-welfare state ancien regime. And, time and again, the counterrevolutionaries have won. The result is that modern American conservatism has dedicated itself not to fortifying and replenishing civil society but rather to weakening it through a politics of civil warfare." But, if it’s clear what the right is against, what exactly has it been for? This question has haunted the movement from its inception in the 1950s, when its principal objective was to undo the New Deal and reinstate the laissez-faire Republicanism of the 1920s. This backward-looking program mystified one leading conservative. Whittaker Chambers, a repentant ex-communist, had passed through a brief counterrevolutionary phase but then, in his last years, had gravitated toward a genuinely classic conservatism. He distilled his thinking in a remarkable sequence of letters written from the self-imposed exile of his Maryland farm, and sent to a young admirer, William F. Buckley Jr. When their relationship began, Buckley—a self-described “radical conservative”—was assembling the group of thinkers and writers who would form the core of National Review, a journal conceived to contest the “liberal monopolists of ‘public opinion.’” Buckley was especially keen to recruit Chambers. But Chambers turned him down. He sympathized with the magazine’s opposition to increasingly centralized government, but, in practical terms, he believed challenging it was futile. It was evident that New Deal economics had become the basis for governing in postwar America, and the right had no plausible choice but to accept this fact—not because liberals were all-powerful (as some on the right believed) but rather because what the right called “statism” looked very much like a Burkean “correction.” Chambers witnessed the popular demand for the New Deal firsthand. He raised milch cattle, and his neighbors were farmers. Most were archconservative, even reactionary. They had sent the segregationist Democrat Millard Tydings to the Senate, and then, when Tydings had opposed McCarthy’s Red-hunting investigations, they had voted him out of office. They were also sworn enemies of programs like FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act, which tried to offset the volatility of markets by controlling crop yields and fixing prices. Some had even been indicted for refusing to allow farm officials to inspect their crops. Nonetheless, Chambers observed, his typical neighbor happily accepted federal subsidies. In other words, the farmers wanted it both ways. They wanted the freedom to grow as much as they could, even though it was against their best interests. But they also expected the government to bail them out in difficult times. In sum, “the farmers are signing for a socialist agriculture with their feet.” ----------------------------------------------------------- The article ends with this: What our politics has consistently demanded of its leaders, if they are to ascend to the status of disinterested statesmen, is not the assertion but rather the renunciation of ideology. And the only ideology one can meaningfully renounce is one’s own. Liberals did this a generation ago when they shed the programmatic “New Politics” of the left and embraced instead a broad majoritarianism. Now it is time for conservatives to repudiate movement politics and recover their honorable intellectual and political tradition. At its best, conservatism has served the vital function of clarifying our shared connection to the past and of giving articulate voice to the normative beliefs Americans have striven to maintain even in the worst of times. There remains in our politics a place for an authentic conservatism—a conservatism that seeks not to destroy but to conserve. ---------------------------------------------------------- I used an older article. Any new article on the subject just talks about Trump ad nausea and I think we all hear enough about him in our daily lives. Conservatism is DeadI encourage anyone interested in what has happened to republicans to take a look. It's a very interesting article and gives a good bit of insight into American History. I hope conservatives can once again be for something as opposed to being against everything. I appears to me that traditional conservative voters have been warped by misleading propaganda and trash politics against their interests. You are so misguided!
|
|
|
Post by Jeremiah Hill on May 13, 2017 1:06:39 GMT
Really no need to quote a wall of text Vlade. It's literally just a history of conservatism up to this point. It appears as if the conservatives are the misguided ones.
|
|
Vlade Divac
Former Kings GM
Sophomore
Posts: 629
Feb 23, 2024 23:40:50 GMT
|
Post by Vlade Divac on May 13, 2017 1:08:59 GMT
Really no need to quote a wall of text Vlade. It's literally just a history of conservatism up to this point. It appears as if the conservatives are the misguided ones. I read part of it but became bored with it. Can we at least define conservative first? I find it hard to believe that the author labels John McCain as a conservative yet considers Eisenhower to not be one.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremiah Hill on May 13, 2017 1:32:38 GMT
Really no need to quote a wall of text Vlade. It's literally just a history of conservatism up to this point. It appears as if the conservatives are the misguided ones. I read part of it but became bored with it. Can we at least define conservative first? I find it hard to believe that the author labels John McCain as a conservative yet considers Eisenhower to not be one. I think you misread, Eisenhower was a conservative, however if you look at it from the eyes of a modern conservative he is not.
|
|
Vlade Divac
Former Kings GM
Sophomore
Posts: 629
Feb 23, 2024 23:40:50 GMT
|
Post by Vlade Divac on May 13, 2017 2:26:14 GMT
"In 1954, the movement’s first national tribune, Senator Joseph McCarthy, was checkmated by the Eisenhower administration and then “condemned” by his Senate colleagues. But the episode, and the passions it aroused, led to the founding of National Review, the movement’s first serious political journal."
|
|
|
Post by Alex English on May 13, 2017 13:18:23 GMT
The modern American conservative movement is an anti-movement. They're against things, not for things. They're against the government, the end. Weaken the government and let the free market do it's thing. Lower taxes, eliminate regulation, and so on. They want the government neutered and all of it's power taken away. The only exception here is with the military. They want a powerful army and strong borders. It almost seems like if some of these people got their way, they only thing left of the US government would be the military. Everything else should be ceded to the free market.
They have this near religious view of capitalism. They believe the free market really is an efficient meritocracy. They believe that if you're capable and work hard you will be given your due by our lord capitalism.
I think these values are almost admirable, there is nothing wrong with wanting people to work hard and believe the best will rise to the top. However, the flip side of this belief is ugly. If they believe all those who are deserving and capable will get their rightful earnings, then what does that mean they think about those who are struggling? What does it mean they think about those who failed?
It means they think those people are failures. It means they deserve to be in the position they're in, because if they didn't deserve it, then they would never be in that position in the first place since the free market is this perfect meritocracy. It's a tautology.
That's why they hate government assistance and welfare or any other social programs. They believe the only people who will benefit from those programs are the lazy, good for nothing failures. Why should their money have to pay for these losers? Fuck them, they deserve to struggle and fail, otherwise they'd already be successful. So taxation for welfare and social programs is upsetting the natural order of things and providing for these lazy assholes who should be providing for themselves, but can't.
It's ironically a very Darwinian philosophy from a group of people that are nearly universally religious.
That's what I think of the run of the mill conservative republican. As for the republican politicians themselves, I think they're selfish and rich assholes with no morals. They push that conservative ideology on to voters for their own personal gain.
The game they're playing is to weaken the government as much as possible so the power vacuum that's created can be filled by corporations. If there is no government to enforce non-existent regulation then there is nothing to stop these big banks, or big oil companies, or big media companies, etc. etc. from manipulating and exploiting the market to make as much money as possible. These fuckers want to own everything and are actually against free market capitalism. They want to destroy all potential competition. They're against innovation and progress because that upsets the status quo, which is that they own and run everything, and you get whatever they decide to give you.
It's a toxic movement that I believe only ends in violent revolution because no other means of change is possible with these people. That change would mean giving up power, which they will make you take from their cold dead hands. The only way around it is to get these people out of power, and prevent them from controlling the government.
This post is way too long, is anyone still reading this?
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 18, 2024 22:20:19 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on May 13, 2017 13:24:10 GMT
Good post, Alex. That's also what I see as well. Though there is a very broad spectrum of conservatives, plenty of which are fine with lots of social services. Just wait until Trump and Ryan try to cut social security.
|
|
|
Post by Ian Noble on May 13, 2017 14:02:05 GMT
Alex English - compare that to Europe, where those values are very much in the minority, I wonder what is the cause of that disparity, and my answer would be the level of bias within the mass media which in turn has its roots in corporate power.
|
|
Vlade Divac
Former Kings GM
Sophomore
Posts: 629
Feb 23, 2024 23:40:50 GMT
|
Post by Vlade Divac on May 13, 2017 14:34:39 GMT
The modern American conservative movement is an anti-movement. They're against things, not for things. They're against the government, the end. Weaken the government and let the free market do it's thing. Lower taxes, eliminate regulation, and so on. They want the government neutered and all of it's power taken away. The only exception here is with the military. They want a powerful army and strong borders. It almost seems like if some of these people got their way, they only thing left of the US government would be the military. Everything else should be ceded to the free market. They have this near religious view of capitalism. They believe the free market really is an efficient meritocracy. They believe that if you're capable and work hard you will be given your due by our lord capitalism. I think these values are almost admirable, there is nothing wrong with wanting people to work hard and believe the best will rise to the top. However, the flip side of this belief is ugly. If they believe all those who are deserving and capable will get their rightful earnings, then what does that mean they think about those who are struggling? What does it mean they think about those who failed? It means they think those people are failures. It means they deserve to be in the position they're in, because if they didn't deserve it, then they would never be in that position in the first place since the free market is this perfect meritocracy. It's a tautology. That's why they hate government assistance and welfare or any other social programs. They believe the only people who will benefit from those programs are the lazy, good for nothing failures. Why should their money have to pay for these losers? Fuck them, they deserve to struggle and fail, otherwise they'd already be successful. So taxation for welfare and social programs is upsetting the natural order of things and providing for these lazy assholes who should be providing for themselves, but can't. It's ironically a very Darwinian philosophy from a group of people that are nearly universally religious. That's what I think of the run of the mill conservative republican. As for the republican politicians themselves, I think they're selfish and rich assholes with no morals. They push that conservative ideology on to voters for their own personal gain. The game they're playing is to weaken the government as much as possible so the power vacuum that's created can be filled by corporations. If there is no government to enforce non-existent regulation then there is nothing to stop these big banks, or big oil companies, or big media companies, etc. etc. from manipulating and exploiting the market to make as much money as possible. These fuckers want to own everything and are actually against free market capitalism. They want to destroy all potential competition. They're against innovation and progress because that upsets the status quo, which is that they own and run everything, and you get whatever they decide to give you. It's a toxic movement that I believe only ends in violent revolution because no other means of change is possible with these people. That change would mean giving up power, which they will make you take from their cold dead hands. The only way around it is to get these people out of power, and prevent them from controlling the government. This post is way too long, is anyone still reading this? I ma not going to waste my time going line by line like I used to do because neither one of us is going to change our minds, but conservatives are for a strong economy above all else. If you want to consider that "nothing" than you are presenting alternate facts and part of the fake news conspiracy.
|
|
Kevin Hollis
Former Thunder GM for 7 years
All Star
Posts: 2,838
Dec 16, 2022 11:27:40 GMT
|
Post by Kevin Hollis on May 13, 2017 15:54:21 GMT
Neither side will ever admit that the other side did anything that was beneficial to the country. They will always find some obscure instance that they will argue for why such policy/idea is wrong. As said before by others, the only people who would make a change for the greater good on either side of the platform are the ones that will never be elected due to a number of circumstances. Our country would have been in a better place if the nominees were Sanders and Kasich. The presidency is a "popularity" contest now, and I blame social media for most of it.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 18, 2024 22:20:19 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on May 13, 2017 16:20:11 GMT
Neither side will ever admit that the other side did anything that was beneficial to the country. They will always find some obscure instance that they will argue for why such policy/idea is wrong. As said before by others, the only people who would make a change for the greater good on either side of the platform are the ones that will never be elected due to a number of circumstances. Our country would have been in a better place if the nominees were Sanders and Kasich. The presidency is a "popularity" contest now, and I blame social media for most of it. I agree with all of this except if the nomination process was also a popularity contest, Clinton wouldn't have won lol
|
|
|
Post by Ian Noble on May 13, 2017 16:24:47 GMT
I ma not going to waste my time going line by line like I used to do because neither one of us is going to change our minds, but conservatives are for a strong economy above all else. If you want to consider that "nothing" than you are presenting alternate facts and part of the fake news conspiracy. All the strongest, most efficient economies exist in socialist democracies like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremiah Hill on May 13, 2017 16:34:50 GMT
I disagree Alex. The majority of the republican base is made up of struggling people. They just pass the buck and blame it on someone else because that's what their elected officials have been feeding them since Reagan. The economy is struggling because of gays and a lack of God, and those fuckin liberals. When in reality poor liberals are in the same boat being fed bullshit by their side. We can't have socialized healthcare because the republicans are stopping it. No, democrats are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries just as much as any republican. More than half the country is struggling and each side has convinced those struggling people to blame the struggling people on the other side.
I wonder what percentage of republicans are on welfare compared to democrats. I'd bet my life that its basically the same. Republicans want the safety net they just don't wanna pay for it, and its the liberals fault. Not the republicans who keep cutting taxes on the rich and corporations and passing the bill to the struggling people. Then democrats are too big of pussies to try and restore the balance because as much as they trumpet being for poor people they've really not done much towards helping them. Because all of their campaign money comes from those same corporations taking advantage of those same tax breaks.
|
|
|
Post by Alex English on May 13, 2017 21:22:06 GMT
I ma not going to waste my time going line by line like I used to do because neither one of us is going to change our minds, but conservatives are for a strong economy above all else. If you want to consider that "nothing" than you are presenting alternate facts and part of the fake news conspiracy. Yeah no doubt. How do you propose we achieve this strong economy? Would that be via a free market capitalist economy where the government gets the hell out of the way to let the free market do its thing? I'll then clarify and say that I'm calling conservatism an anti-movement in a political sense. Conservatives believe in things in a positive way, and want society to achieve things that are generally good for people, of course, but politically speaking when it comes to the government it's more a movement that tries to prevent things from happening. A conservative political achievement would be one that limits or prevents the government from doing something. I can't think of a single thing the republicans fight for that would result in the government being more involved in the issue at hand. The exception once again being the military/police. Gotta have a strong army and be tough on crime and all that, but the big social/economic issues? All about minimizing and preventing government involvement.
|
|
|
Post by Alex English on May 13, 2017 21:38:56 GMT
I disagree Alex. The majority of the republican base is made up of struggling people. They just pass the buck and blame it on someone else because that's what their elected officials have been feeding them since Reagan. The economy is struggling because of gays and a lack of God, and those fuckin liberals. When in reality poor liberals are in the same boat being fed bullshit by their side. We can't have socialized healthcare because the republicans are stopping it. No, democrats are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries just as much as any republican. More than half the country is struggling and each side has convinced those struggling people to blame the struggling people on the other side. I wonder what percentage of republicans are on welfare compared to democrats. I'd bet my life that its basically the same. Republicans want the safety net they just don't wanna pay for it, and its the liberals fault. Not the republicans who keep cutting taxes on the rich and corporations and passing the bill to the struggling people. Then democrats are too big of pussies to try and restore the balance because as much as they trumpet being for poor people they've really not done much towards helping them. Because all of their campaign money comes from those same corporations taking advantage of those same tax breaks. I think I agree with most of this, and I'm not too sure where our posts are incompatible. You even bring up the weird religious side to the conservatives view on the economy. There is some odd shit going on here that is hard to understand. I'd also bet more republicans are on welfare than democrats. Almost all of the struggling states are red states and almost all of the prosperous states are blue states. Here is some list of the states which depend most on federal assistance. Of the top 10 most dependent states, 8 are red and 2 are blue, the exceptions being New Mexico and Maine. Of the top 10 least dependent states, 9 are blue and 1 is red, the exception being Kansas.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 18, 2024 22:20:19 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2017 0:38:02 GMT
I disagree Alex. The majority of the republican base is made up of struggling people. They just pass the buck and blame it on someone else because that's what their elected officials have been feeding them since Reagan. The economy is struggling because of gays and a lack of God, and those fuckin liberals. When in reality poor liberals are in the same boat being fed bullshit by their side. We can't have socialized healthcare because the republicans are stopping it. No, democrats are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries just as much as any republican. More than half the country is struggling and each side has convinced those struggling people to blame the struggling people on the other side. I wonder what percentage of republicans are on welfare compared to democrats. I'd bet my life that its basically the same. Republicans want the safety net they just don't wanna pay for it, and its the liberals fault. Not the republicans who keep cutting taxes on the rich and corporations and passing the bill to the struggling people. Then democrats are too big of pussies to try and restore the balance because as much as they trumpet being for poor people they've really not done much towards helping them. Because all of their campaign money comes from those same corporations taking advantage of those same tax breaks. I think I agree with most of this, and I'm not too sure where our posts are incompatible. You even bring up the weird religious side to the conservatives view on the economy. There is some odd shit going on here that is hard to understand. I'd also bet more republicans are on welfare than democrats. Almost all of the struggling states are red states and almost all of the prosperous states are blue states. Here is some list of the states which depend most on federal assistance. Of the top 10 most dependent states, 8 are red and 2 are blue, the exceptions being New Mexico and Maine. Of the top 10 least dependent states, 9 are blue and 1 is red, the exception being Kansas. It's funny that conservatives never see the connection between religion and the belief that the free market will produce better results than the government every time no matter what. As if they don't see literally every single day dozens of examples of the government doing stuff that the free market can't do (or can do but with less public benefit). but hey, they see dozens of examples of why god is a lie and science is real every day, and drive them around and hold them in their pockets, but these simple facts continue to elude them. It's quite maddening, especially when you imagine everything we could be as a society and as a race.
|
|