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[Mrhappyface]

Well some people like and depend on the current status quo. Not all change is for the better. And besides, a few outdated ideals doesn't necessarily nullify experience or tradition.

[Frumple]

[snip]

Pretty well said, MSH. The particularly poignant part t'me was the last bit, specifically because any actual analysis shows that, if the so-called religious enemies actually are out to get us... there is precisely jack and shit the US could do about it. It's... it's a line of reasoning where the only true options are sucide (to prevent eventual unavoidable torture, catch 22'd by th'old condemnation 'gainst self-slaughter) or praying for apocalypse, which causes some goddamn horrible psych reactions in a person.

Me, I can understand that line of thought very easily... the only problem is that the only rational action I can derive from it is killing myself or actively working with said enemies as a means to minimize harm to self and family. It's basic strategy, really. If you can't obtain victory, you do what you can to minimize loss. You could make a case for doing as much damage as possible to your opponent... but in this case, that would accomplish literally nothing of import. Temporary damage and naught else. Even something like nuclear war would just end you right in hell, either for suicide or the murder of innocents.

It's not a case of The Way Things Are being the only way, with that scenario. It's a case of there being literally no way.

There's just no way out of that axiomatic basis. That, is one my stronger reasons for rejecting it.

[Putnam]

[snip]

Pretty well said, MSH. The particularly poignant part t'me was the last bit, specifically because any actual analysis shows that, if the so-called religious enemies actually are out to get us... there is precisely jack and shit the US could do about it. It's... it's a line of reasoning where the only true options are sucide (to prevent eventual unavoidable torture, catch 22'd by th'old condemnation 'gainst self-slaughter) or praying for apocalypse, which causes some goddamn horrible psych reactions in a person.

Ah, but that's not it. This is where we get conservative's supposed obsession with war. Their reason to be is the eradication of evil, of which they believe war is by far the most efficient way--which isn't entirely wrong. The religious enemies that actually are out to get us are that very evil that must be eradicated. Remember, you must focus on the idea of objective morality, that idea above all else for social conservatism.

[SalmonGod]

No. That's awfully unfair to assume that the other side is selfish.

I think selfishness is part of their ideology... when they deliberately set up revolving doors between business and politics and abuse the hell out of them to the detriment of the majority, I don't know why calling this selfishness is still classified as an assumption.  To be fair, I think democratic politicians do the exact same things, but they try harder to hide it, while conservative politicians will flaunt their corruption like a badge of honor.  If you call them out on this, they'll either say something that is obviously contradictory to itself or "you're just jealous."  I mean come one... their historical paragon is Ayn Rand, whose manifesto was fucking titled "The Virtues of Selfishness".

You guys know I am all about tolerance, understanding all sides of a debate, etc.... but that doesn't mean we have to lie to ourselves.

Yeah, I think those things you mentioned are consequences of motivations they have, and even then only in some subsets of conservatives as a whole (also, most politicians). In my experience, the fundamental belief is that there are things that are Right, and things that are Wrong, and what falls into which category is dependent on tradition and family beliefs. Usually, they retain logic, but those classifications are axioms - not conclusions that need to be supported with logic. Throw in a few more fallacies that often sneak into all human thought (you get the Naturalistic Fallacy through the assumption that the world is fundamentally fair, for instance, as opposed to its manifestation in stereotypical liberal beliefs that natural is better than artificial), and you wind up with some really unfortunate consequences.

Like several people have said, it's not a belief system I am a part of, but it's certainly not based on anything sinister. With few exceptions, people tend to believe they're doing good - the evil is an unexpected side-effect or a skewed priority. And in the latter case, it's usually accomplished by minimizing the amount they think about the problem at all, rather than consciously deciding that it's less important.

I agree with most of this, and I don't actually think conservative politicians are somehow innately evil.  I don't agree with the objective vs emotional thing.  In fact, I would argue it's exactly the opposite.  An objective ideology would be theoretically better able to recognize contradictions and the point at which an approach begins to betray its own original purpose.

I would argue the difference is that the conservative point of view tends to prioritize mitigation of perceived threats, even if that involves maintaining existing problems.  The liberal point of view tends to prioritize resolution of existing problems, even if that means trying new approaches that could potentially have negative consequences.

Edit:  And I typed half of this, walked away for half an hour, then finished and hit submit without reading everything that had been posted since... catching up now...

Update:  Ok, I think there's been a severe miscommunication.  I agree with everything you said, MSH, but only as applies to your common middle or lower class conservative.  Everything I have been saying, I only meant to apply to high-level conservative politicians and business people.  I'm talking about the people who blatantly abuse conservative rhetoric and the people who actually believe it to enrich themselves, such as the people Truean were commenting on who would actually have the nerve to say "rich people and institutions should be able to break the law, while poor people shouldn't... because it will help the economy..."  Obviously, it will help the economy, if you are among the 1% and you believe the economy = your own pocket.

Except this... I meant this to apply to conservatism in general

I would argue the difference is that the conservative point of view tends to prioritize mitigation of perceived threats, even if that involves maintaining existing problems.  The liberal point of view tends to prioritize resolution of existing problems, even if that means trying new approaches that could potentially have negative consequences.

[Nilik]

I just don't understand how anyone manages to reconcile hardcore Christianity (love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek, blessed are the meek) with their "fuck the poor, fuck other religions, fuck anyone who disagrees with me" philosophy.

[kaijyuu]

Because Christianity is quite contradictory, and you can choose which things to be "hardcore" about and which to ignore.


Thou shalt not have any gods before me = fuck other religions, for example.

[Putnam]

.
Except this... I meant this to apply to conservatism in general

I would argue the difference is that the conservative point of view tends to prioritize mitigation of perceived threats, even if that involves maintaining existing problems.  The liberal point of view tends to prioritize resolution of existing problems, even if that means trying new approaches that could potentially have negative consequences.

Conservatives would say and have said the same about liberals, with the perceived threats being more ideological than physical.

[kaijyuu]

Part of the reason the political titles are pretty pointless is the ideology correlations are quite weak. Conservatism isn't all about "safety" and liberalism isn't all about "freedom." The multidimensional scales are a bit better (splitting it into liberal/conservative and authoritarian/libertarian) but still flawed.

We as humans tend to think in dichotomies. This vs that. Us vs them. There are lots of issues out there that aren't mutually exclusive but opposite sides of the political spectrum espouse one over the other. This is more because these issues condensed together rather arbitrarily or due to weak similarities rather than anything intrinsic to the different sides of political debate. And occasionally, you'll even find the same side espousing two issues that are (or seem to be) mutually exclusive: see being pro-abortion and anti-death penalty (at least under the assumption that a fetus is a human being with rights; hence the "seems to be" earlier).


So yeah. Don't over simplify. There's no One Big Disagreement In Ideology that is the cause of disagreement; there are thousands of small differences that are the cause of disagreement.

[SalmonGod]

In other related and semi-related Occupy news

Activists still being assassinated in South America

The mayor of Philadelphia has been trying to deny the Occupy National Gathering access to water

[Trollheiming]

Oh, hi... Conservative here. Big ups to Halliburton, y'all! 

The only important thing here is to remind everyone that both political parties are composites of many overlapping worldviews. It's a little creepy to argue otherwise. You can't define conservatism beyond Let's not change so much stuff! because the paths to not wanting so much change are many and varied.

they're pretty straightforward about those values being subservience to the rich, rejection of logic (not in the sense that they're stupid but that they deliberately reject logic...), and forfeiting the lives of anyone who gets screwed by bloodthirsty competition or isn't otherwise useful to the rich.  This isn't even reading between the lines.  It's pretty straightforward.

Actually, I find the part in our manifesto about where we torch baby kittens more appealing, but that's just me.

MSH was definitely a kind of conservative once, because he has his finger on the pulse of a rather large segment, but it is still just one shade of many.

Capitalism is Fair Play
Conservatives see the efforts of liberals to reduce economic freedom and equalize society as an effort to steal from the best of us to help the worst of us and end class mobility in the name of political correctness and unrealistic views of human society. To them, the efforts of liberals are completely and utterly asinine, as well as naively expressing the idea that the underclass could really exist unless they basically chose to be an underclass or did evil things that brought their own downfall.

Possibly. I don't know. It would be foolish of me to opine what other conservatives think about this, but really, I don't take such moralistic stances like this. It even makes me a little angry. Good people fall through the cracks. I never judge a dude by his job, only by how he approaches it.

My main critique with trying to "solve" this through government action is simply that you're giving the power of choosing outcomes to politicians. Politicians will make mistakes. Welfare... encouraged the breakdown in poor families, in order for single mothers to draw that welfare check. Liberals went ahead and pressed a bunch of buttons on the social engineering contraption without knowing what could really result from their clueless button-mashing. The result was increasing instability in the lives of poor children.

Also, politicians will be corrupt. The more power you give government to "fix" things, the more power you give them to enrich themselves and cronies. You all know about the Solyndra failure. Big donors. Government had to pick who got the stimulus money, and guess who got some irrespective of the viability of their companies? Yep. Donors! In a shocking turn of events, top Democrats have wealthy friends, too!

Some of you are talking pretty rabidly here, so keep in mind, I really am not here to play tit-for-tat with you, or be the strawman for your desperate need for an Other to demonize to feel righteous about your own choices in life. When I say politicians are corrupt, I mean all of them. We need to keep power to decide outcomes away from conservative politicians, too! I'm sure if you look into the Bush stimulus, you'd find similar examples. Bush covered up firing state attorneys, Obama covers up Fast and Furious.

Conservatives didn't change. That they don't change is the whole point. The world changed instead.

A hit, a very palpable hit, by MSH. Not changing everything so fast is the only unifying goal of conservatives. Although I really don't think the world itself has changed much, either. It's still filled with people, more than ever before in fact, and people have been up to their same old tricks since before recorded history began. The more you try to change things, the more things will... well...

Liberals are Change Incarnate
Do you know why young people are always more liberal than old people? They can see what must be done to fix a modern situation, clear as day.

Can they see? Do they really know how to change things? Are you sure? Don't you think the older generation tried to change things, too, when they were also such youthful liberals? What happened despite all their efforts? Poverty disappeared? World peace happened? Women stopped dating asshole rich guys?

Old people have done the changes, that you only think you can do. They report back that it doesn't work the way you can so clearly see it working. They witnessed that the change doesn't really fix anything. It's a bunch of noise, a whole lot of sound and fury, a circus to entertain us and make us feel better about ourselves while inequality and poverty simply change their appearance.

1950s liberal: "People don't have good jobs because only the rich can afford college!"
1960s liberal: "I am here to bring change and save the world and demonstrate how brilliant and special I am! I will create student loans so everyone can go to college! I feel so good about myself now!"
2010s liberal: "Waaah! Everyone has college degrees now! These slips of paper mean nothing in the job market, they're worth less than highschool diplomas used to mean in the 1950s, and we all have a lot of student debt now!"

See, government pressed a bunch of buttons, and McJobs didn't magically vanish or change into six-figure jobs. Now we just have more student debt, and people enter the workforce later in their 20s, while doing the same uninspired office-work that their parents used to do with just highschool diplomas at age 18.

In 1980, my mother became a Social Services Worker in the state government with a highschool diploma. She did her job well with just basic common sense, but now you'd have to study Music Theory or Art History for four years to get your foot into the same door.

1950s liberal: "Some of us are poorer than others!"
1960s liberal: "I am all-knowing. I can get rid of poverty with my vast erudition. I shall create a thing I call the Great Society."
2010s liberal: "I am on welfare, but I can't run my airconditioner as much as I want, I can only afford basic cable, I only have 4Mbs internet, and I have to shop at a non-wholefoods supermarket!"

See, if you try to level the standard of living, people will simply redefine what poverty is. Give every poor man a free hot-rod, and women will only date men with private jets. What you give away for free merely causes inflation in the never-ending human drive to be better than other people. Inequality will always exist because people need to feel better than other people. Women need to feel this guy that they're shagging is somehow better than that guy that they aren't shagging. It won't change. You'll just move the goal posts.

Half the people in this thread probably view the conservative as a shadowy Other, so wealth is just one way of keeping score. But we all have to feel superior to others somehow. It's human.

Personally, I'm superior to other people because I've evolved beyond needing to feel superior.

To conservatives, we live in the best of all possible worlds. Liberals trying to make a new world scares and angers conservatives on a fundamental level because they are certain that the new world will be worse than the old one. How can you ever improve on perfect?

You've been amazingly spot on for describing some conservatives, MSH, so I'll have to take your word that this is what some really do think. However, I haven't encountered many conservatives that really think this. The world isn't perfect, and it never will be. Change will make you feel good inside, but it's just spinning your wheels.

Deus Vult
Our religious enemies want to kill and enslave all of us and will do so the first chance they get unless we maintain strict national security ... It's terrifying. In reality it's delusional.

I'm a non-practicing atheist, so much of the religious side of conservatism doesn't speak to me. Keep in mind that many factions have been cobbled together into the "Let's not change so much stuff" ideology. I'll just say that American religious freedoms are pretty robust, and I feel more secure as a minority here than I would in Egypt right now. In Egypt right now, a place where a few delusional people might probably mistakenly think the Muslim Brotherhood will want to remove others' freedoms...

So, in conclusion, you're probably wondering why a conservative would self-identify on a board known for liberalism and, well, games like LCS. Check my name, please. 

[Heron TSG]

1950s liberal: "People don't have good jobs because only the rich can afford college!"
1960s liberal: "I am here to bring change and save the world and demonstrate how brilliant and special I am! I will create student loans so everyone can go to college! I feel so good about myself now!"
2010s liberal: "Waaah! Everyone has college degrees now! These slips of paper mean nothing in the job market, they're worth less than highschool diplomas used to mean in the 1950s, and we all have a lot of student debt now!"

You're missing some of that.

1950s liberal: "Only the rich can afford college, but everyone deserves higher education."
1960s liberal: "Poor people often get fucked over by third party loans, we should do something about it!"
2000s conservative: "We're low on funds for education, so instead of raising taxes, let's hike tuition 50% again."
2010s liberal: "People are getting fucked over by loans again because they have to take so many. If they didn't have to take out so much money, perhaps their education would be worth a damn."

I'm an angry college student liberal.

[Lagslayer]

For what it's worth, Trollheiming, I agree with you virtually point-for-point with what you stated here.

[AntiAntiMatter]

Can they see? Do they really know how to change things? Are you sure? Don't you think the older generation tried to change things, too, when they were also such youthful liberals? What happened despite all their efforts? Poverty disappeared? World peace happened? Women stopped dating asshole rich guys?

There is change, and then there are miracles. Criticizing someone for failing to change things for the better is reasonable. Criticizing them for failing to do the impossible isn't.

"I am on welfare, but I can't run my airconditioner as much as I want, I can only afford basic cable, I only have 4Mbs internet, and I have to shop at a non-wholefoods supermarket!"

I am fairly sure the average welfare recipient is more concerned with keeping a roof over their head, but I do not have the statistics on hand to verify this, so take that with a grain of salt.

In a shocking turn of events, top Democrats have wealthy friends, too!

I am fairly sure most of the forumites here are already aware of this.

See, if you try to level the standard of living, people will simply redefine what poverty is.

Correct. However, that is no reason not to provide poor people with basic amenities.

[Heron TSG]

I am fairly sure the average welfare recipient is more concerned with keeping a roof over their head, but I do not have the statistics on hand to verify this, so take that with a grain of salt.

I have an anecdote that may put some perspective on it, though of course one anecdote doesn't describe the entirety of the situation:

My dad is disabled and receives about $5,000 per year from that. Not exactly enough to run the AC, get a 4mbps connection, or really buy many groceries. He runs a small woodcrafts business on the side to supplement that, and those combined put him right around the poverty level.

[kaijyuu]

See, if you try to level the standard of living, people will simply redefine what poverty is. Give every poor man a free hot-rod, and women will only date men with private jets. What you give away for free merely causes inflation in the never-ending human drive to be better than other people. Inequality will always exist because people need to feel better than other people. Women need to feel this guy that they're shagging is somehow better than that guy that they aren't shagging. It won't change. You'll just move the goal posts.

Just a note, your examples could be construed as quite sexist. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're using some "human nature" examples and could pull out equally selfish ones for men, though



You're right that the goalposts move as time goes on, but what conclusion should we draw from that? Should we draw a line in the sand and say "this is good enough and any more is undeserved entitlement"? Or should we re-define our definitions of poverty as our life styles change?

Long ago, indoor plumbing was considered a luxury. Go out and pump your water from the well, you lazy bum! And don't forget to clean the latrine while you're at it; flushable toilets aren't for you. Is that the same attitude we have today? Hell no, and for good reason.

And that's just comforts! How about job competition? Like you said, a high school diploma was "good enough" decades ago. Now we need college diplomas. What are we to say to someone who can't afford college? Fuck you, you're poor and staying poor since you can't afford to bring yourself up in the world? Doesn't matter how smart or talented you are; you lack the initial capital to go anywhere at all?

The goal posts move because our needs and sensibilities change over time. If you're asking where it ends, it never ends as long as our economic system rewards initial capital. Once, or rather if, we can eliminate the problem of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, then we can stop moving the goal posts. As long as you need money to make money, things like wellfare and student loans must exist and no amount of touting self dependency will change that.