You are using the attributes of social conservatives to smear conservatism as a whole.
Conservatism IS social conservatism. Conservatism is about conserving the status quo, which is where it gets its name from. The status quo is a homogenized culture from the outset, and conservatism is opposed to the diversification of this culture through immigration and/or change. Xenophobia is a common conservative attribute, and it becomes more and more prominent the farther right you go.
When talking about conservatism in a political discussion, social conservatism is almost always the thing being talked about. I would even say it is always the case, unless it has been established previously that economic policy is being discussed.
The social cons were not always such a large part of the Republican base. They can be removed.
Conservatism does not oppose change it just prefers that change occurs slowly and organically.
I'm curious as to how you think that will happen? That movement has snowballed into a force that I don't think can be trivialized with a "we will get rid of the eventually."
The social cons were not always such a large part of the Republican base. They can be removed.
Conservatism does not oppose change it just prefers that change occurs slowly and organically.
I don't think they can. Without those issues, the party is too small to have any effect. They've been a core part of the platform for longer than most people in this forum have been alive. If you honestly think those issues will fall away in the Republican party, you're under some terrible misapprehensions.
Conservatism does not oppose change it just prefers that change occurs slowly and organically.
Yeah, we really haven't given civil rights (including gay marriage) and contraception enough time to organically grow...
Well, the Republican Party has become the receding roar, for a lot of white people who are longing for a way of life that will never come back. Every other institution, in American life, has done this - every university, every workplace. They've adapted to a world with many more Latinos, many more Asian-Americans; and many more single women, single men, college grads. Everyone's entered the 21st century, except the Republican Party. And so they just need to stop living in 1980. And the way you do that - first, the way they think they can do it, a lot of Republicans are already saying, well, we need to downplay the social issues; and we need to get our immigration policy right.
Those things are necessary, but not sufficient. The central problem is, they have an outdated story to tell about how people make it in America; sort of the lonely individualist. If you look at the polls - and I've been looking all day, at Asian-Americans and Latinos; how they look at America - they believe ferociously in work. And they think some government programs help them work harder. And so Republicans have to get on the right side of that issue of work. How do we help people work harder, and make their lives better?
Conservatism does not oppose change it just prefers that change occurs slowly and organically.
I don't think I have ever heard this sort of definitions of conservatism, nor seen it ever in practice. The only way I have ever seen conservatives move off of the "keep things as they are" position is when they had the opportunity to (re-)introduce traditions in order to glorify the past and thus create a regression.
It's not like we actually thought about these things for ourselves and criticized every thing we saw from both sides and decided that we'd best go with the guy who has ideas based in reality. Nope, that's not it at all. It's gotta be that we're just duping ourselves completely and utterly. We should probably just go back to watching MSNBC and learning about Everybody Loves Raymond or whatever.
I'm gonna call bullshit on at least one little part of that. The president doesn't catch half as much flack as he should from the "liberal media". It's not that the guy doesn't get criticized. It's just that he gets very little criticism from legitimate sources.
People like Jack would probably be a little happier if folks actually said that they felt President Obama was a flawed but acceptable choice rather than acting like he's the 2nd coming of Christ or something.
I'm gonna call bullshit on at least one little part of that. The president doesn't catch half as much flack as he should from the "liberal media". It's not that the guy doesn't get criticized. It's just that he gets very little criticism from legitimate sources.
People like Jack would probably be a little happier if folks actually said that they felt President Obama was a flawed but acceptable choice rather than acting like he's the 2nd coming of Christ or something.
As for me, I remain cautiously optimistic.
Understandable. I don't watch MSNBC, so when I get news it's usually part of some bigger discussion and it's always mentioned that he's not the best thing ever but simply an acceptable choice given the alternative.
Even I voted him only begrudgingly, and I'm a pretty damn Real American too.
Also, before anyone thinks I just hate Jack for his beliefs, that's not it at all. I'm pissed off because a lot of us have worked hard to make sure we fully explain ourselves in this thread. When something comes up that we share, we try to actually have a discussion about it. Maybe not always, but usually. Jack, in one simple paragraph, has shown that instead of listening to what we're saying and considering it, he continues to hold himself to be the One True Holder of the Truth and simply lapped up whatever he was told by his own trusted sources. I'm tired of even trying anymore, especially when people just want to be willfully dense.
Conservatism does not oppose change it just prefers that change occurs slowly and organically.
This quote reminds me of Less Wrong's policy of placing certain words off-limits for a discussion in order to achieve maximum clarity of meaning.
In this case, what does "organic" mean in this context? How is "organic" change in a political system distinct from regular change? What does "non-organic" change mean in this context? Is there a bright line or is it arbitrarily determined by individual observers?
I think you've mentioned it, yeah, but it doesn't seem like you even really try to anymore. You just get hurt because we point out your opinions are horrible and indefensible.
Using "I don't know how to adequately explain myself" sounds like "I keep trying to tell you the truth but you just don't understand!" to me. It's like you're unwilling to even admit that you're wrong.
I used to hold the same sorts of opinions you did. When Clinton was not thrown out of office after the impeachment, I felt completely betrayed and like I didn't even live in a land of morals anymore. When Bush2 was elected, I felt vindicated. After 9/11, I felt like we were finally all turning the page and I felt like this was my country again.
I learned, though, from listening to people who were smarter than me, that my opinions were pretty damaging to a lot of people. I couldn't live with that, so I started a long, slow investigation into why I believed the way I did. I cut out listening to Rush Limbaugh, I cut out just about all politics until I started realizing that all I was really missing was a lot of information.
Conservatives "I Love America so much and so should you, unless a Democrat gets elected, then Fuck you America, I'm leaving"
Having lived through the Bush years, where we invaded Iraq for the fun of it and passed stuff like the Patriot act and passed giant tax cuts during a war, when people complained on the left, we were told "love it or leave it" or called Traitors for voicing dissent. Suddenly when the left gets in control, disscent is now the highest form of patriotism and saying you want to leave the country is the right thing to do. F U guys. FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU.
Yeah, and your solution is to get government out of everything and let people just rot in the street.
You're a treasure. Please stop voting.
Seriously, you're whining and complaining and throwing a temper tantrum because you feel like the country isn't going your way. You don't get to just pout and make everyone around you miserable, you fucking asshole. You are a grown up now, so start taking responsibility for your opinions and try to make them better.
Organic change is when the idea for said change reaches acceptance among a majority of the body politic before such change occurs. Non-organic change would change that does not have majority support yet said change ends up forced on the body politic.
Organic change is when the idea for said change reaches acceptance among a majority of the body politic before such change occurs. Non-organic change would change that does not have majority support yet said change ends up forced on the body politic.
Doesn't matter if the change is good or bad.
Well, that is how I define it.
So, should we have waited another ten years to pass the Civil Rights act so that it would gain more widespread acceptance?
Yea, Organic change is definitely happening on the Sexuality front, you can watch the republicans slowly move off the issue (especially for the ones who never really had a problem) to the point where a majority now approve of liberalizing how we look at issues like Marriages.
Finally got around to reading that article, it's actually really good. I definitely agree, all the political discussions with my friends have ended up that way. We are constantly challenging each other to not defend our opinions, but instead explain how it would actually work in reality. It turns conversations of "Man I hate those damn Republicans." into, "Wow, this is actually a lot more complicated than I thought it was." and we come away with a better understanding of what needs to be done and why. It definitely forms our opinions and totally moderates us.
That's why I like Obummer's administration. For all his faults, he does try to explain how things will work. He doesn't shy from details, and where he personally is vague it's easy to talk about how his policies would work. From there, more often than not, I end up going "Oh, that makes sense."
That's also why Republicans' arguments always seem to fall flat. They're great at telling me why they believe the way they do, but not so much at explaining the details of their policies. When they do, it ends up being something I simply can't favor.
The War on Drugs is already longer than every other war in American history.
This is a debatable point, depending on how you define us being at war, but if you go with the traditional view point (Revoltuionary, 1812, Mexican, Civil, Spanish, Phillipines, World the First, World the Second, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan) it's true.
Comments
When talking about conservatism in a political discussion, social conservatism is almost always the thing being talked about. I would even say it is always the case, unless it has been established previously that economic policy is being discussed.
Those things are necessary, but not sufficient. The central problem is, they have an outdated story to tell about how people make it in America; sort of the lonely individualist. If you look at the polls - and I've been looking all day, at Asian-Americans and Latinos; how they look at America - they believe ferociously in work. And they think some government programs help them work harder. And so Republicans have to get on the right side of that issue of work. How do we help people work harder, and make their lives better?
Also Sean, totally stole from that article.
People like Jack would probably be a little happier if folks actually said that they felt President Obama was a flawed but acceptable choice rather than acting like he's the 2nd coming of Christ or something.
As for me, I remain cautiously optimistic.
Even I voted him only begrudgingly, and I'm a pretty damn Real American too.
Also, before anyone thinks I just hate Jack for his beliefs, that's not it at all. I'm pissed off because a lot of us have worked hard to make sure we fully explain ourselves in this thread. When something comes up that we share, we try to actually have a discussion about it. Maybe not always, but usually. Jack, in one simple paragraph, has shown that instead of listening to what we're saying and considering it, he continues to hold himself to be the One True Holder of the Truth and simply lapped up whatever he was told by his own trusted sources. I'm tired of even trying anymore, especially when people just want to be willfully dense.
In this case, what does "organic" mean in this context? How is "organic" change in a political system distinct from regular change? What does "non-organic" change mean in this context? Is there a bright line or is it arbitrarily determined by individual observers?
Using "I don't know how to adequately explain myself" sounds like "I keep trying to tell you the truth but you just don't understand!" to me. It's like you're unwilling to even admit that you're wrong.
I used to hold the same sorts of opinions you did. When Clinton was not thrown out of office after the impeachment, I felt completely betrayed and like I didn't even live in a land of morals anymore. When Bush2 was elected, I felt vindicated. After 9/11, I felt like we were finally all turning the page and I felt like this was my country again.
I learned, though, from listening to people who were smarter than me, that my opinions were pretty damaging to a lot of people. I couldn't live with that, so I started a long, slow investigation into why I believed the way I did. I cut out listening to Rush Limbaugh, I cut out just about all politics until I started realizing that all I was really missing was a lot of information.
Having lived through the Bush years, where we invaded Iraq for the fun of it and passed stuff like the Patriot act and passed giant tax cuts during a war, when people complained on the left, we were told "love it or leave it" or called Traitors for voicing dissent. Suddenly when the left gets in control, disscent is now the highest form of patriotism and saying you want to leave the country is the right thing to do. F U guys. FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU.
You're a treasure. Please stop voting.
Seriously, you're whining and complaining and throwing a temper tantrum because you feel like the country isn't going your way. You don't get to just pout and make everyone around you miserable, you fucking asshole. You are a grown up now, so start taking responsibility for your opinions and try to make them better.
/Muppet spell check clearly failed me there and I wasn't paying attention :-p
Doesn't matter if the change is good or bad.
Well, that is how I define it.
Immigration will also follow this path.
As well as most likely MJ legalization.
Jack absolutely refuses to explain how his favored public policies work, so he buckles down more with them instead of critically analyzing them and therefore becoming more moderate. He's a textbook example of this particular study!
That's why I like Obummer's administration. For all his faults, he does try to explain how things will work. He doesn't shy from details, and where he personally is vague it's easy to talk about how his policies would work. From there, more often than not, I end up going "Oh, that makes sense."
That's also why Republicans' arguments always seem to fall flat. They're great at telling me why they believe the way they do, but not so much at explaining the details of their policies. When they do, it ends up being something I simply can't favor.
This is a debatable point, depending on how you define us being at war, but if you go with the traditional view point (Revoltuionary, 1812, Mexican, Civil, Spanish, Phillipines, World the First, World the Second, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan) it's true.