General Politics Thread

[Lexicus]

How so? Sometimes new ideas aren't the best.

https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

Are conservatives in the U.S. reactionaries when most of the mainstream media is liberal? Therefore aren't liberals the current status quo?

Yes, US conservatives are deeply reactionary - far more so than conservatives in most of the rest of the developed world. The question of whether liberals are the status quo makes no sense.
But your insistence that the "mainstream media" in the US is liberal, GenMarshall's absurd claim that he as a white man feels threatened by the Democratic Party, these are manifestations of what I was talking about above. The reactionary right in the US is hardly making any secret that the present course of the country, under its parliamentary-democratic Constitutional regime, is unacceptable. This is the baseline source of the increasing ideological extremism and cynical "procedural maximalism" in the Republican Party. In my view it's only a matter of time before broad segments of the right really explicitly turn against parliamentary democracy. There are signs that this may already be happening such as this essay from a prestigious outlet of "intellectual" or "movement" conservatism. The essay starts off by declaring that only the 75 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020 are "real" Americans, and that America has become so corrupted by the un-American liberals, left, and/or immigrants (what exactly is doing the corrupting is left somewhat unclear) that it is no longer worth "conserving."

 

[Gori the Grey]

Everybody sounds stupid on twitter. Comparative advantage - Trump.

Well, maybe that too, but here's what I had in mind. The character limit precludes nuance, complexity, qualification. All one can do is issue pronouncements. That's what Trump used his tweets to to: to utter proclamations. The people who liked him like that about him: his bluntness and the self-confidence and authority that one projects when one proclaims.

 

[Lexicus]

The character limit precludes nuance, complexity, qualification.

That isn't 100% true but it takes a rare skill to bring these out given the character limit. Most of the accounts that can do this are in weird twitter, not politicians' social media interns.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Well, I suppose I could edit to "largely" precludes nuance. But I'll stick with my more emphatic original assertion.

Because adding "largely" would put me over my character limit.

 

[Joij21]

https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

That's definition is pure leftist propaganda from a heavily biased and entrenched university.

Conservatism is commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation. Not aristocracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

It could however if the traditional value was an aristocracy, but the traditional value was never aristocracy in America. And don't tell me about America's "racist tradition" because the current conservatism movement in the U.S. is about preventing the nation from slipping into socialism. Also don't tell me how capitalism is "racist", because such claims have zero evidence and it's a moot point.

Yes, US conservatives are deeply reactionary

Oh really? And do they scream and cry when things don't go their way like the left?

In my view it's only a matter of time before broad segments of the right really explicitly turn against parliamentary democracy.

That's a baseless claim when the entire Republican party refused to go along with Trump in overturning the election.

The reactionary right in the US is hardly making any secret that the present course of the country, under its parliamentary-democratic Constitutional regime, is unacceptable.

And liberals claim the current course is unacceptable when a conservative gets elected. Whenever a Republican get's elected they always say "our democracy is failing". Both parties do this and it means nothing, they don't actually want to overthrow democracy, rather they are just showing their displeasure for the other side's beliefs.

There are signs that this may already be happening such as this essay from a prestigious outlet of "intellectual" or "movement" conservatism.

Never heard of this institute. So if I haven't, then it really isn't all that important among conservatives.

 

[Ajidica]

Conservatism is commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation.

I dunno, has conservatism ever gotten much beyond a droning patrician calling Gore Vidal a queer on television?

 

[Farm Boy]

over my character limit.

In cold spring meadows
tender shoots reach, unknowing
tweeting jackass brays

 

[Lexicus]

That's definition is pure leftist propaganda from a heavily biased and entrenched university.

In fact, the author of that page is not much of a leftist and in that essay largely dismisses traditional leftist approaches to understanding or improving society. There is even a section called "Ditch Marx" which asserts "Marxism is not located anywhere on a spectrum. It is just mistaken. It fails to describe the real world. Attempts to implement it simply created an ugly and shallow imitation of conservatism at its worst. Democracy is the right way to live, and conservatism is the wrong way."

This is not leftist propaganda, though it is propaganda - more like what we might call liberal professional-class propaganda than anything else. However, its description of conservatism is largely accurate and is a particularly apt description of modern American conservatives.

Conservatism is commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation. Not aristocracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

It could however if the traditional value was an aristocracy, but the traditional value was never aristocracy in America. And don't tell me about America's "racist tradition" because the current conservatism movement in the U.S. is about preventing the nation from slipping into socialism. Also don't tell me how capitalism is "racist", because such claims have zero evidence and it's a moot point.

Hilariously, your own wiki article contains the following:

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) has been widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism.[61][62] Burke served as the private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham and as official pamphleteer to the Rockingham branch of the Whig party.[63] Together with the Tories, they were the conservatives in the late 18th century United Kingdom.[64] Burke's views were a mixture of conservatism and republicanism. He supported the American Revolution of 1775–1783 but abhorred the violence of the French Revolution (1789–1799). He accepted the conservative ideals of private property and the economics of Adam Smith (1723–1790), but thought that economics should remain subordinate to the conservative social ethic, that capitalism should be subordinate to the medieval social tradition and that the business class should be subordinate to aristocracy.[citation needed] He insisted on standards of honor derived from the medieval aristocratic tradition and saw the aristocracy as the nation's natural leaders.[65]

The big change that conservatives have opposed for almost the whole of the modern era is exactly the move away from social deference towards aristocrats, and the "traditional values" conservatives have spent most of their time defending are precisely the prerogatives and privileges of the aristocrats. And the US of course had an aristocratic tradition in the landed gentry who founded the Constitution - thankfully, it was largely purged from national politics by the Civil War and its aftermath.

That's a baseless claim when the entire Republican party refused to go along with Trump in overturning the election.

Open your eyes. People in the Republican Party who refuse to say the 2020 election was stolen are being blackballed out of leadership positions and subjected to official censure.
And...

Fifty-one percent of Republicans said the party’s leaders “did not go far enough” on Jan. 6 to overturn the election.

One last point I want to come back to:

And don't tell me about America's "racist tradition" because the current conservatism movement in the U.S. is about preventing the nation from slipping into socialism.

Here's an image of a 1959 protest by your bois trying to prevent the nation from slipping into socialism:

 

[Samson]

such as this essay from a prestigious outlet of "intellectual" or "movement" conservatism

That is seriously frightening, esp. with that image at the top of the page.

Oh really? And do they scream and cry when things don't go their way like the left?

Spoiler Looking at that... :

Do these people not know how to tie a noose?

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: It seems I need to step in once again to remind people that slurring everyone on "the left" or "the right" is trolling and/or flaming and will be punished as such. This is your last warning.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So I'm reading an op-ed by Liz Cheney in which she notes "the ridiculous wokeness of our political rivals", and on the facing 'page' is another op-ed titled "The Republican Party has latched onto 'woke' because it has nothing else." I choose to give the editors the benefit of the doubt and assume that placement was just a coincidence, but it still made me laugh. I did appreciate that Cheney said 'political rivals', but when I read 'ridiculous wokeness' I rolled my eyes so hard I think I gave myself a concussion, and it was a struggle to give the rest of the op-ed any more of my valuable time. (Okay, my time's not really that valuable, but you know what I mean.)

I have to admit, whenever I see someone use the term 'woke' as an insult, the weight I give what they're saying is immediately reduced. It's become a subconscious indicator that the person doesn't have much to say. I can't help it. If someone wrote something I agreed with and used the word 'woke' derisively, I bet I would find myself reflexively looking for a reason to disagree with them or dismiss what they've written. It's now on the pile with "PC/politically correct." If someone criticizes something as being "pc" or "woke" it has the opposite of the intended effect; I get more intrigued about the thing they're criticizing than I would have been otherwise. I was on the fence about watching Without Remorse, but I glanced at the comments section and the first comment was "Dumb political correctness ruins the entire movie." So of course that tipped the balance for me; I decided to watch it. As ever, the more some conservatives talk, the more progressive I get.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, you are reading op-eds by legislators. So it's not like you're going to come out of it a better person.

 

[Joij21]

In fact, the author of that page is not much of a leftist and in that essay largely dismisses traditional leftist approaches to understanding or improving society. There is even a section called "Ditch Marx" which asserts "Marxism is not located anywhere on a spectrum. It is just mistaken. It fails to describe the real world. Attempts to implement it simply created an ugly and shallow imitation of conservatism at its worst. Democracy is the right way to live, and conservatism is the wrong way."

This is not leftist propaganda, though it is propaganda - more like what we might call liberal professional-class propaganda than anything else. However, its description of conservatism is largely accurate and is a particularly apt description of modern American conservatives.



Hilariously, your own wiki article contains the following:


The big change that conservatives have opposed for almost the whole of the modern era is exactly the move away from social deference towards aristocrats, and the "traditional values" conservatives have spent most of their time defending are precisely the prerogatives and privileges of the aristocrats. And the US of course had an aristocratic tradition in the landed gentry who founded the Constitution - thankfully, it was largely purged from national politics by the Civil War and its aftermath.



Open your eyes. People in the Republican Party who refuse to say the 2020 election was stolen are being blackballed out of leadership positions and subjected to official censure.
And...


One last point I want to come back to:


Here's an image of a 1959 protest by your bois trying to prevent the nation from slipping into socialism:

Your painting a large swath of Republicans as evil with little to no nuance. And that picture is 70 years old, before Republicans adopted the Southern Strategy, which would make those people Democrat.

Even if they were Republican that still doesn't change the fact that it was 70 years ago. I assure you racism has been confined to the crypt of bad history within modern American politics.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I assure you racism has been confined to the crypt of bad history within modern American politics.

No, it hasn't.

 

[Sommerswerd]

‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless

Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/06/caitlyn-jenner-governor-california-wealthy-homeless-485521

 

[Farm Boy]

California's primary export is a*****e?

 

[Joij21]

No, it hasn't.

That's cops shooting blacks, not politicians shooting blacks.

 

[Sommerswerd]

That's cops shooting blacks, not politicians shooting blacks.

Oh politicians are doing/saying racist things too.

 

[Gori the Grey]

In cold spring meadows
tender shoots reach, unknowing
tweeting jackass brays

Nice (unless I'm the jackass). Haiku work by syllable count and, in poetry, syllables count; that is to say, it is with syllables that poets make rhythms. Characters don't (generally) count. For all that, someone in the Twitterverse has to have worked out what Twitter verse would look like. Just thinking out loud, but I assume it would involve using exactly one's allotted 280 characters.

 

[Farm Boy]

You are probably right. That seems appropriate for the... venue.