What does the American Conservative stand for anymore?

[innonimatu]

What is their platform? Do they have any ideas to fix any ills perceived or otherwise? We all know their immigration stance these days. Their moral stances are all over the place now though. Their trade and economic stance is troubled and murky now. Their cohesion on topics as basic as the rule of law are troubled.

What does the American Conservative believe in and is it splitting down libertarian/religious lines?

It's not hard to find them and see for yourself

And I'm only half joking, they are representative I think Popists and protestants who feel threatened enough to overcome their old enmity and join them? Socially religions in the US have in recent times lost a lot of influence (a rather big swing from the trend 20 years ago), so that is unsurprising. They do have the virtue of opposing warmongering. Another apparent swing in trends is that the american "liberal" party is now the spooks' and warmongers' support list. The US is becoming almost as interesting to observe as Japan...

Wall Street is an entirely different club. They are and will always be a social wrecking ball, thus incompatible with conservatives. Thing of the Wall Street club as a group of Littlefingers, plotting to profit from chaos. They are however very adept at manipulating both conservatives and "liberals".

I'm rather more curious about what the americal liberal is supposed to be today.

 

[Patine]

• Evangelical Christian views should stand above all others

They don't at all believe in this. There is a belief system they think should stand above all others, but it is as different from Christ's Ministry and Teachings as Thelatia and the Church of Scientology are...

 

[Birdjaguar]

They don't at all believe in this. There is a belief system they think should stand above all others, but it is as different from Christ's Ministry and Teachings as Thelatia and the Church of Scientology are...

They don't all believe every item, but conservatives believe most of them. Trump is not an evangelical. He just pretend he is. Perhaps it should rewritten as a bias of conservative Christianity's superiority to other belief systems.

 

[inthesomeday]

What did conservatism ever stand for? In the old world conservatism stood for the defense of monarchies and aristocracies and the church and patriarchy. In the US it has always stood for rationalizing the pretensions of whatever would-be aristocrats are currently trying to destroy democracy, and that's still what it stands for.

Hm... what do you mean, “destroy democracy”?

 

[Patine]

They don't all believe every item, but conservatives believe most of them. Trump is not an evangelical. He just pretend he is. Perhaps it should rewritten as a bias of conservative Christianity's superiority to other belief systems.

But it's not Christianity, except in the superficial usage of terminology, symbolism, and ritual. Christ has pillar quotes like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "it is far easier for a camel to travel through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into the Kingdom of God," "then render unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God's," "How you treat the least amongst you is how you treat Me," "turn the other cheek," "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," and "faith without good works is dead," among others, that kill outright any sort of backing or viability, doctrinally, whatsoever, that American Conservativism thinks they could POSSIBLY derive from Christ.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But it's not Christianity, except in the superficial usage of terminology, symbolism, and ritual. Christ has pillar quotes like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "it is far easier for a camel to travel through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into the Kingdom of God," "then render unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God's," "How you treat the least amongst you is how you treat Me," "turn the other cheek," "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," and "faith without good works is dead," among others, that kill outright any sort of backing or viability, doctrinally, whatsoever, that American Conservativism thinks they could POSSIBLY derive from Christ.

You don't call it Christian, but they do and there are enough of them that it is de facto modern conservative Christianity.

 

[Patine]

You don't call it Christian, but they do and there are enough of them that it is de facto modern conservative Christianity.

I disagree. This is not paradigm psychology with consensual reality physics. It doesn't matter how many people say something that is not something is something - it doesn't make it that something. It makes it a BIG LIE. I will not legitimize that lie, or gracefully accept or respect anyone who does.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I disagree. This is not paradigm psychology with consensual reality physics. It doesn't matter how many people say something that is not something is something - it doesn't make it that something. It makes it a BIG LIE. I will not legitimize that lie, or gracefully accept or respect anyone who does.

You can disagree all you like, but there is no defined version of Christianity that stands above all of the lesser versions. The NT is ambiguous and contradictory. Orthodox and Roman versions have existed for many centuries. Both claim authority. What you imagine is "true Christianity" is just a selective version. Christianity isn't a single thing. It hasn't been since the Crucifixion.

 

[Estebonrober]

You can disagree all you like, but there is no defined version of Christianity that stands above all of the lesser versions. The NT is ambiguous and contradictory. Orthodox and Roman versions have existed for many centuries. Both claim authority. What you imagine is "true Christianity" is just a selective version. Christianity isn't a single thing. It hasn't been since the Crucifixion.

I'll agree with him that groups who identify as christian yet deny his teachings at their earliest convenience are pretty much trash Christians. I get that it is one man's opinion, but I think he is right.

 

[Estebonrober]

It's not hard to find them and see for yourself

And I'm only half joking, they are representative I think Popists and protestants who feel threatened enough to overcome their old enmity and join them? Socially religions in the US have in recent times lost a lot of influence (a rather big swing from the trend 20 years ago), so that is unsurprising. They do have the virtue of opposing warmongering. Another apparent swing in trends is that the american "liberal" party is now the spooks' and warmongers' support list. The US is becoming almost as interesting to observe as Japan...

Wall Street is an entirely different club. They are and will always be a social wrecking ball, thus incompatible with conservatives. Thing of the Wall Street club as a group of Littlefingers, plotting to profit from chaos. They are however very adept at manipulating both conservatives and "liberals".

I'm rather more curious about what the americal liberal is supposed to be today.

That website demonstrates the point. Its all over the place and they are attacking each other all over the place.

 

[Narz]

Conservatism is the naive viewpoint that life would be fair if only governments & do-gooders stopped trying to interfere. "If only" the liberals would leave things alone the cream (the conservatives) would rise to the top.

I don't believe for a minute actual conservative leaders think like this, they probably marvel that anyone buy's this nonsense (like Trump marveled aloud that anyone bought his "drain the swamp" schtick).

 

[FriendlyFire]

There are factions that dont agree about some things, eg free traders, fair traders, and protectionists all claiming to be conservative.

It was never about free trade / fair trade or protectionism
Its about Trump

I guess its time for US agriculture to take another one on the alter of Trump

 

[Cutlass]

There is clearly a part that doesn't anymore. . . just watch the way J or old hippy talk

This misses the point: Religious extremism, cultural extremism, racist extremism, all of what 'conservatives' are doing is in the service of the redistribution of wealth. The unifying part of everything on the far right is that it supports the Republican position of wealth concentration. They do not have a policy which does not, in whole, or in part, serve the purpose of taking from the 99% and giving to the 1%.

Now there is some disagreement about how to go about doing that. But that is still the only thing that they actually do.

All of the think tanks which support those policies, all the churches which support those politicians, it's all paid for for the purpose of getting laws passed which make the rich richer. It's not an accident that people who call themselves 'libertarians' and people who are obviously fascists are supporting for the most part the same policies. They get their ideas from the same place, and they serve the same masters. And they will use whatever tools, and support whatever lies, gets them that goal.

But you can't just come out and say that. So racism, xenophobia, religious fascism, these are the tools you need to use to get your goal of the extermination of the American Dream.

 

[Tristan_C]

I bet that felt good coming out.

 

[mitsho]

It seems true. Whereas the left side has proposals for climate change, health care and so on, the right doesn't seem to. In fact, they dispute that these are problems. Where they do see problems is immigration which is what the left doesn't see as one. And there are lots of dilemmas: more military spending, but get one's soldiers home. So what do they want a strong military for? And most of their ideas are just absences: the absence of state or change or... So yeah, I'm not sure you will find constructive ideas, the conservative side tends mor to the destructive side.

 

[Lexicus]

They do have the virtue of opposing warmongering.

No, they don't.

Hm... what do you mean, “destroy democracy”?

Institute minority rule by destroying or subverting majoritarian institutions.

It's not hard to find them and see for yourself

That is propaganda, not a platform or plan.

 

[Patine]

Institute minority rule by destroying or subverting majoritarian institutions.

Like the South African National Party and the Rhodesian Front did? A stanch Republican (volunteer in Rand Paul and Matt Bevin's campaigns in Kentucky, where he lives, in fact) on another forum who was speaking that "tyranny of the majority" must be avoided at all costs and was this monstrous, destructive force of doom, was really annoyed when I brought up those two groups as a comparison, saying they "weren't the same thing at all, but the comparison was a pretty typical tactic."

 

[Gori the Grey]

They stand for our National Anthem, dammit!

 

[EgonSpengler]

George Will was on the radio the other day, and he cited Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life, originally published in 1909, as an important work (to him, anyway). Will is on a tour to promote his new book The Conservative Sensibility. I haven't read either one, myself, so I can't comment.

Will, of course, does not represent today's Republican Party, as so many American Conservatives don't. I read Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin from time to time, for 2 more examples - they write for The Washington Post - and they're also both exasperated.

 

[Patine]

They stand for our National Anthem, dammit!

The Star-Spangled Banner or Dixieland?