What does the American Conservative stand for anymore?

[Farm Boy]

It's less sexual than cheerleading* at high school ballgames. I have to admit, I don't know what's up with the cash, if that's cash, but I don't know if that's traditional instead of vaguely working girl, so I'd error on the side of shutting up about it by default. Dollar dances at weddings are sort of tacky in my opinion, but eh. That's about it. I still play along and cough up a buck, if people are having a fun and meaningful event that's the point.

*traditional, jerky movements. Not even floor routines or dance squads or whatever.

 

[Hygro]

It's less sexual than cheerleading at high school ballgames. I have to admit, I don't know what's up with the cash, if that's cash, but I don't know if that's traditional instead of vaguely working girl, so I'd error on the side of shutting up about it by default, dollar dances at weddings are sort of tacky, but eh. That's about it.

The money is weird but wake me up when it's being stuffed into a g-string instead of politely handed over.

I don't want to live in your universe.

I'm not trying to virgin-shame you but
those of us with a little more experience can tell when something is sexual. This isn't it. You're relying on simulacra and analysis. Get out of your head, and then maybe preteens won't disturb your comfort zone.

A charitable interpretation would say you meant this stuff is grooming kids to be defenseless against pedophilia. It's a wild claim. What's not a wild claim is that virtually everywhere there are child brides and institutional molestation of kids is done in conservative societies. Meanwhile, child abuse here in liberal land is reaching an all time low.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't want to live in your universe.

Luckily, nearly 1/3 of people worship of God that they believe once commanded that kid's murder. So, in the old timey way, there's a solution to your distress

 

[Berzerker]

I'd have to read the lyrics and know about the context, the video was more annoying than sexual

 

[Farm Boy]

Sort of a good point if his examples had no correlation.

An abortion ban does affect the poor more. A woman of means will be able to travel and pay out of pocket if she wants one. She can afford to raise the child and probably has good FMLA at work or maybe can even survive on hubby's single income. A poor woman wont have that choice and the child could disrupt her ability to support herself let alone that kid. Even if she chooses to give it up the pregnancy alone could inflict heavy financial burden if she's under insured. She likely doesn't have good FMLA at work and that could drive her further into poverty. This is all without mentioning that orphans can sometimes age out of the foster system making me wonder if the adoption argument is even viable. Granted all this would be moot if the pro life party supported programs that actually helped women in these situations. Unfortunately they dont.

Economics and race are statistically linked whether we like it or not. I'm personally in the camp that wants everyone to have an equally good education, everyone to be clothed, fed and sheltered until adulthood. Once you're an adult then it can be dog eat dog.

The drag kid thing....I dont know where he gets that, I've never heard that pivot.

Orphans, as in kids whose guardians have died? They sometimes wind up in state care. I don't see how they're at all relevant to the issue past a state where abortion is illegal or inaccessible at any stage and women are compelled to keep the kids. Those are children who were had intentionally and raised intentionally but for.

Insurance is insurance. The state should be providing insurance here, but it doesn't always. Forming open adoption plans usually places this unfunded responsibility on the prospective adoptive parents. Making the aid conditional on finalizing is illegal. Don't be a Party man/woman. They suck. Realizing elective extremely late term abortions of viable children is awful does not mean you have to punch your "birth control and insurance assistance is teh ebil" card. Or vice verse. Don't be that (barely) human.

 

[Hygro]

I'd have to read the lyrics and know about the context, the video was more annoying than sexual

Definitely annoying haha. I love that song tho. I was thinking about it earlier today watching a video about synthesizers. They didn't mention it but the guy on camera asked what the listener's favorite synth was. I was thinking "Roland Jupiter-8" but then I was like, eh that's really just for the synth line in No Doubt's "Just a Girl". That synth line was about my favorite thing I ever heard when I was a kid. Loved that song.

cut to 1:42 for the synth line

Link to video.

 

[Hrothbern]

Economics and race are statistically linked whether we like it or not. I'm personally in the camp that wants everyone to have an equally good education, everyone to be clothed, fed and sheltered until adulthood.

yes

Once you're an adult then it can be dog eat dog.

Many people only perform to a satisfactory degree of their potential performance if the societal setting can provide adults an adequate structure and safety nets.
Structure especially important for people that cannot handle too many (kinds of) uncertainties at the same time. When their societal start gets them at (very) low income, you can add for many the detrimental effects of poverty-stress on top.

 

[Farm Boy]

Meanwhile, child abuse here in liberal land is reaching an all time low.

I have ponderings. No answers, but I'll keep knawing on them. Been taking foster licensing classes for the last couple months. Tons and tons of thoughtful stuff that wouldn't have occurred to me. Lots of rough things to think about. They finally covered a lesson that's made me realize I'm too small and I won't be doing it. It's sensible(and I agree with it) that they mention you have to assume every child that winds up in your care must be treated as if he or she has been sexually abused since they don't always know. And in keeping with that, in your household there must be no sitting on laps between parents and bio/permanent kids or kids and kids and never any tickling or horseplay since they are grooming. Any of those behaviors will result in your home naturally being suspect and actionable on DCFS complaint*. I get it. But I'm out. Maybe later when mine is grown and gone.

*Which happens to foster homes routinely for a variety of reasons.

 

[Berzerker]

lap sitting and tickling are what just about every parent does with their kids

 

[Hygro]

I have ponderings. No answers, but I'll keep knawing on them. Been taking foster licensing classes for the last couple months. Tons and tons of thoughtful stuff that wouldn't have occurred to me. Lots of rough things to think about. They finally covered a lesson that's made me realize I'm too small and I won't be doing it. It's sensible(and I agree with it) that they mention you have to assume every child that winds up in your care must be treated as if he or she has been sexually abused since they don't always know. And in keeping with that, in your household there must be no sitting on laps between parents and bio/permanent kids or kids and kids and never any tickling or horseplay since they are grooming. Any of those behaviors will result in your home naturally being suspect and actionable on DCFS complaint*. I get it. But I'm out. Maybe later when mine is grown and gone.

*Which happens to foster homes routinely for a variety of reasons.

Sad it didn't work out. Cool of you to look into it.

This line of discussion is where I can get on board with criticism of liberals/progressives. There's a whole movement designed to keep people from crossing lines by avoiding all of the things that could teach you to actually know where the line is. Now you've got a whole generation paranoid imagining lines where they aren't, and people are starved of good wholesome healthy relationships that come from getting closer to the line. Indeed, a huge source of connection between people is demonstrating how deftly you can not cross the line while riding it. Aka someone really knowing you, really respecting you. If you need a metaphor, think of the difference between losing and winning hands in black jack.

 

[Traitorfish]

You think liberals are going stand by when some people in this country don't want play by their rules? Conservatives are tolerated up until the point where they stop being completely impotent. Then, they become fascists to fought against.

So what are you actually advocating? That American conservatives retreat from modern society, that they should take up arms against the American state, or that they should take hold of the American state and turn it against "liberals"?

You've made strong claims about the immorality of modern, "liberal" society, and expressed not only an acceptance but an enthusiasm for national regeneration through violence- "reviving America", in your own words- but you've yet to clearly drawn the lines between these two thoughts, even as you insist on their compatibility.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Just feel fortunate that you live in such a relatively chaste era as our own, Mouthwash. If you had the misfortune to be born in Elizabethan England, there was this one perv playwright who would dress up boys that age as women and not just have them dance around in an ungainly fashion, but have them joke casually about . . . ahem . . . "count-ry matters"!

 

[Lexicus]

No one tell Mouthwash about traditional stateless societies that have third-gender people either

 

[Farm Boy]

The counts and their matters were even bigger perverts.

 

[Traitorfish]

No one tell Mouthwash about traditional stateless societies that have third-gender people either

In fairness, those aren't really the same thing as drag. Drag is all about transgression, about revealing the inherent constructedness of gender. Traditional third-genders are usually located very definitely within a rigid gender hierarchy, and most usually take the form of biological males accepting a subordinate, feminine social role. Those exceptions which exist tend to be explicit exceptions of the proves-the-rule sort, ritualised transgressions which reenforce the general norm.

The Western left is a naive tendency to regard any departure from a simple binary of "male" and "female" as, if not transgressive, than proof of a sort of gender-pluralism, when in fact the strict Western binary tends to reflect the relatively weakness of gender as an institutional and legal distinction in the postwar West. These societies in which we find "third genders" typically have an array of distinct gender roles, based around age, marital status and fertility, such that the "third gender" may be more properly called a sixth, seventh or eight gender.

 

[Estebonrober]

I think it might be more of an Al-Qaeda-esque "makeup=sex" thing.



I've uploaded a pdf of this essay called "What Is Conservatism And What Is Wrong With It." I suggest that everyone in this thread read it, in particular you, @Estebonrober @Cutlass (I've recommended this piece to Cutlass before, not sure if he ever read it though) @Hygro @El_Machinae and @Traitorfish

I do not agree with all the theory or all the assertions in the piece, but I think it is highly interesting and contains a lot of useful observations about American conservatives.
In particular the bit that this reminded me of is here:


The points that the author makes in relation to the rhetorical and ideological techniques used by conservatives are really remarkable to consider in the era of Trump. As you will be able to tell from the topical references (and the date at the top), the piece was written in August 2004, long before Trump and "alternative facts". In many respects Trump is a perfectly predictable consequence of these techniques having been applied for decades on end. The result is, as the author says, the replacement of reason with arbitrariness, which is perfectly encapsulated in the complete departure from reality exhibited by Trump's supporters.

Okay having read it I must say that it is pretty standard knowledge at this point about conservative tactics anyways. I guess as this goes on the issue of conservatism and hierarchy is becoming more ingrained in my mind. This is why I’m confused about where conservatives stand though. They talk about individuality constantly but then subvert it all the time. This is why I wonder if they (regular people conservatives) even know what they stand for anymore.

The whole think tank ran tactics side of the paper is dead on though and contributes to our inability to even have rational discussion anymore. It’s why you often here me say Republicans don’t govern or debate in good faith. Their whole premise these days requires double speak.

 

[Lexicus]

In fairness, those aren't really the same thing as drag. Drag is all about transgression, about revealing the inherent constructedness of gender. Traditional third-genders are usually located very definitely within a rigid gender hierarchy, and most usually take the form of biological males accepting a subordinate, feminine social role. Those exceptions which exist tend to be explicit exceptions of the proves-the-rule sort, ritualised transgressions which reenforce the general norm.

The Western left is a naive tendency to regard any departure from a simple binary of "male" and "female" as, if not transgressive, than proof of a sort of gender-pluralism, when in fact the strict Western binary tends to reflect the relatively weakness of gender as an institutional and legal distinction in the postwar West. These societies in which we find "third genders" typically have an array of distinct gender roles, based around age, marital status and fertility, such that the "third gender" may be more properly called a sixth, seventh or eight gender.

Sure, all this is true, but the mere existence of more than two genders is kinda fatal to the theory that all of human history was characterized by 1950s-US-style gender roles until the postmodern neomarxists ruined everything with Obergefell v Hodges.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Queer people exist regardless of what people's personal views and religious beliefs are and to not teach about it and to nor treat it like an ordinary thing is tantamount to enabling discrimination, fostering bigotry and ignorance. It's insane how some people can't get around how offensive that is and how it can be dangerous for ignorance and prejudice to grow and continue.

 

[innonimatu]

The Western left is a naive tendency to regard any departure from a simple binary of "male" and "female" as, if not transgressive, than proof of a sort of gender-pluralism, when in fact the strict Western binary tends to reflect the relatively weakness of gender as an institutional and legal distinction in the postwar West.

It also has a naive tendency to get lost on useless battles

 

[Mouthwash]

Oh dear, heaven forbid a girl/woman should be allowed to choose her own clothing and music!

A thirteen-year-old girl shouldn't get to (leaving aside the fact that people have a right to not endorse or accept someone else's lifestyle, notwithstanding that person's right to have it).

You repeatedly make comments about how you don't believe women should have basic human freedoms, but should basically exist for men's sexual pleasure. You support racist and transphobic/homophobic ideas and policies. You recommend violence against people who are opposed to white-male domination.

Do you have anything to contribute besides the usual crazy platitudes?

The money is weird but wake me up when it's being stuffed into a g-string instead of politely handed over.

I'm not trying to virgin-shame you but
those of us with a little more experience can tell when something is sexual. This isn't it. You're relying on simulacra and analysis. Get out of your head, and then maybe preteens won't disturb your comfort zone.

...or, maybe you're depraved. It's nothing to be ashamed of; I'm depraved as well. It is the result of our modern, hyperstimulated environment.

So what are you actually advocating? That American conservatives retreat from modern society, that they should take up arms against the American state, or that they should take hold of the American state and turn it against "liberals"?

The first one for sure, but the second will likely prove necessary to maintain it. The third option would do much more harm than good.

You've made strong claims about the immorality of modern, "liberal" society, and expressed not only an acceptance but an enthusiasm for national regeneration through violence- "reviving America", in your own words-

The national regeneration isn't about violence. The fact is that any restoration will need some degree of deterrence, because the entire nation is going to get whipped into a frenzy when liberals sense their position is in actual danger.

In fairness, those aren't really the same thing as drag. Drag is all about transgression, about revealing the inherent constructedness of gender. Traditional third-genders are usually located very definitely within a rigid gender hierarchy, and most usually take the form of biological males accepting a subordinate, feminine social role. Those exceptions which exist tend to be explicit exceptions of the proves-the-rule sort, ritualised transgressions which reenforce the general norm.

The Western left is a naive tendency to regard any departure from a simple binary of "male" and "female" as, if not transgressive, than proof of a sort of gender-pluralism, when in fact the strict Western binary tends to reflect the relatively weakness of gender as an institutional and legal distinction in the postwar West. These societies in which we find "third genders" typically have an array of distinct gender roles, based around age, marital status and fertility, such that the "third gender" may be more properly called a sixth, seventh or eight gender.

Ha, you stole my 'gotcha' moment. I was going to point out that even gay-tolerant societies didn't treat them as interchangeable with hetero relationships.

Sure, all this is true, but the mere existence of more than two genders is kinda fatal to the theory that all of human history was characterized by 1950s-US-style gender roles until the postmodern neomarxists ruined everything with Obergefell v Hodges.

At least those gender roles have some amount of precedent behind them, as opposed to being entirely foreign to humanity (like the post-Obergefell understanding of marriage).