Cypress (01-23-2019)
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Oh I don't even want to be reminded of that. I was called treasonous far to many times for pointing out that the Neo-Cons policy of pre-emption was a radical departure from the American standard of "A clear and present danger" as the policy standard for when to use military force. Turned out that I was right but man I took a lot of shit.
I do remember a funny incident when I was in NYC at the height of the Iraq invasion when at a sports pub some loud mouth from South Carolina was loudly berating liberals about the opposition to the Iraq war and he real quickly found out he was in the wrong place to be popping off as several pissed off locals approached them and one told him that his brother in law was a fireman killed in the North Tower collapse and that they were pissed about Iraq and if he didn't shut up there was a high probability that he'd get his ass kicked.
The South Carolinian got the point and shut up. I understood how those guy felt. They were pissed that the ball on bringing Bin Laden at el to justice had been dropped and I mean seriously pissed. A southern conservative had to have a lot of balls to spout off at the mouth on that topic in NYC at that time. He was lucky he didn't get curb stomped.
You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic!
Cypress (01-23-2019)
Some of the teachers in the great courses are reactionaries . They have a bias towards that.
"Do not think that I came to bring peace... I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34
you forgot populism. Independent minds are not partisan. I'm completely un-interested in governing philosophy
to the point of disdain for those who decisions are guided by rote learning/philosophy.
i.e.( Dems are compassionate /Repubs are corporate etc) tax the rich feed the poor. all that noise.
~~
Issues are complex. you have to understand what you want out of a policy and then find a path to get it there.
What works in the real world.
That's the beauty of Trump's transactional foreign policy -it's 180 percent opposite of neocon/neo lib.
It's realpolitik -and it works because it's interest driven by all parties involved.
Domestic governing i do make 1 important exception.
Go in thinking government is probably not the best way to solve the problem,but if it's used -prepare for it to become bloated and ineffective.
Not thinking in terms of "limited government" that's just as bad a violation of federalism's construction
as the Dem's statism.
Put down the weed. get a cup of coffee and think it thru . nothing else will do.
yes.
Why are we governing that area of concern if we are not profoundly skeptical, cynical going in?
The problem with government is that it never stops when it fails.
the liberal instinct is to stimulate more government. Cons use that "anti -utopian" critique to nip it in the bud.
No, as an ideological philosophy it does not come down to pedestrian policy proposals like whether or not we should fund Medicare, parks, and public libraries.
As an ideological and philosophical issue, it comes down to how one views human nature. Conservatives are cynical, skeptical, and pessimistic about human nature itself. That is exactly why you see teabaggers on this board complain that we cannot have a social welfare state because the "darkies', the poor people, the disadvantaged communities cannot be trusted - they will take advantage of it because their very nature is to be "takers", to be shiftless deadbeats, to beomce lazy lay-abouts.
And that is exactly what is going on, the billions of times we have seen conservatives write a post that blacks only vote Democratic Party "to get free stuff".
when I was in my teens, we moved up to Shropshire. It was like going back a full two hundred years, gruesome but interesting. I met some real conservatives in those backwoods: they were, by and large, very stupid but decent enough people, of whom Mrs May is a late, not very successful copy. They were totally honest, they looked after their tenants, they would die for their country in obedient herds, and if you didn't tell them any unhappy truths, would never harm you. I cannot see how, in any way at all, American 'Conservatives' could be related to such people. All they believe in, surely, is a very nasty variant of Manchester Liberalism - and the best way out of Manchester was always to get very drunk and stay that way for as long as you could afford!
Last edited by iolo; 01-24-2019 at 07:33 AM.
Cypress (01-24-2019)
I do not use the term "conservative" in conversations here...and frankly, I do not care what the term "conservative" means to this professor or anyone else...nor do I care what it means to be a "conservative."
I USE THE TERM "AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES"...AND I CARE VERY MUCH ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE.
It is my opinion that "what it means to be an American conservative" can be summed up by, "I've got mine, fuck you." Sometimes the American conservative position is expressed, "I've got mine, fuck everyone else."
Just sayin'!
See this book on the conservative mindset.
"With engaging wit and subtle irony, Albert Hirschman maps the diffuse and treacherous world of reactionary rhetoric in which conservative public figures, thinkers, and polemicists have been arguing against progressive agendas and reforms for the past two hundred years.
"Hirschman draws his examples from three successive waves of reactive thought that arose in response to the liberal ideas of the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, to democratization and the drive toward universal suffrage in the nineteenth century, and to the welfare state in our own century. In each case he identifies three principal arguments invariably used: (1) the perversity thesis, whereby any action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order is alleged to result in the exact opposite of what was intended; (2) the futility thesis, which predicts that attempts at social transformation will produce no effects whatever—will simply be incapable of making a dent in the status quo; (3) the jeopardy thesis, holding that the cost of the proposed reform is unacceptable because it will endanger previous hard-won accomplishments. He illustrates these propositions by citing writers across the centuries from Alexis de Tocqueville to George Stigler, Herbert Spencer to Jay Forrester, Edmund Burke to Charles Murray. Finally, in a lightning turnabout, he shows that progressives are frequently apt to employ closely related rhetorical postures, which are as biased as their reactionary counterparts. For those who aspire to the genuine dialogue that characterizes a truly democratic society, Hirschman points out that both types of rhetoric function, in effect, as contraptions designed to make debate impossible. In the process, his book makes an original contribution to democratic thought."
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...ic_of_Reaction
"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land'
Wanna make America great, buy American owned, made in the USA, we do. AF Veteran, INFJ-A, I am not PC.
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it." Voltaire
Cypress (01-24-2019)
I was being generous at characterizing rightwing philosophy as cynical, pessimistic, skeptical.
But, as you suggest, you could really just throw the word selfish in there.
On this tangent, I also do not think the word "conservative" means very much in the America of 2019.
I have always maintained that the number of people who are the genuine ideological soul mates of William Buckley or Ayn Rand could metaphorically fit into a telephone booth.
Hardly anybody really gives a shit about the conservative Austrian school of economics.
This is why the terms teabagger, wingnut, white nationalist, Reich winger, are really what accurately describes the right side of the American political spectrum - the Trump loving faction of the electorate. Because it is largely based on resentment, cynicism, xenophobia, and grievance.
Frank Apisa (01-24-2019), iolo (01-24-2019)
you are conflating conservatism with racism, and old school "pull them up by their bootstraps" extremism.
It would be like me calling liberalism the same thing as income redistributing Socialism -
although the Dems are getting there. Still traditional liberalism isn't Socialism
Conserv. have a healthy disrespect for government because we respect it's power.
It slows down growth and eats tax dollars if not carefully applied .
I am not talking about views on human nature - that's extraneous and as uniformed
as your post on a profile of Trump supporters
I acquired this video course, and one of my first take-aways is conservatism was originally affiliated with tradition, respect for social hierarchy, maintenance of the socio-economic status quo, and resistance to any forms of change.
Conservatism did not become affiliated with the defense of free markets and capitalism until towards the end of the 19th century. Because fear of socialism. And the fuel driving this was fear of a nexus between socialism, women's rights, free love, and labor.
So of it I was generally aware of, but am filling in some blanks.
Next on the menu is a study of the conservative defense of Anglo-Saxon supremacy, opposition of the New Deal, isolationism in the face of the fascist threat.The Conservative Tradition
Professor Patrick N. Allitt, Ph.D.
Emory University
Opposition to suffrage was, in effect, the natural conservative position.
The debate over suffrage was affected by other political and intellectual trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially the rise of socialism.
A. Conservatives saw a continuum between socialism, free love, and women’s participation in politics.
B. At the other end of the political spectrum, the threat of German military power appeared in the debate.
C. The debate was sometimes cast in the language of evolution.
Women’s service throughout both economies during World War I was indispensable; it strengthened the suffragist position and led to a constitutional change in both nations.
Feminists were disappointed to see that most women voted the same way as their fathers or husbands.
The history of the antisuffragists has been all but forgotten; the price of defeat is oblivion.
Edmund Burke emphasized the importance of accepting the accumulated wisdom of the past rather than attempting to start the world over.
1. Change was necessary, but it should be gradual, alwaysmindful of the circumstances preceding it.
2. We should cultivate particular and local loyalties rather than adhering to grand abstractions.
3. We should be proud, rather than ashamed, of our comparative unimaginativeness, because it safeguards us from utopian folly.
4. We are guided by our prejudices, luckily—which means we don’t have to think out each new situation from first principles.
5. Burke argued that the principle of democracy was a dangerous abstraction, and he supported government moves to suppress its advocates.
Bill (07-10-2019), Mott the Hoople (07-10-2019)
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