Filed under: #NotYourHashtag
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I found the book Black Rednecks and White Liberals to be interesting in regards to the race situation in the US.
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Couldn't be titled
Black Conservatives and White Liberalssigh
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Read the book. That's kind of the entire point.
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And the prejudice toward others is sometimes just disguised self-pity.
Can you expand on this? It sounds like an interesting concept, but it's not concrete enough for me to do anything useful with it.
Filed under: I am dumb
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Conservatism says, eff the blame, let's just fix it, and then proceeds to find a pragmatic solution.
One of us has a broken understanding of what "Conservatism" is...
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and opposes rapid change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were." The term derives from conserve; from Latin conservare, to keep, guard, observe.
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Conservatism says, eff the blame, let's just fix it
That's the pragmatic view, not the conservative one (and note that I'm not claiming it is the progressive view either). That you're mixing them up says much about just enormously broken politics is in your country.
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about just enormously broken politics is in your country
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.
George Orwell, in a letter to Malcolm Muggeridge (4 December 1948), published in Malcolm Muggeridge : A Life (1980) by Ian Hunter.Good ole Orwell.
Conservative was what someone named themselves on a particular argument. The idea that someone is nothing but conservative is rather an insult that just stuck.
The reason I feel conservative is pragmatic is because often our brothers across the isle feel that change is necessary because change! So I have to feel like staying the same is necessary at the moment because change! is a bad reason to change.
Liberalism says, this part isn't working, let's try a bunch of stuff. We don't have to try the right things, because what's there isn't working. So success no longer matters, because worse isn't possible (for whatever reason).
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to
prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the
possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the
sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss. Michael Oakeshott, On Being Conservative (1962).I love how this transition works.
Change is a mystery (will it work, who cares, it's more romantic).
Change is utopia (no longer checking if it will work, we know it will).You say you are conservative — eminently conservative — while we are
revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new
and untried? LincolnHe has a point. The constitution was "radical" at its founding, and preserving it is conservative.
When conservatives believe that legal argument should be based upon interpreting the constitution, and liberals believe that the constitution is dated and unusable, what litmus test can we use to prove ideas?
So this is why I tie conservatism to pragmatism, because conservatism has a goalpost, and liberalism doesn't care if a goalpost can even be made.
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I like this version better:
A quote by G.K. Chesterton
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of ...
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.
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One of us has a broken understanding of what "Conservatism" is...
That's a too literal interpretation of the word. The broken understanding in this case is yours.
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That's the pragmatic view, not the conservative one (and note that I'm not claiming it is the progressive view either). That you're mixing them up says much about just enormously broken politics is in your country.
Everyone says they're being pragmatic. And from their point of view, maybe that's true. But it doesn't mean that they really took an objective look at a situation and its possible solutions. It's mostly a way to obscure motives (when used in an ideological sense).
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Conservatism - conserving the pragmatic solutions, while challenging the broken solutions.
Liberalism - insisting the pragmatic solutions are causing the problem, then doubling down on the broken solutions.
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That's a too literal interpretation of the word.
Do we not want literal interpretations? Otherwise we're just arguing about semantics the whole time?
Filed under: define "semantics"
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Well, when you present your debate, you have to present your definitions.
And if someone disagrees with your definitions, they must be able to show that your definitions invalidate the argument, otherwise we are just arguing semantics.
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Do we not want literal interpretations?
That's fine unless you want to talk about the stuff that @xaade was talking about. Then your too literalism is just pedantic dickweedery. So yeah, maybe that is what we want.
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The picture that conservatives only want to conserve the past is a false dilemma, presented often when the liberals want to paint conservatives as the party of no.
Go watch the HISHE for Frozen. As a conservative I feel like the troll. I think the political followup would be the parents telling the troll he was a conservative party of no.
L: So, we should make a single payer system.....
C: NO, every time you say so, you come up with a stupid idea. The problem is increasing health care costs requiring ever expanding insurance. You just said yourself that insurance is evil. Your answer is creating more insurance?
L: But, we would be in control, and we know better than the market which is just full of greed.
C: You're the same as the market. Except that you are above reproach. No one is regulating you. So if you control everything, all your regulating is pointless. No, we need to create more competition within the health care market. Change all copay to % copay would be a start, so consumers actually have to pay market prices and not $25 for every visit.
L: Let's just make the private market unmarketable and make it harder for the insurance companies to make a profit, while increasing the amount of care required by law.
C: What, that's just going to create a crappy product? Do you know anything about the economy?
L: Only that we can make it better if you give us more money?
C: No, every time you say something, it's the wrong answer.
L: But you're not doing anything about it. And it's your free market that got us into this in the first place.
C: No, it's all your regulation that got us here. Frivolous lawsuits didn't help either.
L: But customers need protection.
C: Every time you create more protection, it costs us in exponential market costs and freedom. Let the system fail. It is designed to fail so it can weed out the parts that don't work.
L: So, we guarantee it will fail so we can scrap it all and create a single-payer system.
C: Did you not just hear me? You always stage the system so it will fail. Every time we want to do something, you surround it in an environment ensuring failure. You pull out halfway through a campaign. You half ass tax cuts and say trickle down doesn't work. Well yeah, it doesn't work, because the middle class is the only ones paying crippling taxes.
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Can you expand on this? It sounds like an interesting concept, but it's not concrete enough for me to do anything useful with it.
Well, I was thinking of people who are part of a minority which is generally viewed as underprivileged. For some of them, they feel a degree of self pity because of the hand they were dealt in life. Instead of trying to better their position, they blame their lack of success on those who are better off. This can then evolve into a form of prejudice.
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Well, I was thinking of people who are part of a minority which is generally viewed as underprivileged. For some of them, they feel a degree of self pity because of the hand they were delt in life. Instead of trying to better their position, they blame their lack of success on those who are better off. This can then evolve into a form of prejudice.
Stealing someone's spellar skills?
Filed under: sorry for the oppression
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On mobile with a migraine. Deal with it.
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I've delt with it.
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That's fine unless you want to talk about the stuff that @xaade was talking about. Then your too literalism is just pedantic dickweedery. So yeah, maybe that is what we want.
I'm trying to tease out a definition of Conservatism that's a bit more falsifiable than "these great guys that do everything right, if only those damn liberals would just stop meddling", should anyone be willing to offer one...
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I'm trying to tease out a definition of Conservatism that's a bit more falsifiable than "these great guys that do everything right, if only those damn liberals would just stop meddling", should anyone be willing to offer one...
Good job! Yours was definitely false in this context!
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a definition of Conservatism
Obviously, it's not used in a way that's really susceptible to a single definition. If we want to talk most common things...hmmm...off the top of my head, I'd include these things:
- rule of law
- limited government
- fiscal restraint
- personal responsibility (as opposed to mandated by government)
Of course, you can find exceptions, but I think that's a reasonable (quick) approximation.
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Liberalism always tries to find someone to blame before solving a problem. 80/20 rule dictates that they will never solve a problem in a meaningful way.
Conservatism says, eff the blame, let's just fix it, and then proceeds to find a pragmatic solution. As soon as one of those solutions doesn't fulfill every target point, liberalism says it's unsuccessful and then proceeds to demand authority.
these great [Conservative] guys that do everything right, if only those damn liberals would just stop meddling
This is the point where we can compare and contrast. Perhaps these are equally fallacious quotes? Maybe mine lacks "nuance"?
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A conservative is someone that agrees with other conservatives that they've met, and thus becomes one.
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Perhaps these are equally fallacious quotes?
I don't really agree with @xaade's characterizations, either. But I think that one point he brought up is that one side is more likely to get closer to the actual problem instead of dancing around it and refusing to even properly identify it.
Look at the current rhetorical gymnastics of the Obama administration regarding "Islamic Extremism." In case you haven't been paying attention (what are you, on vacation or foreign or something‽), they go to pretty extreme lengths to say that the ISIS guys aren't Islamic. Not that they don't represent all Muslims. That they aren't Muslims.
But then, when your spokeman's name is an apropos oxymoron (Josh Earnest), I guess we shouldn't be surprised.
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(what are you, on vacation or foreign or something‽)
Yes.
Look at the current rhetorical gymnastics of the Obama administration regarding "Islamic Extremism." In case you haven't been paying attention, they go to pretty extreme lengths to say that the ISIS guys aren't Islamic. Not that they don't represent all Muslims. That they aren't Muslims.
Hmm... No True Islamic Scotsman? About a group of people who at first glance would seem to be all about an Islamic State (not that I was paying attention)?
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No True Islamic Scotsman? About a group of people who at first glance would seem to be all about an Islamic State (not that I was paying attention)?
Exactly.
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I'm trying to tease out a definition of Conservatism that's a bit more falsifiable than "these great guys that do everything right, if only those damn liberals would just stop meddling", should anyone be willing to offer one...
I already posted it. When you find a conservative that has an original idea, that will be your falsification.
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Welcome to Whose Job Is It Anyway.
Where the foreign policy is made up, and the facts don't matter.
