What specific things distinguish liberals from conservatives?
In the US, acceptance of man-made climate change and the need to do something about it, for one profoundly serious example.
Believing the pandemic is real and should actually be addressed in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER would be another.
I'll have more to say on this theme here, but to me it really is an extreme deal breaker how much the conservative movement in the US has embraced anti-scientific positions. If your political movement can't get the easy questions that science has settled correct, why should people trust them on the harder to answer questions like the economy?
As if my hatred for these people could be any higher. And then they up and go full fucking coup attempt and seem to be hell-bent on at least TRYING to overturn the results of the democratic process. We can't even relax for these last two or three months of this god forsaken year because of them. Never forgive, never forget. And yes, that includes rank and file voters. You do not need to turn the other cheek. Let Biden be above the fray. I will never do so.
And the idea that the general consensus on LGBTQ rights and abortion has somehow become a 50/50 proposition between the two parties is, frankly, absurd.
You'd be surprised... would it make any difference if I said that I'm not from USA, and that I was using the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in a global sense? Or are these terms specific to the politics of the United States? If "yes", then I stand corrected.
But if the answer is "no", I'd mention that in countries that have a strong presence of organizations such as the Movement of Priests for the Third World, or other equivalent groups, anti-abortion is widespread among the liberals that adhere to the doctrines of said organizations. The same applies to LGBTQ rights, for the same reasons.
This phenomenon is not limited to countries from Latin America. There are similar cases in countries from Asia, Africa and Oceania.
But again, the question is: are the terms "liberal" and "conservative" exclusive to US politics?
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
I think ‘need for balanced budget,’ and smaller government are two of the biggest takeaways a conservative should have.
I don’t label Trump and his followers conservative. I’d label them as elected authoritarians at this point. One does not run up the deficit like he did, issue that many freedom infringing and free trade infringing executive orders and call themselves a conservative.
And the idea that the general consensus on LGBTQ rights and abortion has somehow become a 50/50 proposition between the two parties is, frankly, absurd.
You'd be surprised... would it make any difference if I said that I'm not from USA, and that I was using the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in a global sense? Or are these terms specific to the politics of the United States? If "yes", then I stand corrected.
But if the answer is "no", I'd mention that in countries that have a strong presence of organizations such as the Movement of Priests for the Third World, or other equivalent groups, anti-abortion is widespread among the liberals that adhere to the doctrines of said organizations. The same applies to LGBTQ rights, for the same reasons.
This phenomenon is not limited to countries from Latin America. There are similar cases in countries from Asia, Africa and Oceania.
But again, the question is: are the terms "liberal" and "conservative" exclusive to US politics?
I am referring to the US, and yes it is unique, in the most absurd ways possible. The American political landscape is not really that easy to "describe", because no other country has such a deep scar down the middle in regards to slavery, at least no Western country. And even the religious elements of our politics can be traced back to the struggle for civil rights.
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
I think ‘need for balanced budget,’ and smaller government are two of the biggest takeaways a conservative should have.
I don’t label Trump and his followers conservative. I’d label them as elected authoritarians at this point. One does not run up the deficit like he did, issue that many freedom infringing and free trade infringing executive orders and call themselves a conservative.
I mean, folks can continue using the term the "correct" way in other countries, I have no problem with that. But in America, the conservative party is what their record says it is, just like a team's standings at the end of a football season.
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
I think ‘need for balanced budget,’ and smaller government are two of the biggest takeaways a conservative should have.
I don’t label Trump and his followers conservative. I’d label them as elected authoritarians at this point. One does not run up the deficit like he did, issue that many freedom infringing and free trade infringing executive orders and call themselves a conservative.
It seems to me that the same people who claimed to care about all that stuff don't mind not doing it at all.
It's just possible they've been lying this whole time and spinning a fictional universe of small government or whatever. When they actually get power the things they did do was was ram through extremist underqualified judges, blow up the national debt, lie about science, and pass a tax cut 80%+ was a handout to the elites.
And the idea that the general consensus on LGBTQ rights and abortion has somehow become a 50/50 proposition between the two parties is, frankly, absurd.
You'd be surprised... would it make any difference if I said that I'm not from USA, and that I was using the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in a global sense? Or are these terms specific to the politics of the United States? If "yes", then I stand corrected.
But if the answer is "no", I'd mention that in countries that have a strong presence of organizations such as the Movement of Priests for the Third World, or other equivalent groups, anti-abortion is widespread among the liberals that adhere to the doctrines of said organizations. The same applies to LGBTQ rights, for the same reasons.
This phenomenon is not limited to countries from Latin America. There are similar cases in countries from Asia, Africa and Oceania.
But again, the question is: are the terms "liberal" and "conservative" exclusive to US politics?
No they are not but they mean different things in different parts of the world.
One just has to look at the roots of the words Liberal (liberty) and Conservative (conserve, keep the same) to see how they might apply to other areas of the world.
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
I think ‘need for balanced budget,’ and smaller government are two of the biggest takeaways a conservative should have.
I don’t label Trump and his followers conservative. I’d label them as elected authoritarians at this point. One does not run up the deficit like he did, issue that many freedom infringing and free trade infringing executive orders and call themselves a conservative.
I mean, folks can continue using the term the "correct" way in other countries, I have no problem with that. But in America, the conservative party is what their record says it is, just like a team's standings at the end of a football season.
BUT America doesn’t have a Conservative party.
America has a Republican Party and a Democratic Party.
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
I think ‘need for balanced budget,’ and smaller government are two of the biggest takeaways a conservative should have.
I don’t label Trump and his followers conservative. I’d label them as elected authoritarians at this point. One does not run up the deficit like he did, issue that many freedom infringing and free trade infringing executive orders and call themselves a conservative.
It seems to me that the same people who claimed to care about all that stuff don't mind not doing it at all.
It's just possible they've been lying this whole time and spinning a fictional universe of small government or whatever. When they actually get power the things they did do was was ram through extremist underqualified judges, blow up the national debt, lie about science, and pass a tax cut 80%+ was a handout to the elites.
Just maybe, a politician is suppose to represent the people who elected them and act as a voice for their needs.
If the conservative voice gets drowned out by the, I guess a nice word would be, tribalism of voters who think immigration should be curbed and the expression of Christian values should trump liberties then that is what a politician is going to embrace.
The American political landscape is not really that easy to "describe", because no other country has such a deep scar down the middle in regards to slavery, at least no Western country.
I'm honestly not trying to turn this into a pissing contest. It's just that I think there's more to it. The United States (I refrain from using the adjective "American" to describe a single country among others in the Americas) is not the only one that experienced slavery. Latin American countries also had slavery. The silver mines of Potosi, where more than eight million slaves died during colonial times, is the paradigmatic example.
On top of this, consider the fact that the United States never had a military coup in its history. My country had six of them, all during the 20th century. The scar down the middle that you mention runs deep here as well, though in a different sense, as it does in many other countries across the world that experienced military coups as well.
Many of these coups were backed by the United States, particularly during the Cold War. The people in my country who call themselves "liberals" would actually be conservatives by US standards: they are anti-government, free-market advocates who think that the US is the greatest thing ever since sliced bread (hence, their idea that their own country should emulate USA in every possible way). And many of the people here who call themselves "conservatives" would in reality be liberals by your standards.
I don't want to ramble on unnecessarily, nor am I trying to be antagonistic just for the sake of it. I'm merely pointing out that the political landscapes of every country are just as complex and difficult to describe as the one where you're from.
And hence, my point: amidst such complexity, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have lost much of the meaning they once had.
I honestly do feel burned out on bipartisanship. Another thing @jjstraka34 was right about is that liberals have been urging each other to listen to Trump supporters and sympathize with them for more than 4 years. I have no idea how many articles I've read in the New York Times and elsewhere talking about rural whites and how important their views and interests are.
The right didn't do that.
Conservative media never talked about how important it was to listen to Obama or Clinton or Biden supporters. The very concept of "listening to the other side" has proven consistently one-sided.
This thread is the one exception I've seen, and while I'm glad we have that culture here, outside of this community it feels hopeless.
It's one of the reasons I've felt reluctant to return to my post as a moderator. I don't feel as trusting as I used to, and I don't have the same enthusiasm to speak for a spirit of bipartisanship as I used to. Looking back, some of my biggest missteps as a moderator were actually when I tried to shield new voices because they were conservative and therefore in the minority here, and they used that opportunity to attack people... which honestly felt like a betrayal after I welcomed them in.
In 2016, when I expected Clinton to win, I told some friends of mine that I hoped that the Democrats didn't take too many Congressional seats, saying that I wanted "a check on Democratic power." I thought that the best of our politics would come from liberals and conservatives meeting someplace in the middle, and that "middle ground" would hold our best ideas and wisest policies.
Now I'm not sure what kind of compromises are even possible, much less desirable. The Trump administration flat-out ignored the pandemic; Democrats want to send out checks to keep people safe at home until a vaccine is ready--what is the "middle ground" between these policies?
I also used to make a clear distinction between GOP politicians (whom I've long despised) and Republican voters, who are my friends and family. That distinction holds for most of the conservatives I know, but outside of my sphere, it has grown fuzzy with the realization that Trump's approval rating among Republicans has been around 90% for most of his presidency, and you can only use the election-time excuse of the "lesser of two evils" for election-time votes; not approval ratings for 4 years.
Trump was what Republicans wanted. That's what his approval ratings showed.
Polls show that GOP voters want Democratic Party policies like Medicare for all, but for most, that doesn't translate into votes. Conservatism seems to have just become whatever the GOP says it is, even if that means going against everything they once stood for. One can claim that "real" conservatism is something else, but for 4 years, it meant Trump.
And I think the real answer is, the meaning of conservatism is subject to change.
And hence, my point: amidst such complexity, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have lost much of the meaning they once had.
The meaning of all words depends on context. Yes, there is no universal and timeless meaning for conservative or liberal. Nor left and right for that matter, which are just akin to relative pronouns (this, that) anyways.
But that doesn't mean we should stop using these words. And it doesn't mean a conversation will be easier to interpret if we switched to a different vocabulary. The overwhelming majority of people in the US who vote Republican describe themselves as conservative. The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters describe themselves as liberal or progressive. For efficiency's sake, once the context is understood to be about US politics, there is nothing wrong with maintaining this shorthand. And none of it implies a universality about these terms.
that doesn't mean we should stop using these words. And it doesn't mean a conversation will be easier to interpret if we switched to a different vocabulary.
Remember when the term "neoliberal" was used a lot? That is exactly what "liberal" means where I'm from: neoliberal. Even the folks that describe themselves as "liberals" use it that way. As in, they are admirers of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, etc. They are extremely anti-government, absolutely anti-communist (to the point of McCarthyism, as if they were citizens of the United States from the 1950's). And yet, when it comes to issues such as LBGTQ rights, they are generally supporters.
Me? I get offended when people call me "liberal" after I disclose my left-wing beliefs. I support LBGTQ rights, of course, as well as the legalization of recreational drugs, and I'm also pro-choice, and I support many other "liberal" causes. But the similarities with the aforementioned folks stops there. I am in no way a free market advocate, nor am I necessarily anti-government.
To elaborate further on why I think the terms "liberal", "conservative", "left, "right" have lost much of their meaning: I sometimes hear that conservatives complain that Big Tech giants such as Google are "far left". Excuse me, how the hell can a multi-million juggernaut, that makes more than 40 billion dollars in revenue per year, be described as "far left"? Far-left used to mean something very, very different: Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, take your pick. But certainly not Google, or Twitter, or Facebook. People complain that "conservative voices" are being silenced by the "left-wingers" employed by social media outlets. Yet I don't see Twitter or Facebook making any effort to start guerrilla warfare and socialize the means of production. If these gigantic tech corporations are what now passes as the left, then it's because the term "left" has lost almost all of its meaning.
The GOP is currently in the midst of trying to overturn or invalidate a national election in which Biden won a DESCISIVE Electoral College victory and an OVERWHELMING popular vote differential compared to most modern elections:
So excuse those of us who understandably don't believe any of this is operating in good faith. We have a track record, we have receipts. And we aren't brain-dead morons. The reason we know there is no validity to this (besides offering nothing but statements over concrete evidence) is that they have been doing this, and have said they were going to do this IN ADVANCE, for years.
Trump claimed the Iowa caucus was not legitimate because he lost. He said the 2016 election would not be legitimate if he lost. He claimed for his entire Presidency that the 3 million votes Hilary beat him by in the overall total were fraudulent, appointed a commission to look into it and found........nothing. He claimed in advance of the 2020 election it would be illegitimate if he lost. And now that he has lost, he is, in fact, doing exactly that. So can we please, for the love of god, unless you are a full-blown MAGA cultist, ADMIT that there isn't an OUNCE of good faith in any of these arguments?? That it is either a full-blown attempt to literally destroy democracy in the United States, or, at BEST, a political party completely eroding whatever is left of the faith in the institutions of this country to soothe the ego of a sociopath.
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
To be fair, I think that Balrog99 is a conservative, but I could be wrong.
I know he is, that is why I highlighted his post and not the bigoted answers others put.
Bigoted? This crap actually happened though. We all watched it in real time. Trump has been the Republican party for the last four years. If repeating the things that they actively and openly support, that says a lot more about the party than the people commenting on it.
Just my own point of view, coming from me probably means that everyone can ignore it, we really need to rethink what is conservative and what is liberal. It’s not anymore from what I see. The polarization is likely not to last without the icon, hope not anyway but both parties have to evolve as people, evolve in how they see their own party. There should have been separation of terms long ago if not for the system that benefits those that tow their parties lines. You basically have to be dems or repubs to get funding and therefore elected or effective in your office. We are not usually all in agreement with our own party. I personally do not believe in socialism at this point, my personal view is that there needs to be an amalgam of the two, capitalism and socialism. Please don’t jump me, I am fully aware that this is not a popular opinion, just maybe believe it should be. Capitalism unchecked will cyclically screw over the middle class and have to be put down, my view okay, socialism unchecked will bring about entropy. It is why we need the sociopaths, again I am well aware this opinion is not well supported, they provide the drive to push us forward. As an empathetic person I probably should not have a viewpoint like that but I do. They both together provide what we need to move forward, maybe we are not ready for that though, maybe I am just mental, yeah okay probably I am mental, just my POV.
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
To be fair, I think that Balrog99 is a conservative, but I could be wrong.
I know he is, that is why I highlighted his post and not the bigoted answers others put.
Bigoted? This crap actually happened though. We all watched it in real time. Trump has been the Republican party for the last four years. If repeating the things that they actively and openly support, that says a lot more about the party than the people commenting on it.
Shall we go through what others said conservatives are and see how well it applies to a person like @Balrog99?
jjstraka said: Everyone has a right to have their vote counted.
No conservative has said that legal votes should not be counted. One could argue the use of 'legal' is just a dog whistle to Trump and his supporters to back Trump's claim of fraud, however, just like I pointed out earlier in the thread, they can feel free to go look for fraud, doesn't mean they are going to find it.
I am pretty sure a conservative voter, like Balrog99 (and he can correct me if I am wrong on any of these points) believes every vote should count as opposed to this claim.
Dinodin said: the acceptance of man-made climate change and the need to do something about it.
This is probably the closest one that isn't a bigoted statement, however, most conservatives either think it's too late to do something about climate change, that singling out one country to do something about it while others do not is wrong (see western countries opposed to India/China), that the trade off between the economy (or personal burdens - see Ontario's hydro bills as an example) and green legislation isn't worth it, or that the science of climate change is still in its infancy and doom and gloom scenarios that have been peddled aren't likely to happen (even though some of them are).
This is usually a grey scale when it comes to conservatives, but not all of them are climate deniers as this post was hinting at.
jjstraka said: believing the pandemic is real and should actually be addressed in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER
I am pretty sure a conservative like Balrog knows he is in a pandemic.
Where conservatives differ (on a scale) is that: personal liberty and government being unable to infringe on that liberty is more important than overall society health, or that the economy is too important of a trade-off to actually take draconian measures to curb it's spread, especially now that the pandemic is out of control.
I think the last point is why many republicans/conservatives still voted for Trump as polls dictated he would handle the economy better than Biden (which, IMO, is laughable) and were willing to put up with Trump's antics for another 4 years to keep the economy churning with the belief that COVID will go away eventually with the talk of a vaccine coming soon. That and the threat of stacking the Supreme Court might have backfired and why the Senate remained red.
smeagolheart said: Not openly endorsing white supremacists and conspiracies for a third.
This is the one that triggered me as I do not believe for a second that Balrog endorses white supremacists or follows conspiracies and is a blatant misrepresentation in an attempt to shame a person for their beliefs.
@_Nightfall_: We definitely do need to rethink a few terms like conservative and liberal, because you took some words right out of my mouth--I've also said more than once that we need a mix of capitalism and socialism to control the excesses of capitalism and still make use of the free market--and I most definitely call myself a socialist! You're definitely not mental for being able to see things without using black-and-white thinking (and you might be underestimating how popular that opinion is).
Conservatives and liberals tend to agree on most things if you actually get into the specifics. Most of our disagreements are about rhetoric and phrasing rather than anything else (you can change how people respond to polls just by tweaking word choice!).
Unfortunately, our actual lawmakers on either side of the aisle don't agree with each other on policy, and they agree with the typical American even less.
I'm sorry @deltago, but I simply can't go along with even your minimal open mind about their claims. They are screaming "fraud" and "stolen" at the top of their lungs, but you have to look under the hood. The crux of their argument is that mail-in ballots simply shouldn't count, and they want the results thrown out because mail-in ballots exist at all. And the only reason they "believe" this is because those votes favored Joe Biden, and we've been over time and time again WHY that is.
Now, maybe Trump supporters know this, and maybe they don't. God knows their media bubble is an insulated as we have ever seen in this country. But what the GOP is arguing right now is complete lunacy, and is asking for nothing less than to arbitrarily throw out hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes because Donald Trump just unilaterally decided main-in voting shouldn't be allowed. Enough of this. I'm putting my foot down here, and I suggest everyone else do the same in their daily life. Do not give one ounce of credence to these people. They want to destroy democracy because they lost an election.
For the record, Trump has been declaring EVERY election he might lose or did lose a fraud since the Republican primaries of 2016:
And not just Trump. See this local news segment regarding the race for governor of Washington (multiple subjects in the video, but I'm talking about the first block). You haven't heard anything about this race? That's because it wasn't remotely close. Victory for the incumbent Jay Inslee was a foregone conclusion, especially since his opponent was a small-town police chief with no statewide reputation before the race.
To quote a bit:
News anchor: "Culp says there are irregularities in the results. What's he talking about and are they legitimate?"
Reporter: "No, they are not legitimate."
This #$&^ is all over the Republican party now, and it needs to stop.
For the record, Trump has been declaring EVERY election he might lose or did lose a fraud since the Republican primaries of 2016:
And not just Trump. See this local news segment regarding the race for governor of Washington (multiple subjects in the video, but I'm talking about the first block). You haven't heard anything about this race? That's because it wasn't remotely close. Victory for the incumbent Jay Inslee was a foregone conclusion, especially since his opponent was a small-town police chief with no statewide reputation before the race.
To quote a bit:
News anchor: "Culp says there are irregularities in the results. What's he talking about and are they legitimate?"
Reporter: "No, they are not legitimate."
This #$&^ is all over the Republican party now, and it needs to stop.
FOX News is not the main conservative media source anymore. OANN and Facebook groups are. And when you've been bathing in a feedback loop that has been telling you for weeks that Trump was going to win in a 49-state landslide, you either have to admit your media consumption and perceptions are incorrect, or you have to invent reasons why it happened, because these people would rather drop dead than admit they were wrong. No hyperbole. They haven't come up for sunlight in a LONG time.
I'm sorry @deltago, but I simply can't go along with even your minimal open mind about their claims. They are screaming "fraud" and "stolen" at the top of their lungs, but you have to look under the hood. The crux of their argument is that mail-in ballots simply shouldn't count, and they want the results thrown out because mail-in ballots exist at all. And the only reason they "believe" this is because those votes favored Joe Biden, and we've been over time and time again WHY that is.
Now, maybe Trump supporters know this, and maybe they don't. God knows their media bubble is an insulated as we have ever seen in this country. But what the GOP is arguing right now is complete lunacy, and is asking for nothing less than to arbitrarily throw out hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes because Donald Trump just unilaterally decided main-in voting shouldn't be allowed. Enough of this. I'm putting my foot down here, and I suggest everyone else do the same in their daily life. Do not give one ounce of credence to these people. They want to destroy democracy because they lost an election.
"They" aren't conservatives though.
Hell, even Barr's Memo said (bolding mine): investigations “may be conducted if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.”
He said any allegations that would “clearly not impact the outcome of a federal election” should be delayed until after those elections are certified and prosecutors should likely open so-called preliminary inquiries, which would allow investigators and prosecutors to see if there is evidence that would allow them to take further investigative measures.
“While it is imperative that credible allegations be addressed in a timely and effective manner, it is equally imperative that Department personnel exercise appropriate caution and maintain the Department’s absolute commitment to fairness, neutrality and non-partisanship,” Barr wrote.
There isn't any clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities, especially none that could flip a state. This memo does not scream 'there was fraud and it needs to be investigated,' IMO quite the opposite.
Now was this partisan? Sure, but only in the scope of Georgia's run off Senate election like you hinted at earlier.
I'm also not going to entertain the argument that "Trumpism" is separate in any way from the "Republican Party". If you want to go on a crusade to reclaim the word conservative for people like @Balrog99, be my guest, but the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Enterprises. And it should never, ever be forgotten.
I'm also not going to entertain the argument that "Trumpism" is separate in any way from the "Republican Party". If you want to go on a crusade to reclaim the word conservative for people like @Balrog99, be my guest, but the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Enterprises. And it should never, ever be forgotten.
Oh I agree with that with minor RINOs like Romney and Kasich being an exception. We'll see if it still holds up in two years time however.
So, regarding Trump, feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt, or not take it at all. He boasts about not being part of the establishment and not being a career politician. But this by itself doesn't say a lot about who he is. I remember when Trump was a trash celebrity back in the 90's, making cameo appearances on sitcoms like The Nanny. He didn't even portray a fictional character, his character was simply himself: Donald Trump, and the only thing he had to say was that he had a lot of money and that other millionaires didn't like him. It was cringy AF. Even beyond the scope of sitcoms, this is basically all there was to him: some rich guy who complained that other rich folks didn't like him.
Now how did this one-dimensional television personality become a hardcore republican politician who wants to "Make America great again"? Back in the 90's, it didn't seem like he gave a damn about his country, or politics, or anything other than his money. Of course you can argue that he has the right to develop an interest in politics at any stage of his life. Better late than never, right? Except for the fact that he reeks of opportunism. It seems to me that he could have easily joined the Democrats if he felt that he could get an edge by doing so. His only reason for joining the Republican party was based entirely on electoral strategy, not ideological conviction.
If being a republican or a conservative today is the same as being a "Trumpist", well, that's no surprise, seeing as how, conversely, the paradigm for the "far left" are no longer the Bolsheviks from the Russian Revolution, but (allegedly, since I don't buy this for a second) corporate giants like Google and Twitter instead.
And you wonder why I suggested that these terms have become increasingly meaningless...
Trump is not a conservative. Never was. The Republican Party, by marrying themselves to him, are no longer really conservative either. There is no conservative party in the ??...
So, regarding Trump,.... Back in the 90's, it didn't seem like he gave a damn about his country, or politics, or anything other than his money.... His only reason for joining the Republican party was based entirely on electoral strategy, not ideological conviction.
If being a republican or a conservative today is the same as being a "Trumpist", well, that's no surprise, seeing as how, conversely, the paradigm for the "far left" are no longer the Bolsheviks from the Russian Revolution, but corporate giants like Google and Twitter instead.
And you wonder why I suggested that these terms have become increasingly meaningless...
One more thing about how trump was back in the 90s he was always bragging about the ladies begging him to go out with them. He acted like his own press agent saying crap all the ladies want him lying that Madonna asked him out and stuff. So he was always this smarmy bragging asshole.
What is sad is that guys like Kasich and Romney were called RINOs a couple posts before yours. Those guys are actual conservatives, but it is true that they don't fit in the Republican party today. Because the Republican party has been taken over, it's a cult of personality behind a reality tv guy with a rotten personality. They stand for nothing now except trying to validate Trump's culture wars and lies.
smeagolheart said: Not openly endorsing white supremacists and conspiracies for a third.
This is the one that triggered me as I do not believe for a second that Balrog endorses white supremacists or follows conspiracies and is a blatant misrepresentation in an attempt to shame a person for their beliefs.
I was not referring to friends, family and normal people like fellow forumites.
However, It is the truth that the Republican party these days have been dabbling in white supremacy. Sorry if that is upsetting but it's literally the truth.
Trump famously said about Charlottsville that there were "very fine people" on both sides when one side contained white supremacists chanting nazi slogans who ended up murdering a young woman (Heather Heyer). So it is true the Republican party does not have a problem with white supremacists.
I think I don't need to provide a lot of proof that they are up to their necks in conspiracies such as the ones they are pushing now about massive fraud in our elections. Trump is constantly spreading conspiracies and it's taken hold in the party. Q-Anon supporters are have been elected as Republicans. It's just facts - the republican party has among it's members white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.
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I'll have more to say on this theme here, but to me it really is an extreme deal breaker how much the conservative movement in the US has embraced anti-scientific positions. If your political movement can't get the easy questions that science has settled correct, why should people trust them on the harder to answer questions like the economy?
As if my hatred for these people could be any higher. And then they up and go full fucking coup attempt and seem to be hell-bent on at least TRYING to overturn the results of the democratic process. We can't even relax for these last two or three months of this god forsaken year because of them. Never forgive, never forget. And yes, that includes rank and file voters. You do not need to turn the other cheek. Let Biden be above the fray. I will never do so.
You'd be surprised... would it make any difference if I said that I'm not from USA, and that I was using the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in a global sense? Or are these terms specific to the politics of the United States? If "yes", then I stand corrected.
But if the answer is "no", I'd mention that in countries that have a strong presence of organizations such as the Movement of Priests for the Third World, or other equivalent groups, anti-abortion is widespread among the liberals that adhere to the doctrines of said organizations. The same applies to LGBTQ rights, for the same reasons.
This phenomenon is not limited to countries from Latin America. There are similar cases in countries from Asia, Africa and Oceania.
But again, the question is: are the terms "liberal" and "conservative" exclusive to US politics?
You all should let a conservative define what being a conservative is and not degrade the term with negative bigotry.
I think ‘need for balanced budget,’ and smaller government are two of the biggest takeaways a conservative should have.
I don’t label Trump and his followers conservative. I’d label them as elected authoritarians at this point. One does not run up the deficit like he did, issue that many freedom infringing and free trade infringing executive orders and call themselves a conservative.
I am referring to the US, and yes it is unique, in the most absurd ways possible. The American political landscape is not really that easy to "describe", because no other country has such a deep scar down the middle in regards to slavery, at least no Western country. And even the religious elements of our politics can be traced back to the struggle for civil rights.
To be fair, I think that @Balrog99 is a conservative, but I could be wrong.
I mean, folks can continue using the term the "correct" way in other countries, I have no problem with that. But in America, the conservative party is what their record says it is, just like a team's standings at the end of a football season.
It seems to me that the same people who claimed to care about all that stuff don't mind not doing it at all.
It's just possible they've been lying this whole time and spinning a fictional universe of small government or whatever. When they actually get power the things they did do was was ram through extremist underqualified judges, blow up the national debt, lie about science, and pass a tax cut 80%+ was a handout to the elites.
No they are not but they mean different things in different parts of the world.
One just has to look at the roots of the words Liberal (liberty) and Conservative (conserve, keep the same) to see how they might apply to other areas of the world.
BUT America doesn’t have a Conservative party.
America has a Republican Party and a Democratic Party.
Just maybe, a politician is suppose to represent the people who elected them and act as a voice for their needs.
If the conservative voice gets drowned out by the, I guess a nice word would be, tribalism of voters who think immigration should be curbed and the expression of Christian values should trump liberties then that is what a politician is going to embrace.
I know he is, that is why I highlighted his post and not the bigoted answers others put.
I'm honestly not trying to turn this into a pissing contest. It's just that I think there's more to it. The United States (I refrain from using the adjective "American" to describe a single country among others in the Americas) is not the only one that experienced slavery. Latin American countries also had slavery. The silver mines of Potosi, where more than eight million slaves died during colonial times, is the paradigmatic example.
On top of this, consider the fact that the United States never had a military coup in its history. My country had six of them, all during the 20th century. The scar down the middle that you mention runs deep here as well, though in a different sense, as it does in many other countries across the world that experienced military coups as well.
Many of these coups were backed by the United States, particularly during the Cold War. The people in my country who call themselves "liberals" would actually be conservatives by US standards: they are anti-government, free-market advocates who think that the US is the greatest thing ever since sliced bread (hence, their idea that their own country should emulate USA in every possible way). And many of the people here who call themselves "conservatives" would in reality be liberals by your standards.
I don't want to ramble on unnecessarily, nor am I trying to be antagonistic just for the sake of it. I'm merely pointing out that the political landscapes of every country are just as complex and difficult to describe as the one where you're from.
And hence, my point: amidst such complexity, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have lost much of the meaning they once had.
The right didn't do that.
Conservative media never talked about how important it was to listen to Obama or Clinton or Biden supporters. The very concept of "listening to the other side" has proven consistently one-sided.
This thread is the one exception I've seen, and while I'm glad we have that culture here, outside of this community it feels hopeless.
It's one of the reasons I've felt reluctant to return to my post as a moderator. I don't feel as trusting as I used to, and I don't have the same enthusiasm to speak for a spirit of bipartisanship as I used to. Looking back, some of my biggest missteps as a moderator were actually when I tried to shield new voices because they were conservative and therefore in the minority here, and they used that opportunity to attack people... which honestly felt like a betrayal after I welcomed them in.
In 2016, when I expected Clinton to win, I told some friends of mine that I hoped that the Democrats didn't take too many Congressional seats, saying that I wanted "a check on Democratic power." I thought that the best of our politics would come from liberals and conservatives meeting someplace in the middle, and that "middle ground" would hold our best ideas and wisest policies.
Now I'm not sure what kind of compromises are even possible, much less desirable. The Trump administration flat-out ignored the pandemic; Democrats want to send out checks to keep people safe at home until a vaccine is ready--what is the "middle ground" between these policies?
I also used to make a clear distinction between GOP politicians (whom I've long despised) and Republican voters, who are my friends and family. That distinction holds for most of the conservatives I know, but outside of my sphere, it has grown fuzzy with the realization that Trump's approval rating among Republicans has been around 90% for most of his presidency, and you can only use the election-time excuse of the "lesser of two evils" for election-time votes; not approval ratings for 4 years.
Trump was what Republicans wanted. That's what his approval ratings showed.
Polls show that GOP voters want Democratic Party policies like Medicare for all, but for most, that doesn't translate into votes. Conservatism seems to have just become whatever the GOP says it is, even if that means going against everything they once stood for. One can claim that "real" conservatism is something else, but for 4 years, it meant Trump.
And I think the real answer is, the meaning of conservatism is subject to change.
The meaning of all words depends on context. Yes, there is no universal and timeless meaning for conservative or liberal. Nor left and right for that matter, which are just akin to relative pronouns (this, that) anyways.
But that doesn't mean we should stop using these words. And it doesn't mean a conversation will be easier to interpret if we switched to a different vocabulary. The overwhelming majority of people in the US who vote Republican describe themselves as conservative. The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters describe themselves as liberal or progressive. For efficiency's sake, once the context is understood to be about US politics, there is nothing wrong with maintaining this shorthand. And none of it implies a universality about these terms.
Remember when the term "neoliberal" was used a lot? That is exactly what "liberal" means where I'm from: neoliberal. Even the folks that describe themselves as "liberals" use it that way. As in, they are admirers of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, etc. They are extremely anti-government, absolutely anti-communist (to the point of McCarthyism, as if they were citizens of the United States from the 1950's). And yet, when it comes to issues such as LBGTQ rights, they are generally supporters.
Me? I get offended when people call me "liberal" after I disclose my left-wing beliefs. I support LBGTQ rights, of course, as well as the legalization of recreational drugs, and I'm also pro-choice, and I support many other "liberal" causes. But the similarities with the aforementioned folks stops there. I am in no way a free market advocate, nor am I necessarily anti-government.
To elaborate further on why I think the terms "liberal", "conservative", "left, "right" have lost much of their meaning: I sometimes hear that conservatives complain that Big Tech giants such as Google are "far left". Excuse me, how the hell can a multi-million juggernaut, that makes more than 40 billion dollars in revenue per year, be described as "far left"? Far-left used to mean something very, very different: Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, take your pick. But certainly not Google, or Twitter, or Facebook. People complain that "conservative voices" are being silenced by the "left-wingers" employed by social media outlets. Yet I don't see Twitter or Facebook making any effort to start guerrilla warfare and socialize the means of production. If these gigantic tech corporations are what now passes as the left, then it's because the term "left" has lost almost all of its meaning.
For the record, Trump has been declaring EVERY election he might lose or did lose a fraud since the Republican primaries of 2016:
So excuse those of us who understandably don't believe any of this is operating in good faith. We have a track record, we have receipts. And we aren't brain-dead morons. The reason we know there is no validity to this (besides offering nothing but statements over concrete evidence) is that they have been doing this, and have said they were going to do this IN ADVANCE, for years.
Trump claimed the Iowa caucus was not legitimate because he lost. He said the 2016 election would not be legitimate if he lost. He claimed for his entire Presidency that the 3 million votes Hilary beat him by in the overall total were fraudulent, appointed a commission to look into it and found........nothing. He claimed in advance of the 2020 election it would be illegitimate if he lost. And now that he has lost, he is, in fact, doing exactly that. So can we please, for the love of god, unless you are a full-blown MAGA cultist, ADMIT that there isn't an OUNCE of good faith in any of these arguments?? That it is either a full-blown attempt to literally destroy democracy in the United States, or, at BEST, a political party completely eroding whatever is left of the faith in the institutions of this country to soothe the ego of a sociopath.
Bigoted? This crap actually happened though. We all watched it in real time. Trump has been the Republican party for the last four years. If repeating the things that they actively and openly support, that says a lot more about the party than the people commenting on it.
Shall we go through what others said conservatives are and see how well it applies to a person like @Balrog99?
jjstraka said: Everyone has a right to have their vote counted.
No conservative has said that legal votes should not be counted. One could argue the use of 'legal' is just a dog whistle to Trump and his supporters to back Trump's claim of fraud, however, just like I pointed out earlier in the thread, they can feel free to go look for fraud, doesn't mean they are going to find it.
I am pretty sure a conservative voter, like Balrog99 (and he can correct me if I am wrong on any of these points) believes every vote should count as opposed to this claim.
Dinodin said: the acceptance of man-made climate change and the need to do something about it.
This is probably the closest one that isn't a bigoted statement, however, most conservatives either think it's too late to do something about climate change, that singling out one country to do something about it while others do not is wrong (see western countries opposed to India/China), that the trade off between the economy (or personal burdens - see Ontario's hydro bills as an example) and green legislation isn't worth it, or that the science of climate change is still in its infancy and doom and gloom scenarios that have been peddled aren't likely to happen (even though some of them are).
This is usually a grey scale when it comes to conservatives, but not all of them are climate deniers as this post was hinting at.
jjstraka said: believing the pandemic is real and should actually be addressed in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER
I am pretty sure a conservative like Balrog knows he is in a pandemic.
Where conservatives differ (on a scale) is that: personal liberty and government being unable to infringe on that liberty is more important than overall society health, or that the economy is too important of a trade-off to actually take draconian measures to curb it's spread, especially now that the pandemic is out of control.
I think the last point is why many republicans/conservatives still voted for Trump as polls dictated he would handle the economy better than Biden (which, IMO, is laughable) and were willing to put up with Trump's antics for another 4 years to keep the economy churning with the belief that COVID will go away eventually with the talk of a vaccine coming soon. That and the threat of stacking the Supreme Court might have backfired and why the Senate remained red.
smeagolheart said: Not openly endorsing white supremacists and conspiracies for a third.
This is the one that triggered me as I do not believe for a second that Balrog endorses white supremacists or follows conspiracies and is a blatant misrepresentation in an attempt to shame a person for their beliefs.
Conservatives and liberals tend to agree on most things if you actually get into the specifics. Most of our disagreements are about rhetoric and phrasing rather than anything else (you can change how people respond to polls just by tweaking word choice!).
Unfortunately, our actual lawmakers on either side of the aisle don't agree with each other on policy, and they agree with the typical American even less.
The damage done to Democracy goes daily.
Fun times.
Now, maybe Trump supporters know this, and maybe they don't. God knows their media bubble is an insulated as we have ever seen in this country. But what the GOP is arguing right now is complete lunacy, and is asking for nothing less than to arbitrarily throw out hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes because Donald Trump just unilaterally decided main-in voting shouldn't be allowed. Enough of this. I'm putting my foot down here, and I suggest everyone else do the same in their daily life. Do not give one ounce of credence to these people. They want to destroy democracy because they lost an election.
And not just Trump. See this local news segment regarding the race for governor of Washington (multiple subjects in the video, but I'm talking about the first block). You haven't heard anything about this race? That's because it wasn't remotely close. Victory for the incumbent Jay Inslee was a foregone conclusion, especially since his opponent was a small-town police chief with no statewide reputation before the race.
To quote a bit:
News anchor: "Culp says there are irregularities in the results. What's he talking about and are they legitimate?"
Reporter: "No, they are not legitimate."
This #$&^ is all over the Republican party now, and it needs to stop.
FOX News is not the main conservative media source anymore. OANN and Facebook groups are. And when you've been bathing in a feedback loop that has been telling you for weeks that Trump was going to win in a 49-state landslide, you either have to admit your media consumption and perceptions are incorrect, or you have to invent reasons why it happened, because these people would rather drop dead than admit they were wrong. No hyperbole. They haven't come up for sunlight in a LONG time.
"They" aren't conservatives though.
Hell, even Barr's Memo said (bolding mine): investigations “may be conducted if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.”
He said any allegations that would “clearly not impact the outcome of a federal election” should be delayed until after those elections are certified and prosecutors should likely open so-called preliminary inquiries, which would allow investigators and prosecutors to see if there is evidence that would allow them to take further investigative measures.
“While it is imperative that credible allegations be addressed in a timely and effective manner, it is equally imperative that Department personnel exercise appropriate caution and maintain the Department’s absolute commitment to fairness, neutrality and non-partisanship,” Barr wrote.
There isn't any clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities, especially none that could flip a state. This memo does not scream 'there was fraud and it needs to be investigated,' IMO quite the opposite.
Now was this partisan? Sure, but only in the scope of Georgia's run off Senate election like you hinted at earlier.
Oh I agree with that with minor RINOs like Romney and Kasich being an exception. We'll see if it still holds up in two years time however.
Now how did this one-dimensional television personality become a hardcore republican politician who wants to "Make America great again"? Back in the 90's, it didn't seem like he gave a damn about his country, or politics, or anything other than his money. Of course you can argue that he has the right to develop an interest in politics at any stage of his life. Better late than never, right? Except for the fact that he reeks of opportunism. It seems to me that he could have easily joined the Democrats if he felt that he could get an edge by doing so. His only reason for joining the Republican party was based entirely on electoral strategy, not ideological conviction.
If being a republican or a conservative today is the same as being a "Trumpist", well, that's no surprise, seeing as how, conversely, the paradigm for the "far left" are no longer the Bolsheviks from the Russian Revolution, but (allegedly, since I don't buy this for a second) corporate giants like Google and Twitter instead.
And you wonder why I suggested that these terms have become increasingly meaningless...
One more thing about how trump was back in the 90s he was always bragging about the ladies begging him to go out with them. He acted like his own press agent saying crap all the ladies want him lying that Madonna asked him out and stuff. So he was always this smarmy bragging asshole.
What is sad is that guys like Kasich and Romney were called RINOs a couple posts before yours. Those guys are actual conservatives, but it is true that they don't fit in the Republican party today. Because the Republican party has been taken over, it's a cult of personality behind a reality tv guy with a rotten personality. They stand for nothing now except trying to validate Trump's culture wars and lies.
I was not referring to friends, family and normal people like fellow forumites.
However, It is the truth that the Republican party these days have been dabbling in white supremacy. Sorry if that is upsetting but it's literally the truth.
Stephen Miller is still employed by Donald Trump. Steve Bannon worked for more than a year in the Trump administration iirc. Both are well known white supremacits. Arthur Jones, a literal neo-nazi ran for office as a republican.
The dear leader, Donald Trump himself, has a long history of racism.
Trump famously said about Charlottsville that there were "very fine people" on both sides when one side contained white supremacists chanting nazi slogans who ended up murdering a young woman (Heather Heyer). So it is true the Republican party does not have a problem with white supremacists.
I think I don't need to provide a lot of proof that they are up to their necks in conspiracies such as the ones they are pushing now about massive fraud in our elections. Trump is constantly spreading conspiracies and it's taken hold in the party. Q-Anon supporters are have been elected as Republicans. It's just facts - the republican party has among it's members white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.