cons pick on libs. libs try to understand cons. and cons laugh even more
― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, 24 June 2017 19:59 (seven years ago) link
that's the problem. you can't even model a person who has empathy for others and comes to conservative conclusions about how best to express that empathy
THIS is what I'm trying to refute. I know full well that not every Red Hat Teabagger has read Burke, or even Ayn Rand; they just don't like that they can't tell the fag joke anymore and they think their jobs are gone because of brown people.
― space chipmunk (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 24 June 2017 20:10 (seven years ago) link
"So we understand what you guys want to do, you essentially want to give a very substantial tax-cut, in your case, you don’t want the tax payers in your district to fund Medicaid. Rolling that back making it unlawful for your taxpayers in your district to fund Medicaid, cut overall the cost of Medicaid, it gets less money, and then give individual people tax credits — that’s the plan.”
“That’s the fundamental essence of what we are trying to do. Empower people rather than expanding government to a point where it’s not sustainable. American taxpayers can’t foot this bill endlessly and without a limitation because they are tapped out.”
― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, 24 June 2017 20:15 (seven years ago) link
what do conservatives have to say to people suffering right now?
My brother-in-law: "There have to be winners and losers in life. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "
― Mr. Crackpots (WilliamC), Saturday, 24 June 2017 20:27 (seven years ago) link
that's the core of it, imo. Inequality is Good and Just.
― ryan, Saturday, 24 June 2017 20:35 (seven years ago) link
God has always wanted an arbitrary percentage of human families to die horribly with nothing to their name - that's why he made the world the way it is. Also, did any of you do the reading? Judges! Revelation! Get with the program.
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 24 June 2017 20:50 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg
― Treeship, Saturday, 24 June 2017 21:16 (seven years ago) link
I'm not sure if this is a more British phenomenon but there is also the more wistful 'bicycling vicars' strain of conservative which despite its charm nonetheless hides its own reactionary malice. Really brought home by reading a series of books by John Moore recently- fictionalised memoirs of life in Tewkesbury between the wars - written just after and apparently hugely popular. Full of pleasant barwick green infused vignettes of playing c I let and alcoholic eccentrics, seeing off the urbanites etc.
All through though there is this rich vein of guff about the nobility of the rural poor - they may be poor but at least they could trade their sweated labour for a crust of bread and a jug of cider or poach a rabbit before going back to their slum hovel.
This a strong foundational myth in British and Aussie conservatism and, I guess, is as old as time. If only we could regress to a simpler time everyone would be happy and orderly - in their proper place. It doesn't really chime with neo-liberal economics and is almost in opposition to it - good capital is feudatory and bad capital is mercantile.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Saturday, 24 June 2017 21:18 (seven years ago) link
social conservativism doesn't really fit in at all with the creative destruction of neoliberal capitalism. i feel like some conservatives understand this but think that government "social engineering" is worse because it creates a dependency class and weakens private organizations like churches
― Treeship, Saturday, 24 June 2017 21:21 (seven years ago) link
Conservatism, he says, is a reactionary ideology. It is a defense of hierarchy against emancipatory movements from below. It’s not a disposition or an attitude; it’s not a philosophy of liberty or even of limited government. (It supports the idea of limited government, Goldman says, but that’s a consequence, not a premise, of the theory.) It is first and foremost a coherent set of ideas about inequality that gets forged in the crucible of revolution.
i think this is completely wrong. the idea of government as a limiting force on the natural violent state of man (hobbesian gov) is v. conservative imo
― Mordy, Saturday, 24 June 2017 21:25 (seven years ago) link
i think corey is a good example of the modeling problem
― Mordy, Saturday, 24 June 2017 21:26 (seven years ago) link
Mordy, you're correct in the narrow sense that no one sits down in his armchair and says to himself "how can I defend the hierarchy against these emancipatory movements from below?" But because that is the end result of basically every policy action of basically every conservative person, the distinction is only minimally interesting.
― space chipmunk (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 24 June 2017 21:31 (seven years ago) link
no one sits down in his armchair and says to himself "how can I defend the hierarchy against these emancipatory movements from below?"
I ... think a lot of conservatives do (give or take the word "emancipatory")?
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, 24 June 2017 22:02 (seven years ago) link
I am also sceptical that most conservatives can model liberal or leftist thought better than Corey Robin can model conservative thought, btw.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, 24 June 2017 22:03 (seven years ago) link
I agree, Sund4r; "liberals are just pandering to poors in order to grab power/$ for themselves and their cronies" is comparable to "conservatives are all just hate-filled greedbags."
― space chipmunk (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 24 June 2017 22:10 (seven years ago) link
Peter Hitchens to thread: he thinks the law is too soft on cannabis and our current Tory party is full of godless nihilists and classic liberals. He has some very strange and exacting standards on conservatism. He also thinks Blair's Labour were Marxists.
― calzino, Saturday, 24 June 2017 22:44 (seven years ago) link
http://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-porn-stars-are-scared-silent-the-industry-is-biased-and-no-one-will-admit-it
― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, 24 June 2017 23:31 (seven years ago) link
take it to "rolling explaining conservative porn stars"
― space chipmunk (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 25 June 2017 00:23 (seven years ago) link
He also thinks Blair's Labour were Marxists.
Well he used to be one so you'd think he'd know better.
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Sunday, 25 June 2017 00:34 (seven years ago) link
Talking of batshit UK right wingers, here's Simon Heffer, not that you can read the article, not that you'd want to, but the accompanying photograph will give our American cousins some idea of what Young Conservatives look like in the UK...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/24/tories-must-convince-young-moral-case-conservatism/
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Sunday, 25 June 2017 00:38 (seven years ago) link
What's the conservative version of this?
http://www.northernsun.com/images/imagelarge/5381.jpg
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 25 June 2017 00:55 (seven years ago) link
Cuckold-porn stars find out that is truly they who have been cucked.
― El Tuomasbot (milo z), Sunday, 25 June 2017 01:00 (seven years ago) link
#blackmirror
xxp "A rising tide lifts all boats," but they consider supply-side to be the rising tide, which 40 years of experience has shown it isn't. My reply whenever a conservative friend has used it in earnest is, "Yeah, but if you don't have a boat, you just get drowned."
― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Sunday, 25 June 2017 01:10 (seven years ago) link
whoever fights their way to the top gets to trickle down on those who cannot
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 25 June 2017 01:15 (seven years ago) link
i think generally speaking ppl want to work and feel like they're contributing something and earning their way
― Mordy, Friday, June 23, 2017 12:12 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Nah
― softie (silby), Sunday, 25 June 2017 01:31 (seven years ago) link
I know my friend who is taking a sabbatical from his software developer job and working at a townie bar in a smaller area (ok, he got canned after they treated him badly, feels burned out, and is bar aust fuck it) gets a lot of low wage customers, factory dudes coming off third shift (he starts bar tending at 6am sometimes for the 6-10am bar crowd) has some conservative regulars. I'll ask to see how they view things recently
― mh, Sunday, 25 June 2017 02:08 (seven years ago) link
that was (bartending because, fuck it)
"Well he used to be one so you'd think he'd know better."
Yeah, he was a full Trotskyite in the 70's and SWP member from the age of 17. He fell out with the Conservative party in '03 and is always putting the boot in on them. One of his obsessions is of liberals and "cultural Marxists" trying to replace god with the state. His son Dan rebelled against him by becoming a left-footer and is the deputy editor of the Catholic Herald!
― calzino, Sunday, 25 June 2017 08:55 (seven years ago) link
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2017/06/james_mcgill_buchanan_s_terrifying_vision_of_society_is_the_intellectual.html
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 25 June 2017 13:17 (seven years ago) link
yeah he was a big part of that adam curtis thingy
― imago, Sunday, 25 June 2017 13:35 (seven years ago) link
How many Nobels in Economics go to reactionary cranks with "research" that is readily falsified IRL?
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 25 June 2017 13:44 (seven years ago) link
About the same % as for those in the arts I guess
― quet inn tarnation (darraghmac), Sunday, 25 June 2017 13:54 (seven years ago) link
high quality post read elsewhere:
"They want a two-caste system. The rich elite, accountable to no-one, and the poor working class, a never ending inexhaustible pool of labor, with enough scarcity in employment to make high turnover, and thus lower paying, careers that leave most of the profit of production at the top of the food chain.
"They're more looking towards the... advanced societies of India, and Mexico, and now Russia. Look at all the actions they've taken over the last twenty years, and suddenly, it becomes obvious. Cut education, restrict birth control and abortion, and generally lower the quality of life of the people so that they and their children are happy with less and less. Children are expensive to raise, so unplanned children are a boon that benefit both objectives. They're still securing the religious based procreation directives through religious based law.
"But for a proper oligarchy, they need to cut any forms of control. The last strands of accountability are being cut in front of your very eyes. The White House press briefings no longer permit audio or video recording, to afford plausible deniability. You have a president that intentionally plays fast and loose with fact to dull you to danger of the situation. The ethics committees have been gutted and are useless. The system of checks and balances is broken.
"Even if Trump were somehow impeached, and the House and Senate control flipped to the Democrats, it would only delay all of this, not stop it. Remember, there's a decades long gaslighting program going on, where conservatives are being taught daily that the greatest threat to life on earth is liberalism, that they are their enemy, not their countrymen. That cutting their own throats to splash their blood on the libs is an honorable and brave sacrifice. They have no idea that we're being divided, and that we are all being conquered. Discourse will not sway them, facts will not change their course. They are not enemies, they are victims, and nobody knows how they can be helped. They have an immunity to reason itself."
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 25 June 2017 13:56 (seven years ago) link
Read that in the voice of David Thewlis in Naked
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:06 (seven years ago) link
one of the lowest quality posts i've ever read i'm glad we could import it from its natural environs to ilx. why exactly is the party of "inexhaustible pool of labor, with enough scarcity in employment to make high turnover, and thus lower paying, careers" in favor of reducing immigration and the party of i guess more high quality jobs for fewer ppl in favor of practically open borders exactly? i thought for a second that maybe they're talking about the neoliberal elite on both sides of the aisle but then it starts talking about trump who if he stands for anything stands for importing less cheap labor and of all republicans seems least interested in restricting abortion/birth control. it's like someone had their talking points and instead of accommodating the change in scenery just decided to slap everything together and hope no one would notice. glad they were able to stick some sweet sweet false consciousness in there.
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:20 (seven years ago) link
"the change in scenery"
I'm feeling your pushback but c'mon on this
― droit au butt (Euler), Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:27 (seven years ago) link
Huh, I thought that post was blisteringly OTM. Weird.
― Mr. Crackpots (WilliamC), Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:29 (seven years ago) link
you have two mutually exclusive options. either trump is trying to reduce cheap foreign labor in which case the concern over deportations, immigration bans and building walls is legitimate, or that's all a bullshit smokescreen and the concern over it is hysteria (it's not). you can't have both. if he's motivated primarily by socially engineering an infinite cheap supply of workers then he isn't trying to keep cheap labor out of the country.
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:31 (seven years ago) link
the idea of government as a limiting force on the natural violent state of man (hobbesian gov) is v. conservative imo
also this is some andrew sullivan bullshit, where "conservative" is used like it has an ancient immutable meaning and thus when e.g. Hannity Limbaugh and Scott Baio use it, they're just bringing Hobbes into the 21st century
i.e. most non-conservative people today are not thinking "I wish my life were more violent than it is"---and of course most conservative people usually aren't either. it's more or less a wash
― droit au butt (Euler), Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:32 (seven years ago) link
i was responding to the corey robin piece which is specifically about creating a narrative linking the history of conservatism together otherwise i agree w/ u that meanings change
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:33 (seven years ago) link
Mordy what did your conservative orthodox acquaintances think about this week's ruling against El Al?
― droit au butt (Euler), Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:37 (seven years ago) link
Trump is racist, but has still outsources the shit out of anything he has ever manufactured. It's not that hard to reconcile.
― Frederik B, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:38 (seven years ago) link
you can have both, mordy. trump is an idiot who doesn't think consistently
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:38 (seven years ago) link
about the seating? i haven't discussed it with anyone specifically but my orthodox community is relatively modern and wouldn't be in favor of forcing women to change seats anyway. that's more of an ultra-charedi thing. xxp
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:39 (seven years ago) link
No political agenda (in the US at least) is anywhere near that coherent - when you connect your dots and realize you drew Lex Luthor, you may have missed a few
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:39 (seven years ago) link
seriously tombot otm please do not post post-apocalyptic handmaiden's fan fic and pretend like it explains politics irl
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:40 (seven years ago) link
I still thought it was fun to read
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:41 (seven years ago) link
it's waaaaaaaaaaaay more intellectually consistent than the assholes still insisting that prosperity trickles down
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:43 (seven years ago) link
they're both fantasies
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 June 2017 14:43 (seven years ago) link