rolling explaining conservatism

Uh huh, sounds about right.

The Right regards itself as Lincoln and Trump as Grant.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/03/07/how-can-conservatives-support-a-thrice-married-trump-he-fights-says-matt-schlapp/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.c3e13a5cbe75

interesting read, esp the first couple pages. thanks, milo.

Isn't that feeling at least somewhat mutual?

Maybe not the killing. But that's prolly just because we're betas and pussies, not skilled with firearms.

― may all your memes be dank (Ye Mad Puffin)

i mean, there is a lot of mutuality here. this whole "understanding" thing has been really fucking me up, particularly over the past six months or so, because man the more i feel like i "understand" conservatives the more i hate and fear them. there's this mutually reinforcing/escalating cycle and that cycle does lead, pretty inevitably, to mass political violence. and i don't see any way of breaking the cycle. either don't oppose them and let them commit genocide, or do oppose them and have brutal civil war. what other options are there?

gridlock

Winning - unquestionably - in elections. Bit by bit, at every level, regaining real power so that we don't have to make so many appeals to decency that go in-heard.

Either that, or the sitcom hugging/learning plan.

un-heard

Conservatism is such an amorphous concept in American politics right now that every "explanation of conservatism" that one could give would not apply to some group whose members would vehemently insist they are the 'true' conservatives.

However, if I were to venture an explanation that might apply to a majority of self-described US conservatives, it would be a simple matter of tribal identity, often arrived at by the expedient of being born among self-identified conservatives and taught 'the facts of life' as viewed through that lens, while seldom or never hearing contrary views except as fodder to be caricatured and scorned. This is basically analogous to adopting one's parents' religious identification and religious prejudices.

As explanations go, this is hardly new, sophisticated or surprising, but it is also probably more true than not for most Americans, whether conservative or liberal.

people are inherently selfish, and only fools believe otherwise. the four gospels are allegories about how to get rich. anyone telling you otherwise is just trying to take advantage of you. your self-interest is the only real motivation you can trust, and the only people you owe a living to are your fetuses

Your fetuses are your fetuses, nobody can take them away from you.

always loved that Gershwin tune

https://img.discogs.com/YHbf0_o_VjY6ropG5_ngpfouycU=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-81704-1352916328-5697.jpeg.jpg

people are inherently selfish, and only fools believe otherwise.

I kind of do believe this, but I think it's an individual person's approach to this assertion that determines conservativism. Like, I think that people are inherently selfish but also that participation in a society requires us to transcend our inherent selfishness.

To me, throwing up your hands in the face of that assertion is as morally indefensible as saying, 'people are hardwired to have sex, so you can't expect me to exercise self-control in the employment of my genitals'.

ty to ryan for the sloterdijk, I've never bothered with him but that's juicy

all politicians are liars; i trust in trump. sure he exaggerates here and there, but at least he's a successful businessman

I think that people are inherently selfish but also that participation in a society requires us to transcend our inherent selfishness.

Some conservatives would say that this is just another flavor of selfishness. It's like how when the masochist says "hurt me!" the true sadist would say "no."

You THINK you're acting compassionately by favoring progressive policy. But actually when you favor lefty causes, you're acting selfishly because you get pleasure from it. You preen about your bleeding-heart morality, but in fact your vanity is gratified because you believe you are helping the downtrodden. The thing is, you're doing it with other people's money through taxation (instead of giving through your church, which is how you SHOULD do it). And, as we know from Thatcher, sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

Because liberal elites get their jollies from the feeling that they're helping others, in truth they are making things worse. Not only because government is a bad way to help, but also because handouts only reinforce dependency among the poor. Meanwhile, the liberal elites can advocate for greater wealth redistribution without consequence, because they know THEY won't be truly inconvenienced.

You liberal elites are safe in your enclaves (Manhattan, Georgetown, Hollywood), and it's really only the hardworking REAL American who feels the economic pain that liberal policies cause. You know, all those small-business owners crushed by minimum wage increases, pesky regulation, and competition from illegal labor.

Further, the darker truth behind your supposed "selflessness" is that you get your jollies from controlling other people. You can't bear the thought that people Not Like You (straight, Christian, gun-owning) might thrive.

(All this gleaned from too much reading at ace.mu.nu)

There are thresholds of acceptable selfishness because it's a big bad world and you gotta look after your own somewhere along the line.

Everyone should understand that making the most money and your political party winning are the ultimate aims of the respective games of business and politics and the less rules the purer the achievement.

Religion, incorporating obv reproductive rights, isn't a game and those rules are proper rules not just made up by losers so that we can all play nice

i think too there's a feeling among Fox/Koch/ALEC nation that 'liberal elites' are out of touch trustfunders, born on first base, thinking they hit a single . . . the same way non-"conservatives" look at W and trump and think 'born on third base; thinks he hit a triple'. the vectors of resentment are different, but the resentment itself is real, both on the 'left' and on the 'right', effectively harvested and deflected by Fox/Koch/ALEC echo chambers

Everything we say about Fox/Koch/ALEC echo chambers has its mirror-image in them saying that we just lap up what is fed to us by MSM/WaPo/Soros/NYT/MSNBC.

divided we fall for it

"You said that part of that is that this is what freedom looks like. But is the major decrease in the number of people — according to the CBO — who will have health insurance, is it freedom or is it that some people will no longer be able to afford health insurance under your plan? What they’re saying is that this [a 64-year old making less than $27,000 a year will pay $14,600 a year for health insurance instead of the $1,700 they pay now under President Barack Obama’s law] isn’t freedom, this isn’t people voluntarily deciding not to have health insurance. It’s that your plan makes it unaffordable for people."

"We’re not going to make people buy something that’s so expensive that they can’t afford, that the market is not going to offer. And so where I dispute that comparison is it suggests that we’re going to have the same kinds of plans being offered in 10 years that Obamacare would otherwise offer.The person in their 50s or 60s does have additional health care costs than, say, a person in their 20s and 30s. You’re right in saying — and we agree — we believe we should have even more assistance and that’s one of the things we’re looking at for that person in their 50s and 60s."

“So, you’re going to change the plan?"

“That is among the things we’re looking at doing, yes. And the point I would say is, we’re going to let people buy what they want to buy. We’re going to have more plans being offered, more choice and competition.”

“We can’t do that anymore. We can’t spend money on programs just because they sound good. And Meals on Wheels sounds great.”

_________

"Are you surprised?”

“Yeah. Because he was told ― I was under the influence that he was going to help us.”

“What would you say to him to convince him not to cut this program?”

“What if it was your momma?”

Based on the last few days, conservatism means this amazing (?) quartet of tweets:

https://twitter.com/TomiLahren/status/843115966477164544

https://twitter.com/Gavin_McInnes/status/843245641316864000

https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer/status/843602974610022404

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/843626371830206464

Stood right in some dogtruth

have you ever stood in another person's truth

I don't like that she's pro-choice but I'm not going to be a baby about it.

uh, he is gavin mcinnes

Does he always look crosseyed?

The altright.com "Pro-Life Temptation" article is ... something else.

Forgot we had this thread from the Bush era: What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

But mostly I came here to post this quote from LGM / http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/05/party-ideas-tm-2

The whole party is just a racket justifying the most upward redistribution of wealth that can pass Congress, justified with asinine back-of-a-cocktail-napkin crap.

"On the other hand, had Hillary cheated her way to presidency, we'd be fighting 2 or 3 wars at this point. Only by Trump's deft use of unpredictability have we kept one step ahead of the enemies who wish to do us harm on our soil, so they lash out at our unprepared allies as a result."

protecting privilege, increasing existing privilege, and violent, hateful spite against anybody who might think they're better than them

feel like all the most virulent strains are substantially rooted in resenting smart kids in grade school

sorry for being boring and obvious though

http://www.aei.org/publication/liberals-or-conservatives-whos-really-close-minded/

the ultimate conservative is tom buchanan, idle rich, openly racist, cheating on his wife. he's who the patriots in galt gulch want to be

xp. a good counter-example to tombot's post - that guy was definitely a bullied "smart kid" in school

wow that was some amazingly shallow clickbait. thanks for sharing.

lol if u needed evidence its thesis is true reread this thread

someone made a book out of an ilx thread again?

i just dont see how ppl can buy into conservatism without a fundamental lack of empathy for those less fortunate than themselves

yes 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.

I have seen that argument made over and over again and I still think it's bullshit. I know what conservatives THINK their values are; I just happen to believe they're wrong.

And in any case it doesn't matter. Even if your belief in your values (freedom, order, justice, tradition, family, or whatever) is utterly pure and sincere, your support for policies that fuck over the downtrodden is still vile. The end result is that those who most need help and protection - the poor, the vulnerable, the sick, communities of color - are left mercy to violent winds. No amount of reading William F. Buckley or whatever is going to make me forget or ignore that. Sorry not sorry.

the whole conservative belief that big government aid encourages dependency and saps ppl's dignity and that ppl need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps -- this is not some bullshit they're making up to cover up for "protecting privilege, increasing existing privilege, and violent, hateful spite against anybody who might think they're better than them." this is what they believe.

and they are delusional

and you don't have to apologize to me. it's just good to know what ppl you disagree w/ actually believe and not just what your judgement of the consequences of those beliefs are. you can see conservatives do the same thing when they model liberal thinking. they often ime (tho more often than liberals if that article above is to be believed) just cite their own least favorable interpretation of the motivations and consequences of liberal ideology.

I think it's fair to say that any variety of empathy which extends no further than your loved ones and people in your community who look and think like you isn't actually empathy but an amazing simulation thereof.

less often* i mean in that parenthetical

e pluribus unum bitches

like surely you know they say the same exact things about you right? a little epistemic humility might be useful here.

those beliefs are informed by privilege even if not consciously