What ever happened to conservatism?

[Politruk]

William F. Buckley's "New Right," the post-1964 Movement Conservatives, chased the moderate and liberal Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republicans out of the GOP.

And then they in turn were chased out by the Tea Partiers/Trumpers. There's only reactionary fascists left now.

Conservatism is cautious. That is its only quality that has any value at all. No conservative would ever shout "Lock her up!" or ""Molon labe!" or "End the Fed!"

And don't give me any bullshit about the Libertarians. They're an afterthought, no more important in the GOP than Communists among the Democrats. Libertarians are hostile to crony capitalism and fat government contracts and the military-industrial complex, and that makes them marginal in the party. The factions that matter are the bizcons, the Christian Nationalists, and the paleoconservative populist racist nationalists -- but above all, always the bizcons.

 

[AceDesSpades]

Whatever happened to liberals/progressives/not socialists?

Libertarians, and I assume, because Polit-T is so petty, that this is targeted at me, are the only ones actually standing on a set of principles (and even that differs). We just haven't compromised completely in the hopes of being a footnote to the winning coalition.

A chance to say, "My guy/party" won even if your ideas and principles took it in the shorts.

 

[Politruk]

Libertarians, and I assume, because Polit-T is so petty, that this is targeted at me, are the only ones actually standing on a set of principles (and even that differs). We just haven't compromised completely in the hopes of being a footnote to the winning coalition.

Well, some have. See vulgar libertarianism.

There is no principled conservatism in American politics any more. There is only what pleases the business interests, and what pleases the bigots -- and the GOP will always sacrifice the latter to the former without hesitation.

 

[AceDesSpades]

The fish rots at the head, but it is a two-headed Chernobyl fish...


... a January fish, a rainbow Trumpy Trout™.

 

[Politruk]

The fish rots at the head, but it is a two-headed Chernobyl fish...


... a January fish, a rainbow Trumpy Trout™.

Not one word of that makes any sense. Stop posting in free verse.

 

[Politruk]

xxxx

 

[AceDesSpades]

I could explain to you.

The middle part is a wicked clever transition...

 

[AceDesSpades]

A transition of the real intellectual kind, not the stupid kind in the news...

 

[AceDesSpades]

The key, to me, is zen. A man of simplicity and harmony.

Simplicity of lesson is the most effective teaching
Paucity of words is meaning packed and
writing is a beautiful art
like Chinese logogram
or Hieroglyphics.
Every picture tells a story (don't it)

The concatenation is to poetry but also to history as poster too to slam us with unsized photos, screen stretchers, so when you wrote intelligently, in sentences and paragraphs, and one idiot popped in, reading was scroll left, scroll right..., so a lot of shit didn't get read...

colors fonts the artist in me – it's just fun
and I express myself and slow myself
so my thoughts don't run away...

So, I adjusted to reality.

Why can't y'all?

 

[Politruk]

I could explain to you.

The middle part is a wicked clever transition...

That doesn't make any sense either.

 

[Politruk]

The key, to me, is zen. A man of simplicity and harmony.

Simplicity of lesson is the most effective teaching
Paucity of words is meaning packed and
writing is a beautiful art
like Chinese logogram
or Hieroglyphics.
Every picture tells a story (don't it)

The concatenation is to poetry but also to history as poster too to slam us with unsized photos, screen stretchers, so when you wrote intelligently, in sentences and paragraphs, and one idiot popped in, reading was scroll left, scroll right..., so a lot of shit didn't get read...

colors fonts the artist in me – it's just fun
and I express myself and slow myself
so my thoughts don't run away...

So, I adjusted to reality.

Why can't y'all?

Nor that.

 

[Rightguide]

William F. Buckley's "New Right," the post-1964 Movement Conservatives, chased the moderate and liberal Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republicans out of the GOP.

It's now mainstream.

 

[Politruk]

It's now mainstream.

Not even within the GOP. Tea Party/Trumpism has supplanted Buckley's New Right.

 

[Rightguide]

Not even within the GOP. Tea Party/Trumpism has supplanted Buckley's New Right.

The American majority is more conservative than the two major parties.

 

[Politruk]

The American majority is more conservative than the two major parties.

The American majority would have elected Bernie Sanders if he had won the nomination. All polls on any particular issue, such as single-payer health care, show the majority is far to the left of both parties.

 

[Rightguide]

The American majority would have elected Bernie Sanders if he had won the nomination. All polls on any particular issue, such as single-payer health care, show the majority is far to the left of both parties.

You don't know the American people. Americans do not like Socialism.

 

[Politruk]

You don't know the American people. Americans do not like Socialism.

They do now, polls show.

Of course, the polls do not define "socialism" or "capitalism," so they're really just polling for the popularity of the words.

 

[Politruk]

This is how the American people break down politically. The farthest-right group, the Faith and Flag Conservatives (10% of public) are also the oldest group -- and when they pass away, they will not be replaced by younger generations in commensurate numbers. That is the single most important fact about America's political future.

 

[Politruk]

David Brooks: What Happened to American Conservatism?

 

[Politruk]

Sanders definitely would have beat Trump if they had been matched in 2016.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Willian Buckley's kind of conservatism was not conservative at all. Buckley was a reactionary who rejected the reforms of the New Deal. President Eisenhower was a conservative. He recognized that the reforms of the New Deal had become part of the status quo and needed to be accepted. This is what he wrote in a letter to his brother:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.4 Their number is negligible, and they are stupid."

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-edgar-newton-eisenhower/

The last conservative president in the Eisenhower tradition was Gerald Ford.

Ronald Reagan was a reactionary. He agreed with Eisenhower that the reforms of the New Deal were popular, but he did not like them. Reagan tried to make the reforms of the New Deal unaffordable by increasing the national debt.

As a political philosophy conservatism begins with Edmund Burke, whose Reflections on the Revolution in France criticized the French Revolution. In Reflections Burke wrote:

"Society us indeed a contract...

"It becomes a partnership not only between whose who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

Reagan popularized the idea that it was acceptable for politicians on the right - I will not call them "conservatives" - to live off of past achievements and to borrow from the future with deficit spending.

Seen this way, Donald Trump is a reactionary with authoritarian inclinations. He wants to repeal business regulations. He also wants to replace the graduated income tax with tariffs. During the nineteenth century tariffs, rather than income taxes, financed the federal government. There were few business regulations.

Tariffs are equivalent to sales taxes. They are regressive, which is why Trump likes them. Tariffs would shift the tax load from rich people to working class and middle class people.

As an authoritarian Trump is a right wing radical. He wants to have more power than any American president ever has had.

In his Reflections Burke also wrote, "No difficulties occur in what has never been tried. Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not exited."

In this case, authoritarianism has been tried in other countries, and still exists in some of them, with unfortunate consequences. Unfortunately, Trump and his followers are ignorant of world history and geography.

 

[JohnEngelman]

The American majority is more conservative than the two major parties.

That depends on which issue you are talking about. For years opinion surveys have indicated majority support for a more progressive tax system.

 

[Politruk]

As a political philosophy conservatism begins with Edmund Burke, whose Reflections on the Revolution in France criticized the French Revolution. In Reflections Burke wrote:

"Society us indeed a contract...

"It becomes a partnership not only between whose who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

What an idiot, to think anything is owed to the dead!

 

[JohnEngelman]

What an idiot, to think anything is owed to the dead!

We owe it to our ancestors to respect their achievements and insights and to build on them.

 

[Politruk]

We owe it to our ancestors to respect their achievements and insights and to build on them.

What are we, Chinese?!