# Better Conservatives? Where?! (A response to Coffeecat) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 30, 2018, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208 "2018-09-30T08:43:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 45
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/881 "2018-10-14T03:24:36Z")
Look, we’ve got our nuts and you’ve got yours. But we don’t let ours drive the bus. Case closed. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/882 "2018-10-14T05:23:04Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > ‘I came in here suggesting is that perhaps there is something wrong with the left and you should take a look. > Nothing, except “yeah, but Trump.” My understanding was that you were trying to offer a rational reason to be conservative, and rational conservative arguments. That would answering the subject of this thread. If you were instead trying to say “but liberals are the real bad guys,” and that was your entire point, then it doesn’t have anything to do with this thread. Rather than being rational, you would be merely using the rhetorical tactic of steering the conversation away from the original topic. (For liberals, this is often like shooting fish in a barrel. Say something we consider wrong, and we feel the need to correct you.) **iiandyiiii** is sticking to the original topic. Do there exist some people on left who have dangerous ideas? Of course. **But none of them are in power.** On the other hand, on the right, the dangerous people are running the asylum. Due to this discrepancy, it is irrational to treat both sides as the same. None of those “crazy college students” is calling the shots in the Democratic Party, but the authoritarian racists are in charge of the Republican party. What counts as conservative now is conspiracy theory level, and this is true of higher ups who are actually in power. As for the Electoral college and mob rule: neither are really conservative or liberal values. Though I will say your appeal to the authority of the Federalist papers is not all that convincing to liberals: we don’t hold them to be sacrosanct. Lots of things are different from what the Founding Founders wanted, and a lot of those things are good. If you want to argue that the Electoral college is good thing, or that Congress not representing the will of the people can be a good thing, then you cannot appeal to some old dead men. It’s not as if they were experts who did a bunch of experiments to see what was better. They were often wrong. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/883 "2018-10-14T12:01:25Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > “yeah, but Trump” is not an answer. > > It’s terrible. He’s a horrible, hateful imbecile. He constantly says the most bizarre insane things. > > Like I said, I voted against him. You guys put forth as a candidate the one person that he could beat. > > For 20 years you guys have been saying that every Republican candidate is a misogynistic intellectually bereft egomaniacal blowhard. The Republicans took a former Democrat who is literally and without exaggeration every one of those things and ran him against you, and won. > > Hoist by your own petard. > > You had him for the first 63 years of his life. He was broke when we got him. “Yeah, but Trump” is a perfect answer because he’s a real racist, who has hired an administration full of racists and kleptocrats, and he has real power. You said in a previous post that the crazy, hateful left is taking over – how? What branch of government do they control? They don’t control the judiciary. They can’t even get a member nominated to the judiciary when they do have the White House because the republitards control the Senate. The Republicans dominate state-level governments. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/884 "2018-10-14T15:11:11Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Look, we’ve got our nuts and you’ve got yours. But we don’t let ours drive the bus. Case closed. Or sell the tires off the bus. ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/885 "2018-10-14T17:46:52Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Or sell the tires off the bus. To be fair, trying to dump your tires in Mexico and demanding that they pay for them isn’t technically selling. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/886 "2018-10-15T00:01:44Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Because there are other things broken in this country that are not Trump. > How many possible ways can I say this? You’ll probably find a lot more ways to say 'THE SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE KIDS WHO ARE WEAK AND SPINELESS ARE GOING TO VIOLENTLY OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT" than you will to say what’s actually positive about your position as a conservative. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/887 "2019-07-23T18:14:11Z")
This thread died for a while, but a big part of it was statistics on violence caused by extremists on the left vs extremists on the right. The FBI Director just testified the following to Congress: “In terms of the number of arrests, we have through the third quarter of this fiscal year, we had about 100 arrests on the international terrorism side, which includes the homegrown violent terrorism,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “But we’ve also had just about the same number, again, don’t quote me to the exact digit, but on the domestic terrorism side and I will say, that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated, are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, it includes other things as well.” [https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/domestic-terror-white-supremacy-chris-wray](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/domestic-terror-white-supremacy-chris-wray) So according to the FBI, the majority of domestic terrorism cases are motivated by white supremacist and related ideologies. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/888 "2019-07-23T18:42:30Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This thread died for a while, but a big part of it was statistics on violence caused by extremists on the left vs extremists on the right. The FBI Director just testified the following to Congress: > > “In terms of the number of arrests, we have through the third quarter of this fiscal year, we had about 100 arrests on the international terrorism side, which includes the homegrown violent terrorism,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “But we’ve also had just about the same number, again, don’t quote me to the exact digit, but on the domestic terrorism side and I will say, that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated, are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, it includes other things as well.” > > [Wray: ‘Majority’ Of Domestic Terror Arrests This Year Motivated By White Supremacy](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/domestic-terror-white-supremacy-chris-wray) > > So according to the FBI, the majority of domestic terrorism cases are motivated by white supremacist and related ideologies. but…but…but…I thought Antifa was the dominate terror group in America right now? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/889 "2019-07-23T19:41:53Z")
Well combine that with the consensus opinion that all conservative ideology is rooted in racism, and you’ve got enough evidence to win in 2020. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/890 "2019-07-23T21:24:40Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Well combine that with the consensus opinion that all conservative ideology is rooted in racism, and you’ve got enough evidence to win in 2020. That consensus is only arising because the self-proclaimed conservatives on this board appear to be unable to offer any rebuttal to it. The pattern seems to be that if you ask a conservative a question he doesn’t like, he responds by attacking you for asking the question. This raises the suspicion that the conservative wasn’t able to answer the question. If people are saying that all conservative ideology is rooted in racism, then conservatives could quickly shut down the argument by offering examples of conservative ideology that aren’t rooted in racism. When they don’t - or can’t - do so, everyone else is going to draw the obvious conclusion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208.md?page=44)