Scorecard (a few from page 1, anyway; I tried to cut things that were reasonably contested):
And DtC isn’t alone as labeling the prohibition as “progressive” for the purpose of this thread. There’s also me, Captain Amazing, and…everybody else who bothered to read and understand the OP.
I never said conservatives always lose, and I don’t think anybody else did either, so this whole post is a strawman
Okay, Tim I took your advice and have read the original post again.
Straw man? Not hardly, Diogenes.
MAYBE Tim was honestly looking for enlightenment, but it sure doesn’t sound that way in this post. The tone is unmistakeable: the conservatives inevitably lose on every social issue Tim can think of. The issues he cites (slavery, suffrage, interracial marriage) are all ones that latter-day leftists look back on and say, “We were right, they were wrong! We won, they lost! 'Twas ever thus.”
Like I said in what you quoted, I realize that efforts to change society that ultimately failed would not be as well known. That is what I was looking for, and the reason I made this thread.
If all you can do is make this a partisan fight about what is conservative and what is not, I ask that you kindly fuck off out of this thread and let those of us who can understand the basic English sentence
continue providing examples.
I’d argue that that’s because, to some extent, those programs have done their jobs. In many areas, minority applicants no longer face a hurdle in hiring that equally qualified Caucasian candidates never had. I think the root problem is largely class-based: poor people have more problems with some things that, at first glance, should not be affected by money. When affirmative action legislation was first passed, shitloads of black people were poor, and that isn’t really true as much anymore. There is still racism, of course, but it’s weaker and less widespread than it used to be, and I think a good bit of it is from the old embarrassing relatives who still hold those antiquated views, many of whom won’t be around in, say 15 or 20 years.
It will happen again. 
The Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon in 1960 and Barry Goldwater in 1964, then Nixon again in 1968. Those are not the nominations of a largely conservative party with a liberal wing. The Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Those are not the nominations of a largely conservative party with a liberal wing.
An accurate summary of the situation in the early 60’s would be that the Democrats were a liberal party, but with some old-time conservatives from the South still hanging on to their old party membership. The Republicans were a conservative party, but with some old-time liberals from the Northeast still hanging on to their old party membership.
I hope it’s beginning to sink in that the meanings of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” are highly dependent on context and subject to paradoxes when addressed in too broad an historical perspective.
For example, Prohibition is conservative in the sense of “restrictive”, but liberal in the sense of “socially reformist”.
It’s also important to note that liberalism is about re-evaluating previous positions, so it’s to be expected that today’s liberals might be opposed to the positions of yesterday’s liberals.
As for conservatism, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny that it’s just a hodge-podge of knee-jerk positions.
ITR champion, I think you meant to say:
> The Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon in 1960 and Barry Goldwater in
> 1964, then Nixon again in 1968. Those are not the nominations of a largely
> liberal party with a conservative wing.
The way you wrote it doesn’t make any sense.
I think it is definitely probative. What if a woman alleges rape and makes a comment that the defendant is not her type at all, and that she would never consent to sex with such a man?
Are you saying that if evidence came to light that they had consensual sex two months ago that this fact would have, not only no bearing at all on your decision of who is telling the truth, but you don’t think that the defendant, facing many years in prison, should even be able to raise this point? To me that is astounding.
Perhaps the question might be rephrased in a politically neutral way.
“In recent history, which social movements for greater individual freedom/self reliance succeeded, and which failed?”
Racial segregration: tried to limit inidvidual freedom, failed.
Prohibition: tried to limit inidvidual freedom, failed.
Eugenics: tried to limit individual freedom (of procreation); failed.
Roe- vs Wade: tried to limit individual freedom, failed.
War on terrorism: tried to limit individual freedom (privacy): … dunno if it can be called a success.
War on drugs: tried to limit individual freedom, so far successful.
You do realize that that is a completely different question than the OP asked as the topic of this thread, right? It is indeed a good idea to frame the question in such a way as to clarify it away from the (shifting) political parties…which is probably why the OP did it.
The trend over time is to become less restrictive in a broad sense. For instance, we’ve now had several presidents who will admit to smoking marijuana. However the marijuana laws are just as restrictive as ever. So in a “broad” sense we’ve now seen that smoking marijuana isn’t as harmful as people have made out. If one can grow up to be president and have smoked marijuana then how bad can it be? Well that’s the message, despite laws to the contrary.
The American poltical scene swings back and forth. In the early 70s, liberal ideas seemed all but assured. We got rid of the death penalty, the ERA was only a few states from being law, gays started being seen.
Of course then came AIDS, Ronald Reagan’s Conservatism, and gay rights had a set back, the death penalty was strengthened, and the ERA was all but forgotten.
Now many of the ERA measures have been incorporated through common law. Similar to the way a constitutional amendment against child labour is dead because it’s now handled through regular law.
The courts are swinging toward gay rights, we have a mixed race President, and the death penalty while still in force takes ages to carry out.
But in a “BROAD” sense we have always moved toward liberal ideas, even if the laws aren’t reflecting it at the time.
Remember the “Obama Revolution” isn’t really a new idea so much as an “I Hate George W Bush” thing, so let’s do everything 180º from what he did", type of thing. Similar to the way Ronald Reagan was a backlash against Carter.
The question certainly depends on how you define liberal and conservative, and “does/doesn’t maintain the status quo” doesn’t seem like a great way to do so for this question. The status quo includes plenty of stuff that isn’t remotely controversial, so maintaining it is hardly a conservative victory.
Let me ask a different but related question, that may be more what the OP had in mind. Has “less equality” ever won out over “more equality” in a case where there was a significant percentage of the population supporting each side? In the cases of slavery, women’s suffrage, racial segregation, etc. it seems that the pro-equality side has always eventually won. Which bodes well for the same-sex marriage movement, I think.