I am a conservative and feel every issue you addressed is worthy of attention. On most but not all of those issues I just don’t like the liberal approach. A lot of it breaks down to our views on the degree of accountability we feel everyone should bear. Some of it breaks down to economic theory most of which can and probably should be compromised on.
The thing is that conservatives don’t listen, and they don’t allow anything into their consciousness that isn’t already there. That’s why they are conservatives!
You can tell a conservative an absolute incontrovertible fact and if s/he doesn’t like the conclusion, s/he will either not hear it in the first place, or will immediately forget. I have friends who are conservatives and I’ve just given up.
Things that seem so obvious, like “turning rain forests into deserts is a Bad Thing,” somehow are not at all obvious to conservatives. If cutting timber in the rain forest is 1% of your country’s economic growth, and you could make it 35% if instead you set up tourism to the area in question*, this somehow makes no sense to conservatives, because the timber industry is well established and there are connections there. For instance.
*Granted, that there will be less emergent interest in tourism if the prospective tourists know the resource is always going to be there, as oppose to urgency to visit if it’s going to be destroyed in the next 10 years.
Well, then how do you explain that conservatives elsewhere seem to understand that many of the items in the OP are not seen as strange or silly by conservatives elsewhere in developed nations?
And a few months back, British Prime Minister Theresa May used her speech in Philadelphia to warn over climate change, and called Islam a religion of peace.
The point here is that besides ignoring science you are also ignoring that being a conservative does not mean that one should throw to the trash the warnings of science, policy makers with experience, or most economical experts.
I mean, how conservative can someone that is not cautions or willing to conserve an environment were Americans also do live and work? Eventually one has to realize that very powerful interests have guided the Republican party to become not much conservative, but more reactionary and ignorant to boot.
I’m a conservative, and have changed my position leftward on several hot-button issues over the years based on reasoned dialog and arguments here.
You’re a liberal? How many of your positions have moved rightwards based on reasoned dialog here? Or elsewhere?
Obviously incorrect, since over here a conservative poster acknowledges the majority of those points as being factual, and of the remaining ones he deems to be merely “opinion”, I think a good objectively factual case could be made for at least some of them. Clearly, a conservative problem today is being aligned with a disturbing number of non-factual beliefs. The scientists’ demonstrations organized for today are evidence of that. These are not people holding mere “opinions” on things like climate change.
No doubt. But really, is there any serious doubt about where the xenophobes and bigots tend to congregate? Saying that they exist on both sides is undoubtedly correct but perhaps not very meaningful if one looks at which political side attracts the dominant numbers. Remember during the campaign and after when Trump slogans were used in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant graffiti? The whole campaign became practically synonymous with xenophobia and racism, not to mention misogyny.
Very true.
Assuming conservatism means what it does in the original sense of the term and not “Randianism with a little bit of Supply-Side Jesus”, I would say the corrosive effects of untrammelled capitalism on social cohesion, community life, traditional institutions, and other things that conservatives value.
I’m sure I have, but I can’t think of anything specific. Really I’m not all that much of a liberal, and I’ve seen more frothing at the mouth than reasoned debate on both sides, here and elsewhere.
Because the KKK used to get together and murder people. As mean-spirited as the 4chan crowd can be, murder is not, AFAIK, one of their popular pastimes (not a big 4chan-er, so, IDK, maybe somebody will be along to correct me).
I could, but would there be a point? We both agree there are some deplorable people on both sides of the political spectrum.
I think that conservatives often go into “denial by theory” when a liberal point comes up.
To look out at our world and see it as “people with discipline vs people without it” is a very inadequate picture of reality. it ignores nepotism, corruption (unless its dems), institutional biases, historical biases, and the problems of elites making the laws to benefit themselves in a vicious cycle (Hard to say it’s a good cycle where money rises by design to rich people making the laws, and not by effort or creation). We have the poster boy for this in the white house now, frantically feathering his nest and his buddies, and hiring billionaires while talking about draining the swamp. There is no way to just ignore the cynicism of it without going off to sunnybrook farm.
And I think that “trickle down” has not worked. Cite me wrong if you will. But there is a denial factor about reagan built into the conservative mindset too.
I’m conservative, and I don’t believe life is fair. All throughout my childhood, my conservative parents reminded me that “Life’s not fair”.
There’s certainly an element of conservatism that encourages people to work hard to overcome the hardships they face (and perhaps accompanied by not enough mercy / pity / empathy for those who don’t) but it doesn’t grow out of some delusion that life is fair.
I called ten of sixteen points factual, but noted that two of them were “meaningless,” in that the were too vague or broad to serve as the basis for policy. So I’d say the score is half, with two more in the asterisk column.
Right, Orange Hitler supporters were totally all like, “Man, I’d really really really like to do the right thing and not fuck over millions of people and shit on everyone who’s not a cishet white guy, but someone was less than perfectly cordial to me on the Internet, so I guess I can’t.”
Nah, fuck that shit. Orange Hitler won because a shitton of Americans are moral degenerates who’ll eagerly take any opportunity they can get to make life miserable for anyone who’s not them and they happened to have just the right geographic distribution to pull it off this time.
I get that personal responsibility is hard for reactionaries, since it’s a completely foreign concept to them–I get that it’s a hell of a lot easier to blame all your problems on people of color, women, foreigners, and anyone who’s not a gigantic moron than it is to look at yourself and think that maybe you’re the one who needs to change–but tough shit. They need to learn some personal responsibility–they, and they alone, are personally responsible for their moral bankruptcy and morally-bankrupt choices.
[quote=“Velocity, post:1, topic:784989”]
[li]Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps can be nearly impossible in today’s America. $7.25/hour doesn’t get you anywhere, and also, as an Economist article puts it, “It’s Expensive to be Poor.”[/li][/quote]
Absolutely correct.
[quote]
[li]Some Trump supporters ***are *** indeed “deplorable” - Stormfront-ers, 4chan-ers, KKK-ers, etc[/li][/quote]
Spot on again, but the Left has its problem voters too.
[quote]
[li]Trickle-down economics doesn’t work.[/li][/quote]
Cite?
[quote]
[li]In many ways, women’s lives *are *more difficult than men’s.[/li][/quote]
In many ways, men’s lives are more difficult than women’s. IOW the different sexes have different needs and problems. Whoda thunk it?
[quote]
[li]Abstinence-based sex education isn’t very effective, because many teenagers are naturally horny and simply ignore abstinence advice.[/li][/quote]
Yup.
[quote]
[li]Man-made climate change is real.[/li][/quote]
There’s still no concrete (experimental and falsifiable) evidence that human-emitted CO2 has caused the warming we’ve seen. When you can produce that evidence, then you’ll convince conservatives. Models don’t count.
[quote]
[li]Conservatives have “patriotic correctness” just like liberals have political correctness.[/li][/quote]
Yup.
[quote]
[li]Most immigrants - legal or illegal - have incentive *not *to commit crime while in America. Illegal immigrants, due to their situation, would want to keep a low profile and *avoid *breaking laws whenever possible.[/li][/quote]
Unfortunately, people are people the world over. And when poverty beckons, crime is an easy out.
[quote]
[li]Most regulations exist for a good reason.[/li][/quote]
But are those reasons still good?
[quote]
[li]Many U.S. military operations are not about “protecting our freedoms” at all. Not every or even most such military operations have to be about protecting U.S. liberty, but we should stop with the talk about “Our troops are defending our freedoms” and “If you can read English, thank a U.S. soldier” talk, as if an enemy would invade the USA.[/li][/quote]
Umm… Mexico, a century or so ago? The UK counter-invaded America in the War of 1812.
[quote]
[li]Even if it were a good thing to do, ejecting 11 million illegal immigrants from the country is logistically all but impossible.[/li][/quote]
Not true.
[quote]
[li]While outsourcing jobs is bad, in some instances it’s the only thing to do. [/li][/quote]
Indeed.
[quote]
[li]The old Rust Belt jobs are not coming back, due to technology and new economic trends.[/li][/quote]
Correct again.
[quote]
[li]Banning abortion might prevent a lot of abortions, but some women would still get dangerous illegal abortions anyway (the ‘back-alley’ type.)[/li][/quote]
My number one reason for supporting abortion.
Correct again - a back of the envelope calculation I did a year or two back showed that implementing the UK’s NHS, with private insurance on top, would save the USA $1 Trillion.
Why Trickle Down Economic Works in Theory But Not in Fact
OK, point noted, but I still say it’s more than half because some of what you’ve noted as “meaningless” or “opinion” is factually supportable. For instance you noted that Trump “deplorables” is an opinion subject to a definition of what it means, yet as I pointed out, despite arguments that “both sides do it” it’s pretty clear which side owns the vast majority of xenophobes and bigots, and thus you acknowledge this point yourself.
Or, for instance, trickle-down economics. This is a rather vague generalization, granted, but if one interprets it to mean that tax breaks and other incentives that increase corporate profits automatically increase jobs and improve the general welfare – which seems to be a cherished belief of conservatives – there are tons of examples that show this to be manifestly untrue: time and time again, corporations that have enjoyed record profits have also engaged in cutting jobs – sometimes, indeed, in massive layoffs. Why? Simply because they could, and there is no relation between the two. Hiring is never based on having unwanted profits to spend – it’s always based on need. So at the very least, this principle elucidates a sort of knee-jerk conservative concept that merits serious rethinking.
Or immigration and crime. Conservatives seem to have bought in, lock stock and barrel, to Trump’s claims that Mexican immigrants bring crime, rape, and murder, and Muslim immigrants bring terrorism. You can claim the merits of this alleged conservative belief to be “meaningless” but if actual statistics show crime committed by immigrants to be not statistically different – or lower – than that of the comparable legal or native-born population, then isn’t the argument clearly bullshit?
But in any case, and perhaps most importantly, I was arguing against the point made by astorian that in order to drop these beliefs, one would have to stop being a conservative. Since (at least) half of them are factually not true, one would have to conclude that conservatives ought to start listening to some facts because a substantial part of their belief system is utter fantasy.
You cannot prove that “trickle-down economics doesn’t work.” As Bricker pointed out, that depends upon your definition of “work”. Restate the thesis so that it’s objectively measurable and doesn’t depend upon value judgements to decide what to measure. For example, you could make the assertion, “Trickle-down economics does not result in a relative bettering of the quality of life for those who are poor.” Or “Trickle-down economics does not produce more entry-level jobs than <insert favorite competing economic structure here> does.” Thus, this is not in any way a “fact.”
Yet this is a classic example of a “fact” that many who are “liberal” get frustrated with “conservatives” about. They point to studies to support their opinion that trickle-down economics has been shown to be a failure. I’ve seen these debates rage on Facebook so often, I don’t even bother to read them any more. As someone pointed out on some other thread, differentiating opinion from fact seems to be difficult for many people.
But I’ll assert that the main problem with the underlying thesis of this thread is that some of the actual facts Velocity lists in the OP aren’t relevant to the dispute between “liberal” and “conservative” voters. For example, anthropogenic climate change is a “fact” that doesn’t really inform the dispute. Yes, there are some “conservative” politicians and voters who persistently refuse to acknowledge this fact. But it wouldn’t matter if they did acknowledge it, because the EFFECT on the political discussion wouldn’t change. “Conservative” politicians argue in essence that, even if it is true, it’s not sufficient reason to stop producing and using fossil fuels, nor is it sufficient reason to cause the use of such fuels to become less economically feasible. That argument is based upon the basic divide between “conservatives” (in an economic-government sense) and “liberals”. Even if you got Scott Pruitt to admit that anthropogenic climate change is a fact, he would still refuse to acknowledge that this means Oklahoma’s oil rigs should stop pumping oil out of the ground as fast as they can be made to. His most basic thesis for government is that it shouldn’t get in the way of businesses making money, which creates jobs for Americans, etc.
So with respect to those here who are “liberal” and want to see some change in how “conservatives” think, it’s not about the “facts”, but rather about the competing theories of what the purpose of government is, and how that should be applied.
:rolleyes:
This was linked to about 7 years ago:
That BTW was just point 6 of the 10 items in that list that leads to the conclusion of human emitted CO2 and other global warming gases are pointed as the ones becoming the current drivers of the climate.
Your position also ignores that an skeptical team of scientists already did a huge review of the evidence, their conclusion still has not managed to get even into the radar of the contrarians.
This is clearly false because the evidence exists, yet you still don’t accept it.
What you appear to be doing is waving away the mountains of evidence that have been presented – for instance, thousands of pages in the last IPCC AR5 reports from three working groups referencing literally thousands of papers, or the clear and unequivocal statements of all the world’s major national science academies – and dismissing it all as “just some models”. It isn’t. It’s mountains of evidence from many different disciplines and many different lines of research that together build an overwhelming case for the dominant influence of anthropogenic CO2 and the need for immediate mitigating measures to prevent serious long-term effects to the earth’s entire climate regime.
Asking for some hypothetical imaginary “concrete” evidence is basically asking for a simple experiment that produces some kind of one-sentence conclusion that you can understand, and then replicate yourself at home with a couple of test tubes and a Bunsen burner. This seems to reflect a profound misunderstanding of how climate science works, of what we already know, and how we know it. Climate science is a cross-disciplinary endeavor that is also a very complex area of research. That doesn’t mean that its conclusions, after half a century of intensive research, aren’t reliable. It means that the body of evidence is complex and you either have to take the time to properly understand and assess it, as the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences have done, or you have to accept the authoritative assessments on the basis that impartial scientific organizations don’t lie, like oil and coal companies have demonstrably been doing for years. What you don’t have a reasonable right to do is refuse to believe it until you can do an experiment in your own kitchen.
I disagree. To follow up on this example, if one accepts the reality of anthropogenic climate change, as a conservative one is still free to responsibly promote economic growth and development including all necessary fossil fuels. But it would irresponsible – indeed it would be insane – to not make those decisions in a way that is informed by a scientific understanding of the impacts they would have on climate and the costs and risks down the road to property, human life, our well-being, and even to national security. Yet so-called “conservatives” – a name that connotes traditionalism and caution – with respect to environmental issues are running around less like responsible traditionalists and more like a pack of drunken monkeys. This is why being aligned with basic, indisputable scientific and economic facts matters. It’s not about values, it’s about being reality-based and sane.
And on that note, and in honor of the March for Science, here is Neil Degrasse Tyson:
[QUOTE] [*Neil deGrasse Tyson*] How did America rise up from a backwoods country to be one of the greatest nations the world has ever known?We pioneered industries and all this required the greatest innovations in science and technology in the world and so science is a fundamental part of the country that we are; but in this, the 21st century, when it comes time to make decisions about science it seems to me that people have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not. What is reliable, what is not reliable, what should you believe; what you do not
believe.
And when you have people who don’t know much about science standing in denial of it and rising to power, that is a recipe for the complete dismantling of our informed democracy.
[Camera changes to]
[Mike Pence (the vice president) in a speech]: “Let us demand that educators around America teach evolution not as fact, but as a theory!” *
[Reporter’s voice over images of kids being vaccinated] “increasing number of parents showing skepticism about vaccinations”
[Other reporter]“voters have approved a ban on GMOs”
[Fox news]“climate change is unproven science”
[Neil deGrasse Tyson again] That’s not the country I remember growing up.
Not that we didn’t have challenges. I’m old enough to remember the 60s and the 70s got a hot war in a cold war; civil rights movement and all this was going on. But, I don’t remember any time where people were standing in denial of what science was.
[/QUOTE]
And yes, remembering how Margaret Thatcher and Reagan still listened to science, it is really, really, sad to see that many Republicans are not complaining much (or at all)to see the current leadership to start dismantling our informed democracy.
- :rolleyes: