# Letter To The Dope **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 14, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286 "2017-07-14T22:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/141 "2017-07-20T20:57:57Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > How strong could it have been by then if one man could destroy it by being allied w/ it? He wasn’t allied with it. He gained influence in the movement and excommunicated the true conservatives using that influence. But yes you have a point. Conservatism was on its heels after many years of defeat. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2017, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/142 "2017-07-20T22:40:54Z")
I’ve heard of fiscal conservatives, social or religious conservatives, reactionary conservatives, pro-corporate conservatives, Tea Party conservatives, neo-Conservatives, Goldwater conservatives, Reagan conservatives, post-rational American conservatives, McCarthyists, and Jeffersonian conservatives. (Don’t give me the pop quiz on the precise differences.) Here’s a new one. _ **My emphasis added.** _ > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Buckley was the guy who hijacked conservatism to begin with. He explicitly endorsed a domestic totalitarian state and turned conservatives into supporters of overseas adventurism, or more accurately made it ok for supporters of adventurism to call themselves conservatives. His greatest success was probably the destruction of\*\*\* true conservatism\*\*\*. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > He wasn’t allied with it. He gained influence in the movement and excommunicated the _ **true conservatives** _ using that influence. > > But yes you have a point. Conservatism was on its heels after many years of defeat. What is “True Conservatism”? The world according to Ayn Rand? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/143 "2017-07-20T22:57:31Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’ve heard of fiscal conservatives, social or religious conservatives, reactionary conservatives, pro-corporate conservatives, Tea Party conservatives, neo-Conservatives, Goldwater conservatives, Reagan conservatives, post-rational American conservatives, McCarthyists, and Jeffersonian conservatives. (Don’t give me the pop quiz on the precise differences.) > > Here’s a new one. _ **My emphasis added.** _ > > What is “True Conservatism”? The world according to Ayn Rand? Yes that is a sloppy phrase. How about _Conservatism WillFarnaby Kinda Likes_? Seriously though, under Buckley, conservatism did a 180 from the Albert Jay Nock, Robert Taft, Russell Kirk conservatism to explicitly endorsing the totalitarian state and committing to liberal adventurism abroad. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/144 "2017-07-21T00:12:23Z")
Gosh, when you argue like that, it makes conservatives sound kind of dim, wot? Are there any modern conservatives you like? Any modern liberals you like more than the conservatives you profess to dislike? ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/145 "2017-07-21T00:29:42Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Yes that is a sloppy phrase. How about _Conservatism WillFarnaby Kinda Likes_? Seriously though, under Buckley, conservatism did a 180 from the Albert Jay Nock, Robert Taft, Russell Kirk conservatism to explicitly endorsing the totalitarian state and committing to liberal adventurism abroad. Can you give me an example, please, of what it is you term ‘liberal adventurism abroad’? You’ve used it before and I haven’t heard it in all my years as a history major. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/146 "2017-07-21T01:38:03Z")
Back when civilization was still thought of as a gift from white people to brown, some truly heinous actions were sold as “bringing the light” to our “brown brothers.” Back when Teddy Roosevelt was a firm progressive. As part of our bitch-slapping of Spain, America made alliance with the nativist partisans of the Philippines. If they would fight for us as guerrilla partisans, we would support their movement for independence. As soon as the Spanish battle flag flew (white rampant, with tatters ardent), we advised the provisional revolutionary government that their services would not be needed. So, if you think of TR as a progressive, hence, a “liberal”, and this tawdry display of gunboat hypocrisy and treachery as an “adventure”… ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/147 "2017-07-21T01:42:50Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > Can you give me an example, please, of what it is you term ‘liberal adventurism abroad’? You’ve used it before and I haven’t heard it in all my years as a history major. Basically Wilsonian interventionism in order to spread democracy. The Iraq War is the first, and probably worst, that comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/148 "2017-07-21T01:44:51Z")
Or, we could consider cases where liberals should have been adventuresome…but weren’t. Clinton and Rwanda and the Balkans; Carter and Cambodia. This works both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/149 "2017-07-21T01:50:40Z")
How common are purely humanitarian interventions, anyway? No specific political or economic interest, just one country sending its military to another to stop human-rights abuses? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/150 "2017-07-21T01:51:05Z")
I forgot to mention FDR refusing to accept Jewish refugees from Europe…like these people who were forced to return to Europe. I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it: SS St Louis: The ship of Jewish refugees nobody wanted - [SS St Louis: The ship of Jewish refugees nobody wanted - BBC News](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27373131) ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/151 "2017-07-21T01:59:47Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Basically Wilsonian interventionism in order to spread democracy. The Iraq War is the first, and probably worst, that comes to mind. Is that anything like Farnabian Bullshitivism? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/152 "2017-07-26T01:56:25Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I would suggest that you study and try to adopt **Bricker’s** approach if you truly want intellectual discussion with the opposition, whether in an effort to test your own opinions, gain a new perspective, or learn something you might not have known before. > > Although he can get flustered occasionally and bite back with an insult or two, **Bricker** largely ignores the posters who just want to insult him and instead spends most of his time debating with those posters whose points he feels he can overcome or deflate through the use of logic, or who can cause him either to see the error in his own point of view or that he has made a factual mistake. To his credit, **Bricker** has little qualm about admitting or acknowledging it when either he is shown to be wrong or to have changed his mind on an issue. > > You have to realize that on this board and to most of its posters anyone who is even slightly conservative in their leanings is ipso-facto an asshole. It will profit you little to respond to those posters. You won’t change their minds, and given that they are largely playing to a crowd of supporters, you won’t gain any points even by demonstrating that you’re right or they’re wrong. > > So again, I think **Bricker** has the correct approach for someone like you who is apparently seeking primarily to stretch yourself intellectually and morally rather than to win over the opposition. Just engage with those who seem to be trying to engage you in meaningful debate or discussion, or whose points you feel you can deflate or show to be factually in error, and ignore for the most part those who want to call you names or insult your intelligence or your morals. That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Its almost like you are saying that to be a conservative on this board you have to develop a taste for eating shit. ---
**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:** [July 26, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/153 "2017-07-26T02:49:24Z")
No, he’s saying you have to at least try not to be an asshole if you want to try and actually engage in intellectual discussion with an audience who is hostile to your views. If the audience agrees with you, they may give you a pass for some assholery, but they aren’t going to for the rest. He’s actually not wrong here, except in acting as if **Bricker** does this. **Bricker** gives out the same stuff he gets. He doesn’t ignore people who insult him at all. He deliberately needles them. Maybe **Sam Stone** does this. I have to admit, I don’t remember seeing him engage in any insults. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/154 "2017-07-26T03:16:08Z")
I’ve been here since 2004 and I don’t recall it being much different back then. There were constant threads about Bush, Iraq, and how Republicans were homophobic imperialists who want to eat poor people. The biggest change I’ve noticed is a decrease in board activity, which I chalk up to the decline of general interest message boards. Right-wing Americans politics has grown more venal, more reactionary, and more disconnected from reality, so there’s a target rich environment for liberals to unload their moral outrage. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Is that smile from sense of triumph for having manipulated language in such a manner as to adopt a name and use it in direct contradiction to its original purpose? The original libertarians were left-wing radicals, and are still considered that in most places AFAIK. America is a funny place. Maybe the OP could find a home in a right-libertarian forum, but IME they spend most of their time arguing about what violates the NAP and being called statists by ancaps. The entertainment value peaked back in the Ron Paul days anyway. > [@Chimera](#): > > Well, it is simple, really. If you don’t want to be called Alt-Right, don’t use a term that in my experience, is a 100% accurate marker of being a member of that group. > > Because even if you claim that you are not one, the use of the term makes it clear that you are at very least, part of that mindset and a sympathizer. The alpha capitalists are cucking the beta working class. Sad! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/155 "2017-07-26T03:22:31Z")
Sure, alphas are smart, but they have to work too hard. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/156 "2017-07-30T23:24:38Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > After serious consideration, I have decided to end my time here with the Straight Dope. [For a whole 16 days.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20380246&postcount=21) Longer than I expected. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/157 "2017-07-30T23:44:07Z")
Who won the pool? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/158 "2017-07-30T23:55:28Z")
I had two hours. But I had that in my own pool too, which was sort of cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/159 "2017-07-31T00:28:07Z")
Did we ever even start the pool? I thought he might make it a month. :dubious: > [@Acsenray](#): > > There is nothing intellectually rigorous or intellectually honest about how you conducted yourself in the Sexism thread ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20331329](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20331329)), if that is what this is all about. > > And there is nothing intellectually rigorous and intellectually honest about this OP either. > > **Someone criticized you for a sexist remark, and you went straight to the rails, rending your clothes and crying about the oh so unjust oppression of you.** > > The OP was a mild criticism, and you could have answered it with rational acceptance. Instead, you chose to blow it out of proportion, and threw every reactionary pejorative at the wall you could think of. > > And no matter how many attempts were made to bring you down to actual conversation, an actually honest intellectual engagement, you ignored all of it. > > This thread, if it’s serious at all, represents nothing more than a petulant fingers-in-the-ears nah-nah-nah-I-can’t-hear-you. Even better, he _wasn’t_ one of the posters originally mentioned. **Stringbean** just took it upon himself to join and lose his shit/frikkin’ mind. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286/160 "2017-07-31T01:44:42Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Who won the pool? I think, with his return, we \*all \*lost. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-the-dope/791286.md?page=9)