There have been quite a few discussions about how modern liberalism and conservatism doesn’t resemble what “true” liberalism or conservatism is. And in fact, the Horseshoe Theory says that the far-right and far-left look increasingly *similar *the more extreme they get, rather than being opposites.
So - what would “true” liberalism or conservatism be?
[ul]
[li]Conservatism should probably oppose the $600 billion defense budgets (near $1 trillion, if other indirect spending is included) on grounds of fiscal restraint. Over the past few decades, the neocons have also transformed conservatism into being more interventionist, like the sort of humanitarian interventionism of liberals in Bosnia, Kosovo, etc. in the 1990s.[/li][li]For that matter, it shouldn’t be liberal to support high defense spending either, yet the Obama administration had some of the largest defense budgets in American history, and Hillary Clinton, if elected, would have probably been a hawk as well.[/li][li]Liberalism should not be trying to curtail free speech or academic freedom; if anything, free speech should be considered a liberal thing. (Examples: Harvard Crimson article calling for an end to academic freedom; tagline: “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice,” or the protesters who tried to shut down a message that says “the right to openly discuss ideas must be defended.”) [/li][li]There is a legit argument to be made that conservatives ought to support higher taxation of the wealthy, in order to balance the budget better - assuming that higher taxation of the wealthy does that.[/li][li]Some liberals have advocated curtailing pornography (even though it is legal, consensually-manufactured porn) - (Economist article: Why Does Liberal Iceland Want to Ban Online Pornography?) In other ways, liberalism has also become more sexually restrictive than before. [/li][li]There was nothing conservative about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the spending of trillions of dollars on Iraq, or of the George W. Bush administration’s high deficit spending. For that matter, Ronald Reagan also ran up the national debt.[/li][li]Liberalism - at least in the classical sense - should oppose segregation - but the call by some Evergreen State students demanding that white people leave campus for a day is just that, enforced racial segregation. Same for the UC-Berkley protesters who tried to block the path of white people. [/li][li] The kerfuffle over “cultural appropriation” also has the effect of delineating America into separate “This is mine, that is yours” cultural lines and borders, rather than blending society together as a melting pot.[/li][li]The notion that “feelings are more important than facts” or that truth is what we want it to be or make it out to be, should not have a basis in liberalism or conservatism, yet both sides have strayed into fake-news territory or truth-denial territory of late.[/li][li]It should not be liberal to support people like Fidel Castro or Che Guevara, or Communist governments, and yet some liberals support just that. Likewise, the conservative movement has gone from being staunchly anti-Soviet/anti-Russian (the Reagan/Cold War days) to now having some conservatives who are strangely OK or comfortable with KGB Putin or Russia’s antics.[/li][li]It shouldn’t be conservative in the old sense to endorse someone like Trump for the presidency (and indeed quite a few conservatives do oppose Trump.) That topic could have its own thread entirely.[/li][/ul]
What else? Some people have argued that it should be conservative to *welcome *illegal immigrants, and I think there is a convincing case for that, although I’m nowhere articulate enough to make that case.
ITSM that school lunch nutrition standards would be a conservative thing- healthy living and all that. But no, conservatives seem to be against them, or at least Michelle Obama’s version. From here
OTOH, if this turns out to be an example of librul tears, well conservatives seem to be pretty motivated by that.
Also, I have never understood why arugula and lattes are “liberal food”. It seems like bankers and business guys would like a latte, and I can totally picture any farmer having some arugula around somewhere- it just doesn’t make sense to me.
What are the definitions of liberal and conservative when applied in an ideal world vs applied to the real world? I think these terms are umbrellas for a wide range of people which explains the contradictory views.
Liberals may mean social libertarians, but it may also mean the authoritarian left who want to shout down anyone who disagrees with them, ban pornography, etc.
Conservative could mean libertarians or it could be mean neocons, the religious right, protofascists, etc. and they do not act the same.
In theory, UHC with a strong role for the government is a very conservative idea. UHC with the government in control is much cheaper than what we have now in the US, and it would save a ton of money.
Trump ran on opposing free trade, which isn’t exactly a conservative perspective.
This, IMHO, is the key to winning over conservatives on UHC - emphasize the cost savings.
Liberals have been emphasizing the human-suffering message in trying to win over the right, which isn’t how many conservatives “tick.” Emphasize instead how it is more efficient, benefits the economy, makes America stronger, saves taxpayers money, etc.
by the original definition of liberal and conservative, everyone in the United States is a liberal. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant of what liberalism refers to.
these days, at least since the Age of Reagan, liberalism has been defined primarily, as being “anything that opponents pretend it is that is bad.”
AMERICAN liberalism and AMERICAN conservatism are both offshoots of the original LIBERAL movements that started in Europe.
It is very common for excited people who think freedom is wonderful, to decide in relatively short order, that the only way to DEFEND freedom, is to end it completely. That has happened over and over again throughout recorded history, so it is probably a human trait, entirely unrelated to liberalism or conservatism.
Which is why one of the first things that happen after a succesful revolution, is that a law is passed declaring that any further resistance is a crime.
Letting illegal immigrants stay because they do horrible jobs for low pay. That’s incredibly abusive and hipocritic from the party fighting for 15 dollar minimum wage.
Yeah but are modern conservatives motivated by a desire to save money? It seems their motivation is more to shrink government and cut safety net programs, and expanding health care would do the opposite. Even their talk of ‘saving money’ is usually just an attempt to shrink government so they can drown it in a bathtub.
I do wonder if conservatives would be more open to a system like the Netherlands, but I doubt that too. The Netherlands has Obamacare on steroids. A bunch of private insurance companies compete to win over customers on exchanges. They have more role for government in assisting people with fees as well as regulating things, so I doubt it.
I don’t know how to win many conservatives over to health care. If health care can’t be improved via deregulation and cutting government’s role, many of them don’t seem interested.
I don’t think there are any realistic paths towards higher quality, cheaper health care that are based on anti-statism. If someone has created some, please let me know.
Gun control is very illiberal, especially in the classic sense.
Conservative and conservation share the same root, but you’d be fooled by some politicians.
Prohibition is a result of both proto-feminist left and conservative Protestants agreeing on something.
I’m not even sure how to characterize the current US executive branch. Not very conservative in some ways, very much so in others. It’s very classically illiberal.
Both have issues with science. Both spend like drunken sailors.
As a Liberal FDR Democrat, I really think we Democrats should drop gun control. It’s a losing issue. Think of how many single issue voters we’ve lost over this issue. The laws we have on the books now are fine. We don’t have a “gun” problem in our society; we havea slew of problems including mental health, drug addiction, poverty and lack of economic mobility along with terrorism. Look at the past, when gun controls were more lax - you didn’t see quite so many gun incidents. Guns are not the problem, there are underlying problems in society that cause individuals to pick up a gun - that’s what needs to be addressed.
The more we push for gun control, the more voters we’ll lose; the more we look like a party who wants to take away people’s freedoms rather than help them.
Democrats have too often - since the 1960s - focused on the results of our social problems, rather than addressing those problems themselves. Instead of say banning soda, let’s make physical education more of a priority in schools and promote healthy living in society. Instead of pontificating about climate change, let’s find things in common with conservatives on the environment. Everyone loves a bit of nature, don’t they?
That’s the problem we Liberals, we Democrats face. We began to believe that because our solutions worked, we were right about everything. We began to believe that we could simply solve problems with the stroke of a pen - banning this, outlawing that - rather than actually tackling and addressing the issues in a national conversation.
I’m afraid “liberal” and “conservative” don’t mean anything at this point. They’re just tribal markers. You may as well argue what the political significance of “Walloon” and “Fleming” should be.
The conservative movement has more “Us’ns” registered to vote than the progressive movement, and they by and large aren’t convertin’ to become “Them’ns.” Hillary and Bill made this worse by locking up lots of poor (especially chicano & black) people, in the hilariously mistaken belief that undercutting the Democratic Party base would aid their joint political career. Since the Democrats are locked out of power now, we can’t actually disenfranchise conservatives, but they can disenfranchise us just fast enough to always stay ahead. At this point competing effectively would seem to involve making lots of progressive babies and protecting them. I’m sure that will work just fine, and we won’t be treated like “cockroaches.” :rolleyes:
As for philosophy: The conservatives follow their opinion leaders, who are generally selected & manipulated by crankish billionaires like (but not limited to) Charles Koch. The only philosophical consistency is to suck up to Charles Koch and Sheldon Adelson so you don’t get declared a RINO and lose your job to another suck-up. The progressives are…a less coherent bunch; but of course the conservatives think we’re actually in lockstep with the “would-be anti-Christ” George Soros, because that’s what somebody (Koch?) wants you to think. So in general it’s really just the leaders’ pet ideas, I guess.
I used to think this. But I’ve been seeing anti-liberals insist that they hate liberalism and don’t want to live in a democracy long enough that I think they mean it now.
(To the degree that they even know what they’re saying.)
[li]There was nothing conservative about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the spending of trillions of dollars on Iraq, or of the George W. Bush administration’s high deficit spending. For that matter, Ronald Reagan also ran up the national debt.[/li][/QUOTE]
Au contraire. The invasion of Iraq was hardcore conservatism in action. Conservatives love to think they emulate Theodore Roosevelt by acting all tough, and failing to really emulate TR because they think being strong means macho swagger, speaking loudly while swinging a big dick. The invasion of Iraq was planned and executed from the mentality expressed by one of W. Bush’s neoconservative advisers: “Every few years we should grab a small crappy country and throw it against the wall just to show everybody we mean business.”
In Islam is a saying attributed to either Muhammad or ‘Ali (I forget which):
“A strong man isn’t one who beats people up. A true strong man restrains his anger.”
King Crimson sang: “The fate of all mankind I see is in the hands of fools.”
Not quite fair. Though upper class liberals profit from cheap immigrant labor in a manner similar to their conservative counterparts, a benefit that’s probably perceived to be at least as important as low-cost nannies, gardeners and hotel/restaurant help is harvesting immigrant votes for Democratic candidates.
When I was much younger, the story told by most politicians was that the Liberals had taken us into a long drawn out war in Vietnam for the sake of making America the policemen of the world; and that the conservatives went along as a part of their rabid opposition to anything related to Communism.
Conservatives led by Nixon took us back out of that mess, but then Nixon screwed the pooch, and made them look bad, until Reagan came in and rescued everyone by running the deficits through the roof, as Conservatives always wanted to do (?).
That all reversed during the Clinton transition period, and now it is the Right (who claims to be conservative) who want us to go to war in Syria, and stay in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh, and in ages past, conservatives recognized that people like Putin were dangerous. Now they seem to think Putin is smarter and better than anyone in the US, and that we should follow his lead in all things.
Of course, that may have just been a lie that they were trying to promote to taunt Obama, and it got out of hand, and now they have to pretend that Trump believes it for reasons other than gullibility.
Liberals and conservatives aren’t that far apart. If you’re clever enough, you can come up with all sorts of arguments why this or that political faction should or shouldn’t support something, which is why they all break down into even smaller factions who squabble with each other.
Horseshoe theory is less an academic subject and more an internet meme about fascists and communists being the same and how pragmatic the speaker is for staking out the moderate liberal center.
True conservatives want to restore the House of Bourbon. Maistre is rolling over in his grave. (maybe I have to say this is a joke, since neo-monarchists are a thing)
The melting pot is a nationalist idea that stresses conformity, tradition, and order. The salad bowl is the lefty food metaphor for immigration.
Liberals hate communists, which is why they tried to stop them with assassinations, CIA backed revolutions, and huge wars. Liberals hate commies so much they risked nuclear annihilation.
Russia isn’t communist anymore.
Conservatives generally want to preserve traditional culture and institutions. One can construct scenarios where immigrants help or hurt the cause. I’ve seen some American conservatives argue Hispanics will identify as white when they get rich and will help them crush liberalism. But if you think racial identity is important or that Catholics are fake Christians that won’t fly so well.
This reminds me a lot of an excellent article by Scott Alexander. Bit of a long read, but absolutely worth your time. One of the key points therein is that in the USA, there are basically two “tribes”, the red tribe and the blue tribe, and that there is a lot of signaling that belongs to that specific tribe without actually having anything to do with a coherent political philosophy. Forget abstracts of political philosophy - even things like entertainment and food are coded “conservative” or “liberal” - or, rather, “red tribe” or “blue tribe” - and this helps self-segregate people into bubbles of like-minded people that very rarely actually interact.
(Another key point being that for most of us, the actual “outgroup” is not ISIS, or terrorists, but rather the other “tribe”. That those we truly hate aren’t the people far away who want us dead, but the people right here who are a lot like us but in the wrong tribe.)