# Thinking Like a Conservative **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338 "2015-01-30T16:37:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/81 "2015-02-02T05:45:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (Did you mean to say “conservative speakers”? I’ve heard of them being protested but not of them requiring additional security.) [Pat Buchanan and William Kristol have both been physically assaulted](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7356248/ns/politics/t/pat-salad-buchanan-gets-doused-dressing/#.VM8NBHYvZV8) by left-wing activists while speaking at college campuses. And recently a professor who teaches “black cultural studies, pornography, and sex work” at UC Santa Barbara was [arrested for battery](http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2014/03/17/not-news-ucsb-prof-charged-destroying-pro-life-sign-unrepentant) after assaulting an anti-abortion activist. So yeah, if liberals are in favor of free speech and open exchange of ideas, some of them have an odd way of showing it. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/82 "2015-02-02T05:48:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 > Nobody writes for _The Nation_ for the money. True, but only a complete moron would think The Nation is a remotely reliable source as opposed to a partisan source that tells those on the left what they want to hear. Praising the Nation would be like suggesting that anti-intellectual piece of crap known as wikipedia is objective and useful for something other than wiping your ass if you’re out of toilet paper, wouldn’t you agree? I ask, because most intellectuals and journalists ridicule losers and morons who think Wikipedia is anything other than a testament to how the internet allows the great unwashed who are so ignorant as to think they know enough to challenge the educated and pretend they actually have some idea what they’re talking about. If I’m wrong I apologize and perhaps you could explain why we shouldn’t write off the anti-intellectuals as the backwards proles they come across as. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/83 "2015-02-02T06:54:25Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I’m going to open a big bottle of “Cite?” and wait for you to pour even a shot. > > I’ll state it directly: The concept of “Divine right of kings” played no discernable importance in the American Revoluitions or, foe that matter, the Independence of the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Well I guess nobody expected the Spanish inquisition in America! [THE MEXICAN INQUISITION AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT 1763-1805](https://ejournals.unm.edu/index.php/nmhr/article/viewFile/2440/2138) By [RICHARD E. GREENLE](http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2012/in-memoriam-richard-e-greenleaf) > [@](#): > > THE AGE OF SCIENCE and the Age of Reason in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe had powerful reverberations in the new world colonies of Spain. > > The attack on Scholasticism and the campaign against divine right kingship represented a joint political religious venture all the more significant because the papacy was also a divine right institution. > > Regalist prelates came to dominate the Church in Spain and Spanish America, and they were just as combative in their efforts to quell the new exponents of natural laws of politics and economics as were the Spanish monarchs. > > The environmentalism of Montesquieu and Rousseau was as much a > challenge to Spanish rule in America as were the doctrines of empiricism and methodical doubt to the supremacy of the Roman Catholic faith and dogmas. In that article and elsewhere it is clear that opposition to enlightened ideas like that one was also one of the reasons why the Inquisition tried and executed the early revolutionaries like Hidalgo and the Inquisition in Mexico ended when independence was obtained from Spain. They were not only political revels, but considered heretics for opposing the rule of the king. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/84 "2015-02-02T07:12:16Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I’m going to open a big bottle of “Cite?” and wait for you to pour even a shot. . . . A quick Google search points out that The Federalist Papers contained an exploration of “Natural Rights” vs. “Divine Rights of Kings.” Certainly, “Divine Right” was less favored by the 1750s than it had been in, say, the English Civil War, but it was far from extinct. There were preachers who decried the American Revolution as an act of Biblical Rebellion. [(What’s vaguely funny is that there are people today who claim this!)](http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=24548) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/85 "2015-02-02T07:15:03Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > . . . Praising the Nation would be like suggesting that anti-intellectual piece of crap known as wikipedia is objective and useful for something other than wiping your ass if you’re out of toilet paper, wouldn’t you agree? . . . I’m bogged down in the twists of the irony here, and may be getting whooshed, but is your view of Wikipedia actually that low? I’ve never heard it excoriated anywhere nearly so bitterly. Most people find it a pretty decent first looking-place, a kind of universal index, and a right fine launching point for deeper research. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/86 "2015-02-02T07:17:32Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > True, but only a complete moron would think The Nation is a remotely reliable source as opposed to a partisan source that tells those on the left what they want to hear. > > Praising the Nation would be like suggesting that anti-intellectual piece of crap known as wikipedia is objective and useful for something other than wiping your ass if you’re out of toilet paper, wouldn’t you agree? Since Wikipedia is only in the Internet that feat would be impressive. 🙂 As I have seen in academia even citing the Encyclopedia Britannica is not good enough, one has to investigate further than just a quote from any Encyclopedia. And Wikipedia is useful only by realizing that and checking the sources of the articles. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > If I’m wrong I apologize and perhaps you could explain why we shouldn’t write off the anti-intellectuals as the backwards proles they come across as. > > Thanks Well, since you are wrong about the capabilities of wikipedia as toilet paper I could say that you are also not quite correct about The Nation, but I can say that how dismissive one can be regarding a publication like The Nation also depends on the content and then on who is the maker of the article being cited and then the publication. I explain that because that dismissal sounds a lot like the fallacy of “killing the messenger” ---
**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:** [February 2, 2015, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/87 "2015-02-02T08:16:36Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The conservative view was to maintain the established order, and to legitimize the government as it stood, cleaving to the King, in large part due to religious beliefs about the Divine Right of the monarchy to rule. The liberal (perhaps radical) idea was to throw over the old order, reject British authority entirely, and take up a new government, one that was self-determined and not based on a religious outlook. > > Remember that this same dichotomy, in the French Revolution, is where the terms “left” and “right” came from in the first place. The right supported the king, and the left didn’t, so much, based on where the factions sat in the meeting hall. > > The relationship to modern terms is still pretty close. That’s the one I thought you might have meant. But, under that paradigm, the Confederacy was liberal and the Union conservative, as it was the Union that wanted to maintain the status quo of a single nation. If the South had won, it would have been the Confederate Revolution. How liberal is it to say that states have no right to leave the union? And no fair conveniently changing the metric as you go, because then it become cherry picking. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2015, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/88 "2015-02-02T08:23:24Z")
As for my opinion on this: as far as it is true, it is true because the conservative parts of our country are also the least diverse, and so conservatives in those areas are exposed less to alternative ideas. But this only works in the aspects where there is actual diversity. You may have cultural diversity, but, if everyone has taken liberal ideas to be true, then conservative ideas are going to seem obviously false to you. So the only place where this is specific to conservatives is with regards to the way people in other cultures think. A liberal who has lived amongst liberals will find it easier to think the way, say, a Hindu person thinks, but not find it easier to think the way a conservative thinks. The liberals on this board have as hard a time with conservatives as the conservatives around here have with liberals. And I know that I am an example of someone who grew up with some conservative and some liberal values, and I thought both were self evident. I still run into a lot of things I think everyone believes and find people acting like I’m dictating from on high some arbitrary preference. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/89 "2015-02-02T14:41:33Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That’s the one I thought you might have meant. But, under that paradigm, the Confederacy was liberal and the Union conservative, as it was the Union that wanted to maintain the status quo of a single nation. If the South had won, it would have been the Confederate Revolution. That does not work, part of that paradigm was about being self-determined \*\*and not based on a religious outlook. \*\* What the Confederacy was going on was to what amounted to being reactionary to change, to ensure many had no freedom, and it had also a religious reason for continuing slavery. (The Union could be said had religious reasons too, but like the passages about the divine right of kings that view required from many in the Union to forget about even more rules from the old good book) > [@BigT](#): > > How liberal is it to say that states have no right to leave the union? Again, one has to say: To have rights for what? ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/90 "2015-02-02T14:43:08Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > A quick Google search points out that The Federalist Papers contained an exploration of “Natural Rights” vs. “Divine Rights of Kings.” > > Certainly, “Divine Right” was less favored by the 1750s than it had been in, say, the English Civil War, but it was far from extinct. There were preachers who decried the American Revolution as an act of Biblical Rebellion. > > [(What’s vaguely funny is that there are people today who claim this!)](http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=24548) Which of the Federalist papers contains an exploration of Natural Rights ve Divine Rights? Even if there is such an exploration, the FP happened AFTER the Independence so my phrase still stands. The Glorious Revolution ended the concept of Divine Right of Kings in England/GB/UK. DRoK did not have ANY relevance in the American Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/91 "2015-02-02T15:08:30Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > A quick Google search points out that The Federalist Papers contained an exploration of “Natural Rights” vs. “Divine Rights of Kings.” > > Certainly, “Divine Right” was less favored by the 1750s than it had been in, say, the English Civil War, but it was far from extinct. There were preachers who decried the American Revolution as an act of Biblical Rebellion. > > [(What’s vaguely funny is that there are people today who claim this!)](http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=24548) And they’re not even British! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/92 "2015-02-02T15:10:45Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > True, but only a complete moron would think The Nation is a remotely reliable source as opposed to a partisan source that tells those on the left what they want to hear. Those are not mutually exclusive. If I look at the _National Review_ I will probably disagree with most of what I read, but I will not assume all assertions of fact are made up. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Praising the Nation would be like suggesting that anti-intellectual piece of crap known as wikipedia . . . :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/93 "2015-02-02T15:13:53Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Can you name some conservative boards that ban liberals? I honestly don’t know of any. Free Republic, the Hannity forums, and the /r/conservatives subreddit. I was banned from the Hannity forums for being a sock (which was amusing, since I’d never been there before, it was just a convenient way to get rid of anyone who argued with the residents), and I was banned from the conservatives subreddit _without ever actually posting in it_- they banned me based on my posts elsewhere in Reddit. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/94 "2015-02-02T15:16:29Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Which of the Federalist papers contains an exploration of Natural Rights ve Divine Rights? > Even if there is such an exploration, the FP happened AFTER the Independence so my phrase still stands. > > The Glorious Revolution ended the concept of Divine Right of Kings in England/GB/UK. > DRoK did not have ANY relevance in the American Revolution. That was mostly for England, and like empires then they continued to support those ideas in other countries but not on theirs, that idea was still going strong in other nations until the American and French revolutions killed it for good. [https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Divine\_Right\_of\_Kings.html](https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Divine_Right_of_Kings.html) > [@](#): > > The theory of divine right was abandoned in England during the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89. The American and French revolutions of the late eighteenth century further weakened the theory’s appeal, and by the early twentieth century, it had been virtually abandoned. > **[Divine right of kings | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/topic/divine-right-of-kings)** > > Divine right of kings, in European history, a political doctrine in defense of monarchical absolutism, which asserted that kings derived their authority from God and could not therefore be held accountable for their actions by any earthly authority... > [@](#): > > King James I of England (reigned 1603–25) was the foremost exponent of the divine right of kings, but the doctrine virtually disappeared from English politics after the Glorious Revolution (1688–89). In the late 17th and the 18th centuries, kings such as Louis XIV (1643–1715) of France continued to profit from the divine-right theory, even though many of them no longer had any truly religious belief in it. The American Revolution (1775–83), the French Revolution (1789), and the Napoleonic wars deprived the doctrine of most of its remaining credibility. And that is also a reason why where wrong on that idea of the divine right of kings not being a factor in the Americas, in other nations the divine right of kings was still going strong in the Americas. When Napoleon deposed the king of Spain the ideas of the enlightenment via Jefferson got a big boost. Why would humans follow a king that god refused to defend? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/95 "2015-02-02T15:25:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > This explains a **lot** about how RW Americans and the rest just seem to talk past each other in different languages. > …snip… No, it doesn’t. This one statement from that quote shows that it is total bullshit. \*\* > [@](#): > > A genuine right-winger will be so lacking in intellectual imagination—in cognitive empathy—that imagining how anyone could sincerely reason differently from them is virtually impossible. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/96 "2015-02-02T15:41:28Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > No, it doesn’t. > > This one statement from that quote shows that it is total bullshit. > > * * * **Clothahump,** you personally have consistently demonstrated the truth of that sentence in every single post of yours that I have ever seen. No Doper can match you in epistemic closure. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/97 "2015-02-02T16:54:07Z")
_ **People who disagree with me are stubborn and won’t listen** _ - that often gives the listener the impression that the \*speaker \*himself is stubborn and won’t listen. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/98 "2015-02-02T17:41:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **Clothahump,** you personally have consistently demonstrated the truth of that sentence in every single post of yours that I have ever seen. No Doper can match you in epistemic closure. You know direct personal attacks aren’t allowed, BrainGlutton. Warning issued. Control yourself. In fact, let’s just make sure this applies to everyone in this thread. Let’s keep the personal shots out of the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/99 "2015-02-02T18:03:08Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > You know direct personal attacks aren’t allowed, BrainGlutton. > > Warning issued. Control yourself. > > In fact, let’s just make sure this applies to everyone in this thread. Let’s keep the personal shots out of the discussion. Wait a moment now, I protest. I thought hard about that one in light of the rules before posting it, and all I’m attacking is **Clothahump’s** posting style/history – isn’t that all fair game in GD? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/100 "2015-02-03T01:06:41Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Some have argued that the American Revolution was the “most conservative revolution in history” because, despite splitting off from the mother country, the system set up in the aftermath was based almost entirely on the political tradition of the mother country. The political tradition of Great Britain is responsible parliamentary government. Thus when Washington triumphed at Yorktown, Lord North’s government fell. The US by contrast, with its presidential system and separation of powers, is almost the opposite of responsible government. If there is a recession next year, it will be impossible to know, with any objectively, who should resign, and there will be no new elections. The American Revolution was conservative because it opposed a broad franchise and defended the interests of the non-Tory rich. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338.md?page=6)