"If one of my deranged, homicidal followers listens to my insane drivel and murders someone at my insistence, that ain't on me."
Funny events in anti-woke world
- Thread starter Agema
- Start date
Well, I'd actually say that Conservatives are very good at losing and then pretending they were on the winning side all along. See US slavery or Revolutionary War as a really good example of this
My instinct, on looking at that cod-legal gibberish, is to think this is Freemen-on-the-land (hyphens actually appropriate) territory.
Conservatism is in large part belief in the status quo, thus tends to be the ideology of those that benefit most from society as it currently is.
In a successful revolution, the conservatives of that time have lost. But a revolution merely creates a new set of societal beneficiaries, and the conservatives of the future are their descendants because they will defend the advantages that they have received.
The US war of independence by and large maintained the same set of societal beneficiaries, just to some extent delinking with the British Empire. The US civil war also by and large maintained the same set of societal beneficiaries but with some changes in the details of how the economy was organized to benefit them. Were slave plantations suddenly ruined by emancipation? No, they still had the means of agricultural production at their disposal and much of the same workforce. Details of how that workforce was to be maintained altered a bit.
I wouldn't disagree. A lot of revolutions are more realistically conflicts between two groups of elites, or between the elites and the almost-elites. The English Civil War, for instance, was in large part just about the division of power between the king and the lower nobility.
Conservatism is, by it's nature, standing by the concepts that have won up to the current moment. If you think a conservative is supporting the losers, you've either misidentified them as conservative or misunderstood which people and ideas actually lost.
Someone who promotes the Confederacy is not actually conservative, at least not on that issue.
No, they stand by concept that have won PREVIOUS moments in history. That can be mutual exclusive from the present ones. Quite often actually. See Regan or Trump for great examples of this.
Do you remember my prime minister that brought in some coal to our parliament to scare the 'libs? Who is now proposing to do a net zero carbon emission by 2050. So, he's now going from loser side to winner... probably 5 to 10 years too late. But that's not my problem. While slow to learn, he has shown an ability to learn which is more than I can say for most prime minister. I can foresee in the future how this will be sold as ScoMo ALWAYS being on the winning side. Because that's how this always works. And they will probably whitewash everything, and pretend they did nothing wrong. See how you have whitewashed Atwater. When, in 20 years, there is a better technology than windmills/ solar panels, they use our current present moment ideology/ policies to bludgeon those in the future that wish to adapt. And we can start the process all over again.
Yes and no. Conservatism does also tend to represent the status quo as was, because not all conservatives move on when the rest of society does - in that sense, it does represent the losers.
So why are they the ones so eager to celebrate the Confederacy to the point of waving the stars and bars during Jan.6?
Because those aren't actually conservatives. Like, Mike Pence is pretty conservative, and on January 6th, he followed the rule of law to the letter without protest.
I think it's best we understand where the people flying the confederate flag are coming from. They see themselves as rebels against the system. They want to be cool lawbreaking types like the Dukes of Hazard, because that's what that flag is: the original run of Dukes of Hazard lasted longer than the actual Confederacy did. If you consider yourself a rebel against the system, you're not a conservative. I will concede, they more often identify with Republicans (though many of them take the same "both parties are bad" stance that the extreme left tends to), but being a Republican does not make you conservative any more than being a Democrat makes you progressive. Many of these people are borderline anarchists, who's only association with the Republican Party is the side of the Federalist vs Anti-Federalist fight that's been going on for the entire history of America.
I won't say there is no reachback towards the past, as deference to what works in the present requires a policy be in place long enough to demonstrate its worth, but someone who rejects the established norm in favor of a forgotten tradition isn't conservative, they're traditionalist. Like, calling for a return to the gold standard is no longer a conservative position. That is an extreme position.
No. Nonono. No. I do not whitewash Atwater. If anything, everyone else whitewashes Atwater. Lee Atwater was a sleazeball, who was uniquely willing to demonize his less popular predecessors in order to try and distance himself and the candidates he supported from them. Everybody else treats him as some uniquely honest truthteller, as though a single interview from a man who was a child during the 60s is a rubber stamped confession of guilt from the Republican Party over the Southern Strategy. He claimed that Republicans had used racism as a campaign tactic in the past only to support his claim that the south stopped being racist in the 80s, and you frankly should not take the man seriously about any of it.
I know what you mean to say is that it will be sold as him always being on the side of not zero carbon emissions, but you sort of accidentally found the truth: he's always on the winning side, and when the winning position changed, he moved with it.
Like most ideologies conservatism is a pretty broad church, and what you would call "traditionalism" is a subset of it, not a different ideology.
That said, I agree that the gold standard doesn't meaningfully qualify as conservatism or traditionalism (any more). It's just a bad idea. However, that said, it does have a significant presence in US conservative circles, but in large part because they see fiat money can create "stealth taxation" and that the gold standard can impede government spending.
If you are arguing that that's what Conservatism is, then Conservatism isn't an ideology
Like, imagine that order standing in any other context and it's horrifying. Like, "postal workers advocating for better working conditions is against state interests so they can't", "teachers not wanting asbestos in the ceilings is against state interests so fuck'em", "soldiers complaining about toxic water on base is against the state's interest..."
The idea that every single professor in a public university - this enormous pool of expertise - can effectively be barred from providing expert witness testimony in cases where their testimony might go against the state is genuinely appalling.
When I think about what the erosion of academic freedoms is, this is the really big stuff.
I thought CRT and trans people were the big stuff when it came to the erosion of academic freedoms.
