Greg Tito said:
...Conservatives and hate-mongerers...
TheAceTheOne said:
I dislike the bias against conservatives there.
This is one topic about which I am personally too bitter, considering
liberal is regarded so derisive that contemporary Democrats prefer the word
Progressive, which really refers to less-extremist (that is, moderate) Republicans. This generation gladly accepts the derision of
liberals and
liberalism, yet is angered by
conservatism being criticized for how they're represented in the (conservative) media?
Let us see. Conservatives stereotypically:
~ Want to breach the wall of separation, introducing specifically Christian values into legislation and policy and public departments, such as schools. They often insist America was founded on
Christian values, pointing to theism, and then insisting freedom of religion only refers to Judeo-Christian faiths.
~ Want to further reduce the rights and equality of women, especially regarding control of their role in reproduction. Conservatives deride women who seek abortions for unwanted pregnancies, yet also seek to cut access to birth control and assistance or benefits for single mothers, insisting that it was (generally, i.e.
always) the woman's fault for getting knocked up in the first place. (Implying, also, that parenting is a punishment for the sin of sex.)
~ Want to restore racial segregation, since people of color in their communities offend them, especially when they appear en mass at their country clubs as members (rather than polite, uniformed employees).
~ Want to regulate sex, since the idea of people having sex outside of wedlock offends their delicate sensibilities.
~ Don't like fringe groups, whether or not they do actual harm to the community at large, such as Gays, gamers, Goths, atheists, rockers, Neopagans, fringe Christian denominations, rare ethnic groups, fans of questionable fiction and the disabled. And seek to deny these fringe groups rights equal to those enjoyed by the mainstream.
~ Believe that the bullying and harassment of such fringe groups,
including children, is acceptable and should be encouraged.
~ Want to surpress scientific knowledge when in confict with specific religious scriptures (namely the Old and New testaments) in cases when a conclusion is offensive (e.g. that frequent incidents of homosexual behavior
is, in fact,
naturally found throughout observable zoology).
~ Believe in foreign policy that includes bullying other nations for their natural resources (specifically, oil), and that American interests and ideological concerns should supercede just war policy.
~ Believe war crimes are acceptable when committed by American forces on inconsequential peoples, or civilians associated with the enemy (e.g. the looting and rapine of terrorist families).
~ Believe in torture of suspected terrorists without due process.
~ Believe that it is acceptable for extraordinary rendition to claim the occasional innocent victim if, occasionally, useful intelligence saves lives somewhere else. (Statistics are unavailable regarding either, let alone a ratio of the two figures.)
~ Believe in denying assistance to the destitute, disabled, the out-of-work and the oppressed. Assistance that the Geneva Convention states are human rights due every man, woman and child on Earth.
~ Believe in
trickle-down theory and
faith based initiatives as a means to benefit the impoverished, regardless of the actual returns of either policy, id est, how much really
trickles to those at the bottom (in contrast to what is hoarded at the top).
So,
TheAceTheOne, I'd say, if you, as a conservative, agree with
any one of the above positions, then you
deserve to be derided and associated with hate-mongering, and if you don't believe in any of them, then you may not be conservative enough to deserve the label.
To give you the benefit of the doubt, if you don't agree with any of the above positions, then I'm curious what you
do believe, that would cause you to identify yourself as conservative. While many people are philosophically conservative [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservativism], this is often contrary to the platforms of local conservative parties.
In the meantime, when Fox News conservatives stop being douchebags, and when I can be liberal without being thought of as an alfalfa-sprout-eating pot-smoking welfare-abusing America-hating communist hippie[footnote]Actually, I'm a
raging liberal in this era only because my representatives shifted to the right of me. I was moderate-conservative in the early '90s. I was for gay marriage before it was trendy (because it is fair and right) and am also for fair gun ownership. But it also sickens me how much my peers and I have to USCCB [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(sociology)] as unquestioning minions of the Holy See). This is the case despite that the majority of Christians and Christian denominations are actually moderate-to-liberal, and usually able to be polite in an online forum. The trend towards these negative stereotypes has been occasionally voiced before, but little has been done to affect change.[/footnote]
238U
