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I'm mostly a classic liberal person, think founding fathers, enlightenment era. And to be honest, I'm curious about what your definition of conservative is? T
by didibus 6y ago
I'm mostly a classic liberal person, think founding fathers, enlightenment era.
And to be honest, I'm curious about what your definition of conservative is?
To me, there's only two way to define it. Either the old way, where conservative means you are a feudalist, monarchist, theocrat, oligarch, autocrat, statist, fascist, etc. Basically you want to go back to a pre-liberal establishment style of society, and are opposed to a liberal democracy.
In this definition, as you see, all these today are generally known as morally bad. Jew hating tin foil crackpot would fall under here, or any other form of A hates on B, since all prior forms of government are about having a ruling individual or class over others, thus a way for A to rule over B.
So in that definition, being conservative means being against liberal democracy, thus against democracy, reason, liberty and equality.
Or the new way, where conservative means liberal but not progressive. In this sense, you believe and value liberal democracy, thus democracy, reason, liberty and equality, but you are content with the implementation of government that we currently have to drive and uphold those liberal values. Therefore you oppose yourself to progressives who think that we're not doing a good enough job at implementing liberal values, in that you believe it is either too risky to change the current implementation or that the proposed changes would result in a worst realization of liberalism.
As you see, in the second categorization, you're still a liberal, so it doesn't make sense to speak about conservative vs liberal in that second one. And because in the US I see people put liberal and conservative at opposite ends, I tend to assume the first categorization. Which would imply that conservatives, to me, are a huge treat to democracy, reason, liberty and equality.
So I'm genuinely looking for clarity. Is there some miscommunication here? How do you categorize "conservative".
I ask because it is very confusing to me. You speak of nuance, and I want to understand that nuance, so would love an explanation.
- Grustaf 6y agoI think your dichotomy of either you’re a liberal conservative or you’re a fascist illustrates my point pretty well. You simply cannot imagine that someone could be a non-liberal without being evil. By conservative here i meant really anyone who is not 100% onboard with democratic party doctrine, which is enough to be ostracized in SV today.
- didibus 6y agoIt seem you're trying to avoid telling me what you value. If you don't value democracy, reason, liberty and equality, then what do you value? I listed a lot of known alternatives, you could value ultranationalism with strict traditional societal and economic rule like fascists do, or you could value white supremacy and rule over other races like nazis, or you could value biblical rule of Christian interpretation like theocrats, etc. Now you seem to say, no it's none of the many alternatives I listed, okay, but what is it? And yes, I actually can't imagine what else you could be than one of the many non-liberal alternative I listed. > You simply cannot imagine that someone could be a non-liberal without being evil That's because it is hard for me to think that someone who doesn't value democracy, doesn't value reason, doesn't value liberty, doesn't value equality, will be willing to accept that I live my life as I please, with a fair chance at opportunity, riches, power, and happyness. So it seems anyone without those value will be trying to have authority and rule over me one way or another, and not with my best interest at heart. It seems natural to consider evil someone whose likely to do you wrong. > By conservative here i meant really anyone who is not 100% onboard with democratic party doctrine, which is enough to be ostracized in SV today So by conservative, you mean a republican voter? Why not say republican party voter or something super clear and unambiguous then? Why does the article say "conservative" ? Is it not because republican are conservative? And now I'm back at my original confusion, what kind of conservative is the republican party? Liberal conservative? Or anti-liberal? I find the narrative against liberalism dangerous. Liberalism is what the western democracies, including the US are based on, and it's what made them prosper and a great place to live. So am I suppose to believe there is a strong anti-liberal movement in the US? Pushing for a return to nazism, facism, monarchies, theocracies, oligarchies, feudalism, etc. ? If not, it only takes people to say, hey woa, hold on, you got.it all wrong, we're full on liberal, just conservative as in my second definition above. But the fact that even when I ask people don't say that, but seem to circle around and evade the question, makes me feel it might be the former.
- Grustaf 6y agoWhat I personally am is not really relevant. The point is that liberals like you are like a religious cult. People who don’t agree with you are not just of a different opinion, they are lesser people. Wrong and evil. You illustrate this again and again. It makes sense that you want to exclude them from social media and public discourse in general, since they don’t have the one true faith.