4 ms·

The funny thing is, that the GOP is not "conservative," in any way, whatsoever. They are extreme. The definition of "conservative" means "not-extreme." It is n

The funny thing is, that the GOP is not "conservative," in any way, whatsoever. They are extreme. The definition of "conservative" means "not-extreme." It is not just "not-liberal." It means being thoughtful, cautious, sticking with the mainstream, learning from the past, not discarding learned wisdom, etc. Things like anti-abortion, hate-brown-people, put-women-back-in-the-kitchen-or-the-bedroom etc. stuff is often described as "conservative," because so much old culture had it, but these days, they are no longer "mainstream" principles. I tend to be somewhat "centrist." Some of my own personal values could be construed as "conservative" (like personal Discipline and Integrity, insisting on writing very good-Quality code, or not spending money that I don't have), but I also have values that lean left (like an expansive worldview, not insisting on taking away the Agency of others, etc.). The wrecking ball that DOGE is running through our government, right now, is not "conservative," at all.

santoshalper 2y ago
You should disabuse yourself of the notion that concepts like personal discipline, contentiousness, and integrity are somehow "conservative" values. They are not in either sense of the word conservative. Certainly from a political standpoint, republicans (or their equivalent in other nations) have often used these concepts against women, minorities, and the mentally ill as a means of shirking their obligation to help their fellow human. In my observation, they never make much of an attempt to live up to them in their own lives. (e.g. YOU are a welfare queen, but I am an entrepreneur who needed to take a government bailout). On the other hand, if "conservative" means "old-fashioned" to you, then there is also no reason to believe that the people before us were morally superior to us today. My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  > My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite. Hey, if we wanted to go back to real old-fashioned (pre-columbian) American values, then we could have human sacrifice, multi-god-animistic-religion, slavery (the Europeans weren't the only ones to do that), etc.
  - orwin 2y ago
    Just a point, Europeans were the only ones to do _chaptel slavery_, i.e treating fellow humans (even if they are currently slave) as object they own and have every right over them. Other form of slavery were either topologically or chronologically limited. This wasn't the case for European chaptel slavery: your sons and daughter were also property, and changing localtion did not indure you to another lord, but gave him right to pursue you across the world (also, chains were mostly used during triomphs, but chained slave were in practice extremely rare, even in mines)
    - int_19h 2y ago
      This is factually incorrect.
alickz 2y ago
I also find the GOPs penchant for authoritarianism to be incongruent with their stated beliefs and values The "party of small government" seems to want a bigger government than any other party before them
- jimbokun 2y ago
  You are thinking of a different GOP that disappeared a while ago.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    Parties change all the time -- Trump and Lincoln lead the same party, Obama and Jackson led the same party. Peoples views of what that party means don't always follow.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      What's amazing about this GOP, is that both Honest Abe, and Joe McCarthy, are doing 3600 RPM. That's pretty wild.
stackbutterflow 2y ago
The definition of conservative is conserving the monarchy during the french revolution. From the start it was and remain to this day an ideology for those currently in power to conserve their power.
- jimbokun 2y ago
  Oh please, not a single person besides you thinks of "conserving the monarchy during the french revolution" when using the word "conservative" besides you.
  - stackbutterflow 2y ago
    If if was not clear my point is that it evolved with the current form of government of the time but never departed from the original goal of for those in power to conserve their power.
    - jimbokun 2y ago
      People in power who do not want to conserve their power are incredibly rare, regardless of their professed ideological orientation.
      - const_cast 2y ago
        Not that rare at all, this describes most US presidents.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - immibis 2y ago
        The democrat party doesn't seem to care about conserving its power.
  - selfselfgo 2y ago
    [dead]
sofixa 2y ago
> The funny thing is, that the GOP is not "conservative," in any way, whatsoever. They are extreme The word that describes them the best is reactionary. As a political ideology it fell out of favour some time in the late 19th, early 20th century with the fall of the various reactionary regimes (Austria under Metternich, Imperial Russia). But the GOP, and some other parties looking to them for inspiration, are reactionary. They are opposed to any social progress and want to go back.
- tomp 2y ago
  > They are opposed to any social progress and want to go back. I see it as exact opposite. The "left" parties have long abandoned social progress and are now regressing. Support or racism (affirmative action), terrorism, violence against women, violence against Jews, violence and rioting in general, denial of science, against meritocracy, against freedom of speech. Technically, while going back to meritocracy, equality, freedom of speech is "reactionary", I'd definitely term it progress.
vjvjvjvjghv 2y ago
Agreed. To me "conservative" means to be cautious and slow/reluctant to change things. The quick dismantling of institutions that's happening right now is the opposite of conservative.
spacemadness 2y ago
I’m not in any way a conservative, but it’s a absolutely abhorrent that we’re constantly gaslit into believing conservative means chaos and abrupt change at any cost to own the libs. It takes the fear of change that is part of conservatism and ramps it up into a full blown delusion. What conservative would want massive change all at once and throwing caution to the wind? Like you said, that’s not typical conservative behavior, it’s extremist and fascist behavior. Unfortunately, conservatives went all in on supporting extremists and here we are.
dragonwriter 2y ago
> The definition of "conservative" means "not-extreme." No, it really doesn't. I mean, yes, that's a definition of "conservative" in common language, but it has never been the definition of "conservative" as a label of political ideology; like many words, "conservative" means different things in different contexts. Saying, in a discussion of political ideologies, that "conservative" means "not extreme" is like saying in a discussion of programming paradigms that "functional" means "designed to be practical and useful, rather than attractive". That is absolutely a definition of the word, but not the one relevant to the context at hand. As a political ideology label, "conservative" was defined in reaction and opposition to liberalism and the outward distribution of power away from traditional institutional, hereditary, economic, and religious elites that it represented, and refers to the defense of the privilege and power of such elites and the traditions that sustain and emanate from them within the politico-economic system. Now, over time since then, as there has been more progress made by liberal and other newer forces against the elites of the time that distinction arose, and even sometimes against the newer elites that arose because of early liberal successes like the bourgeoisie who displaced the feudal aristocracy as the ruling class in the capitalist world, to see their own power somewhat eroded in the transition to mixed economies, there has come to be a distinction sometimes made between plain "conservative" being the a sort of mostly-status-quo-ist defense of current elites that mostly opposes weakening their power and favors very modest steps to shore it up, versus reactionaries that favor more extreme action either to deeply retrench the power of status quo elites or to actually wind back power to past-but-currently-displaced elites -- but even in that terminology reactionaries do not stand in opposition to conservatism but simply stand further out in the same direction. There is a good argumen that the GOP was transitioned over time from plain conservative to outright reactionary, but that's not a change in direction.
dfxm12 2y ago
In politics, conservative means keeping the status quo. This largely describes the current mainstream Democratic party. You're right, Republicans are not trying to keep the status quo. Going back to an older culture is "reactionary". Current mainstream Republicans can be described in this way. Personal discipline, thoughtfulness, caution, integrity, wisdom, learning from the past, etc. are not necessarily features of one ideology or another.

santoshalper 2y ago

You should disabuse yourself of the notion that concepts like personal discipline, contentiousness, and integrity are somehow "conservative" values. They are not in either sense of the word conservative. Certainly from a political standpoint, republicans (or their equivalent in other nations) have often used these concepts against women, minorities, and the mentally ill as a means of shirking their obligation to help their fellow human. In my observation, they never make much of an attempt to live up to them in their own lives. (e.g. YOU are a welfare queen, but I am an entrepreneur who needed to take a government bailout). On the other hand, if "conservative" means "old-fashioned" to you, then there is also no reason to believe that the people before us were morally superior to us today. My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
> My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite. Hey, if we wanted to go back to real old-fashioned (pre-columbian) American values, then we could have human sacrifice, multi-god-animistic-religion, slavery (the Europeans weren't the only ones to do that), etc.
- orwin 2y ago
  Just a point, Europeans were the only ones to do _chaptel slavery_, i.e treating fellow humans (even if they are currently slave) as object they own and have every right over them. Other form of slavery were either topologically or chronologically limited. This wasn't the case for European chaptel slavery: your sons and daughter were also property, and changing localtion did not indure you to another lord, but gave him right to pursue you across the world (also, chains were mostly used during triomphs, but chained slave were in practice extremely rare, even in mines)
  - int_19h 2y ago
    This is factually incorrect.

alickz 2y ago

I also find the GOPs penchant for authoritarianism to be incongruent with their stated beliefs and values The "party of small government" seems to want a bigger government than any other party before them

jimbokun 2y ago
You are thinking of a different GOP that disappeared a while ago.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Parties change all the time -- Trump and Lincoln lead the same party, Obama and Jackson led the same party. Peoples views of what that party means don't always follow.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    What's amazing about this GOP, is that both Honest Abe, and Joe McCarthy, are doing 3600 RPM. That's pretty wild.

stackbutterflow 2y ago

The definition of conservative is conserving the monarchy during the french revolution. From the start it was and remain to this day an ideology for those currently in power to conserve their power.

jimbokun 2y ago
Oh please, not a single person besides you thinks of "conserving the monarchy during the french revolution" when using the word "conservative" besides you.
- stackbutterflow 2y ago
  If if was not clear my point is that it evolved with the current form of government of the time but never departed from the original goal of for those in power to conserve their power.
  - jimbokun 2y ago
    People in power who do not want to conserve their power are incredibly rare, regardless of their professed ideological orientation.
    - const_cast 2y ago
      Not that rare at all, this describes most US presidents.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - immibis 2y ago
      The democrat party doesn't seem to care about conserving its power.
- selfselfgo 2y ago
  [dead]

sofixa 2y ago

> The funny thing is, that the GOP is not "conservative," in any way, whatsoever. They are extreme The word that describes them the best is reactionary. As a political ideology it fell out of favour some time in the late 19th, early 20th century with the fall of the various reactionary regimes (Austria under Metternich, Imperial Russia). But the GOP, and some other parties looking to them for inspiration, are reactionary. They are opposed to any social progress and want to go back.

tomp 2y ago
> They are opposed to any social progress and want to go back. I see it as exact opposite. The "left" parties have long abandoned social progress and are now regressing. Support or racism (affirmative action), terrorism, violence against women, violence against Jews, violence and rioting in general, denial of science, against meritocracy, against freedom of speech. Technically, while going back to meritocracy, equality, freedom of speech is "reactionary", I'd definitely term it progress.

vjvjvjvjghv 2y ago

Agreed. To me "conservative" means to be cautious and slow/reluctant to change things. The quick dismantling of institutions that's happening right now is the opposite of conservative.

spacemadness 2y ago

I’m not in any way a conservative, but it’s a absolutely abhorrent that we’re constantly gaslit into believing conservative means chaos and abrupt change at any cost to own the libs. It takes the fear of change that is part of conservatism and ramps it up into a full blown delusion. What conservative would want massive change all at once and throwing caution to the wind? Like you said, that’s not typical conservative behavior, it’s extremist and fascist behavior. Unfortunately, conservatives went all in on supporting extremists and here we are.

dragonwriter 2y ago

> The definition of "conservative" means "not-extreme." No, it really doesn't. I mean, yes, that's a definition of "conservative" in common language, but it has never been the definition of "conservative" as a label of political ideology; like many words, "conservative" means different things in different contexts. Saying, in a discussion of political ideologies, that "conservative" means "not extreme" is like saying in a discussion of programming paradigms that "functional" means "designed to be practical and useful, rather than attractive". That is absolutely a definition of the word, but not the one relevant to the context at hand. As a political ideology label, "conservative" was defined in reaction and opposition to liberalism and the outward distribution of power away from traditional institutional, hereditary, economic, and religious elites that it represented, and refers to the defense of the privilege and power of such elites and the traditions that sustain and emanate from them within the politico-economic system. Now, over time since then, as there has been more progress made by liberal and other newer forces against the elites of the time that distinction arose, and even sometimes against the newer elites that arose because of early liberal successes like the bourgeoisie who displaced the feudal aristocracy as the ruling class in the capitalist world, to see their own power somewhat eroded in the transition to mixed economies, there has come to be a distinction sometimes made between plain "conservative" being the a sort of mostly-status-quo-ist defense of current elites that mostly opposes weakening their power and favors very modest steps to shore it up, versus reactionaries that favor more extreme action either to deeply retrench the power of status quo elites or to actually wind back power to past-but-currently-displaced elites -- but even in that terminology reactionaries do not stand in opposition to conservatism but simply stand further out in the same direction. There is a good argumen that the GOP was transitioned over time from plain conservative to outright reactionary, but that's not a change in direction.

dfxm12 2y ago

In politics, conservative means keeping the status quo. This largely describes the current mainstream Democratic party. You're right, Republicans are not trying to keep the status quo. Going back to an older culture is "reactionary". Current mainstream Republicans can be described in this way. Personal discipline, thoughtfulness, caution, integrity, wisdom, learning from the past, etc. are not necessarily features of one ideology or another.