Confused Conservatives?

Why is it that many conservatives claim to be about the people, the individual, when their nature, their actions, and the ideas that they support, or reject, paint a different picture? Take for instance tax cuts for the wealthiest. Conservatives claim that the tax cuts are necessary because it is the wealthiest that give them jobs. But isn't that just playing follow-the-leader. As an individual liberal, when I needed an income I didn't go crying to a rich guy, I made my own business. It’s the same with why conservatives tend to be so religious. They need a preacher to tell them how to live, how to think, how to live. Same with the proliferation of right wing talk radio. Conservatives need their talk show leaders to tell them which side of issues to take. As an individual liberal I was able to figure these things out on my own.

Or take unions which provide an avenue for an individual worker to take recourse against an unreasonable boss. But no, conservatives prefer a system with no unions where the leaders have all the power.

Conservatives claim that liberals are collectivists but when I see a bunch of conservatives I see a sea of sameness whereas with liberals I see a large and varied aggregate of blacks, Hispanics, young families, the elderly, environmentalists, feminists, artisans, entertainers, hippies, anarchists, homosexuals, people of all religions or none at all… There are no rules for being a liberal. No one is telling us that one has to be one way or another to be a liberal. Liberalism is wide open, by definition. Unlike conservatives who have rules about what one has to be to be a conservative – the four pillars of conservatism and all that.

So, how is it that a bunch of follow-the-leader conformists can claim to be about the individual?

 

So tell me.... how much anti-Conservative hate runs through your veins ?


And I have to say.... this:

Be afraid, be very afraid. We know how to get to your children. - the liberals.

Is not only dangerous... but quite creepy.

 

Actually I have no hate against anti-conservatives. I applaud them.

Wasn't that the intention?

 

its like a military ranking of hierarchy , or family the father represents a general, mother a queen with a beta perspective, so as you see conservatives like a more cultural structured environment not a free for all chaotic circus. of cultures

 

Exactly. Conservatives aren't about individualism but conformity to a hierarchy. From every thing I've been able to determine a conservative's idea of freedom is the freedom to be like everyone else. To me, a liberal, that is not freedom at all, but slavery.

 

It is not conservatives that are for big obscenely expensive government.

 

your twisting it to a extreme perspective [box cell], because you can't follow rules like a rebel without a cause.

 

as is to be expected, the op takes the usual liberal memes and paints a portrait entirely with those biases. those "tax cuts for the wealthiest" were tax cuts for all tax payers. the more you had been paying in, the bigger the break. those who had paid in nothing at all or had been suckling at the public teat would, of course not be getting any sort of break but the one they have been depending upon for so long. religion? i think you have it backward. it is the religious that are attracted to conservatism, not the other way around. and why wouldn't they be? where modern liberalism seeks to regulate and control every aspect of the individual's life, conservatism offers the prospect of allowing each to do what he so desires. unions? well, they we a good idea that went terribly wrong. where once management used the state to abuse the workers, unions are now in bed with the state to wring from business every last penny they can. then there is the notion of public sector unions. who in their right mind would believe that there can be any good faith negotiations when the debate is being held between one element of the state and another? while i have yet to meet any reasonable conservative that would have us abolish all unions, most firmly believe that they should be a matter of choice, not coercion, and that they have no place at all where the monopoly of the state is involved. as for sameness or needing to be told how to live, that's just the same garbage we've been hearing from mindless drones and malcontents for as long as anyone can remember. they are certainly true of the cartoonish version of "the average conservative" you've drawn, but that is as far removed from reality as painting all liberals as bomb throwing bolsheviks. i would suggest you get out and meet some of these supposed foes of yours instead of painting them all with the broad brush given to you by the liberal establishment. i think you'll be surprised at how far removed reality is from your psychotic fantasy. you may just find that many if not most are simply anti-authoritarians who see that american liberalism has deserted them. we are the old guard who fought against the staid conservatism and mediocrity of our youth and now fight against collectivist authoritarianism and liberal mediocrity of our old age.

welcome to the new counter-culture.... conservatism.

 

Ha! So, I'm not the only person who has noticed this.

It truly is remarkable how things have changed since the days of my youth. Back then, the New Left was the counter-culture. Today, it is the Establishment.

 

And where are these conservatives exactly?

Most conservatives I know want to see tax cuts for everyone. You are professing a myth created by the liberals in order to undermine conservatism. It is a lie fabricated on conjecture and you swallow it up.

There are actually more liberals in media politics then there are conservatives, it is just that a few conservatives occupy the majority of followers. John Stewart alone balances about 2/3 of that overall market.

We have federal and state laws that address any issue that comes up. Or do you contend that people who work in places with no union have no recourse when unfair work conditions arise?

You are not allowed to deviate from the party line if you are a liberal, not even an inch. Go onto a very liberal public forum like democratunderground, make an account, and post something positive about conservatism. You will get a lifetime ban instantly.

Liberals are only accepting if you follow their mythos, if not.....you will be discarded. How many democratic politicians do you think could stand up and say they are anti-abortion or against gay marriage?

Absolutely none, yet that happens with conservative politicians all the time. There are many republicans who support gay marriage or are pro-choice.

 

The data doesn't seen to back up your assertion.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-state-government-spending-growth-2000-2010

 

Why does Imnotoliver start a thread with lies and then just proceed to more? Perhaps he's confused about more than who he is or isn't?

 

Actually the whole of the idea of the OP came from reading posts by conservatives.

Although the majority of the cuts went to those at the top. My original comments about the tax cuts were to help provide for jobs came directly from many a conservative expressing just that opinion.

Doesn't effect my argument at all I'm just pointing out that those who call themselves conservatives are followers, not the individualists many claim to be. No one just woke up one morning and decided to be religious, to believe in Jesus. It was taught to them. There is no free thought in religion.

I guess that explains why income stagnation has increased in direct correlation with the demise of unions.

Actually I'm out every day confronting them. I don't get a single idea about conservatives by conferring with other liberals. When I talk to liberals we talk about liberal ideas. My opinions of conservatives are based on what I see them say and do.

Except you've done nothing to disprove anything I've posted.

I guess that explains why so many conservatives are so supportive of brutal police tactics, excessive prison sentences, torture and the like.

So they are joining forces with a party that exists primarily to benefit the powerful at the expense of everyone else?

There is nothing new in conservatism. The conservatism of today is little changed from the conservatism of Barry Goldwater. There is no counter culture about it. The conservatives (the leaders, not the followers) have just gotten better at marketing themselves. That is the point of this thread. Certain people fall for the conservative propaganda. Those who think for themselves didn't.

It's not like you posted anything I wasn't expecting. That is the nature of conservatives, that sameness of ideas from one to the next.

 

This is a thread about conservatives being follow-the-leader conformists. I'll be posting a thread about how hateful conservatives are on another thread. There you will be able to spew your hatred towards me.

 

Tell me that this doesn't represent conservatives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZie_b1VNv4

 

As witnessed too often on this august site, modern day American conservatism is very much reactionary, defined as "us" against People Who Ain't Like Me with all the attendant purity tests for tribal members. Wasn't always like that. I think demographic and cultural anxieties and fear has a lot to do with it. The appeal to a structured, authoritarian inclination was probably inevitable. Going forward I'd suggest that there will be even more inconsistency and contradictions as the aging "base" becomes even more frightened of the - as they see it - impending social apocalypse. Just look at some of the hysterical screeds here about blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, gays, higher educated, women, youth, etc.

 

What? An inability to understand English ?

Or to make liberals look like child-predatory creeps ?

In either case.... well done.

 

Insecurity.

People tend to create typical anti-Republican threads when they are feeling in secure in their chosen political belief system. He comes from a horrible, horrible place.

I'm just glad to see he created a thread with more than one sentence in the OP. Wasn't sure it was possible.

 

No, you prefer a big, largely useless and obscenely expensive military draining your capital resources.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=b....com%2Fsubfour%2Ftruth%2Fboneyard.htm;500;415

 

All your "conservative" vs "liberal" trash as ignorant and damaging as racism. Why can't any of you focus on the complexities of reality rather than sticking a label on all the people you've decided to dislike so you can blame them for everything wrong with the world in one go? A boxing match between strawmen might be briefly entertaining but it doesn't achieve anything other than creating a mess and a risk of triggering a fiery explosion.

 

counter-culture is, by definition, anti-establishment and therefore anti-authoritarian. where the counter-culture of our youth embraced many of the things that may be identified as belonging to the left, it cannot be said that it embraced the whole of what liberalism has become today. we now have the liberal establishment, as authoritarian as was conservatism in its heyday, and this is what our new counter-culture rebels against.

what is most pitiful about the current state of affairs is that this new generation that embraces the liberal establishment does so with such revolutionary zeal. they seem to think that these are new ideas, better ideas. well, there is nothing new under the sun. these are the same sorts of old farts in power. the rhetoric may have changed, but the ends remain the same. the accumulation of power within a centralized elite has always been the end game. in fact, the naivete of these bumpkins has actually sped up the process.

 

It's important to note here that conservative is a broad term. It's used to describe both fundamentalists and libertarians, who are probably more at odds with each other than they are with most liberals.

The economic argument for tax cuts is that it will create jobs - and conservatives generally believe that's true across the board, which is important to remember, since conservatives didn't advocate "tax cuts for the wealthiest", they advocated tax cuts for all.

 

Because thats what Fox News told them.

/Thread

 

Clueless Leftist?

You won't find a more conformist bunch of Groupthinkers than the "progressive" drones in the New Left collective.
.

 

"As an individual liberal, when I needed an income I didn't go crying to a rich guy, I made my own business."

As a Conservative, that's what I did, too (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*).

" It’s the same with why conservatives tend to be so religious. They need a preacher to tell them how to live, how to think, how to live. Same with the proliferation of right wing talk radio. Conservatives need their talk show leaders to tell them which side of issues to take. As an individual liberal I was able to figure these things out on my own."

I don't need a preacher to tell me how to live. I don't need a talk show host to tell me what to believe on an issue. That's the problem with you individual Liberals, you think someone that doesn't believe like you doens't think. What you don't realize is that I think differently from you.

"Conservatives claim that liberals are collectivists but when I see a bunch of conservatives I see a sea of sameness whereas with liberals I see a large and varied aggregate of blacks, Hispanics, young families, the elderly, environmentalists, feminists, artisans, entertainers, hippies, anarchists, homosexuals, people of all religions or none at all… There are no rules for being a liberal. No one is telling us that one has to be one way or another to be a liberal. Liberalism is wide open, by definition. Unlike conservatives who have rules about what one has to be to be a conservative – the four pillars of conservatism and all that."

While you may look different, the Liberal mantra is still big government. In that manner you conform.