To my knowledge, the concept of "conservatism" is the will to conserve, preserve past values that are seen as superior.
While I don't agree with this either, this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil.
Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.
I do not see any "values" in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest.
Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it's wrong and that's it. There's no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.
I do not agree with the concept of conservatism, and I couldn't care less if this place is forever doomed to be downvoted in oblivion. But if you actually want to do something else than fear-mongering, even if you insist on talking about conservatism, then maybe it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.
Of course I believe that it would be better to reconsider opinions that basically encourage the worst of humanity; but even aside from that, there is more to do than to replace every possibility of a conversation with the (stereo)typical "immigrants bad, jesus good, gays evil" speech.
What I find strange is that for a community that seems to be about discussing politics there is a huge absence of politics. I think the best way to explain is with a few examples. I'll post a few of the newest headlines from other political communities and we'll compare.
‘I Will Come For You’: Court Filing Reveals Judge in Trump Case Received ‘Hundreds’ of Threats
Andrew Cuomo accused of sexual harassment in new lawsuit filed by former executive assistant Brittany Commisso
Republican Senate candidate’s family egg company caught in price-fixing plot
‘Pipe down’: Biden allies step up calls for Dems to rally around president
Backlash to affirmative action hits pioneering maternal health program for Black women
The slant here is a lot more obvious with headlines being more sensationalized, however, except for the last one it's all about what politicians have said or done. The last one is about a conservative group suing to end a government program that provides charity to pregnant Black women which opens discussion about weather or not that program should exist.
One of America's fastest growing high school sports has 'no benchwarmers'
Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City
Migrants Take All Free Thanksgiving Turkeys Intended For Struggling New Yorkers
Poll: Gun ownership reaches record high with American electorate
USAToday Fact check: Yes, there's a vehicle 'kill switch' in Biden's 2021 infrastructure bill, and we lie about it.
Only the last article has anything to do with politicians or the government. The rest are just articles about guns, migrants, and protests. If the aim is for political discussion, articles should be about politics. I'm not sure what discussion can had with these kinds of articles, other than "that article is stupid" which is said more often with a downvote than a comment.
Only the last article has anything to do with politicians or the government.
And on top of that, that particular post misrepresented the actual article. So the conversation on that one was ~90% calling out the post for misrepresenting the article instead of the policy itself.
The rest are just articles about guns, migrants, and protests
Are these not highly politicized topics, at the bare minimum? I mean for fuck sake, you genuinely believe protests to be a non-political subject? It just sounds more like you're upset that not everyone agrees with you.
Gun policies, immigration policies, and the government's stance on the Isreal-Palestine conflict are politics. Gun sales, migrants receiving charity, and protests are only tangentially related.
I'm not mad at all. I'm genuinely interested in reading what people think about government policies. I'm just pointing out that this community doesn't make many posts where people can actually discuss policies. "Gun sales are up". Alright? And? What's the discussion to be had? That's not a political stance that can be debated, that's a sales report.
with the (stereo)typical “immigrants bad, jesus good, gays evil” speech.
That middle part has all but vanished here. We can't have compassion for migrants because we have "limited resources" and clearly they're all just bad people (totally unrelated to their skin color they'll tell you). They gladly elect politicians that destroy the social safety net for the poor.
The only thing even remotely related to Jesus being here is supply side Jesus.
You have a weird view if you still think all conservatives are christians.
I do not think that, and never said I did. However, the majority of republicans/conservatives are christian, and the party/ideology are irrevocably intertwined at this point.
Capital c Conservatism is about hierarchy. Hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, or whatever. Any category imaginable must fit into an order with some on the top who rule over the masses at the bottom. Egalitarian ideals like democracy are disgusting to the Conservative, unless the franchise is exclusive to the "right" people.
God, guns, country, freedom, and capitalism are trends that come and go, but from Edmond Berk to Jordan Peterson, hierarchy is the throughline.
Not sure I agree with this. I could care less about your sexuality, gender or race. It’s the least interesting thing about you. To liberals it’s the only way they define themselves. It’s the only thing they are. It’s weird to me.
It's weird to me to be in a conservative thought space like this and see someone say they don't care about my sexuality among other things. Because when I am in a real life conservative space, and I (69f) walk around town with my spouse (67f) literally minding our own business and not so much as holding hands, we regularly get stared at, laughed at, and occasionally spit at. We get denied restaurant service. Sales clerks may permit us to make a purchase, but they take a step backwards while taking our payment. Or instead they might disappear into the back room and not reappear until after we leave the store.
Trust me, it's not ME focusing on my sexuality. It's the conservatives around me. I'm just window shopping and stopping for lunch in a town I haven't visited before.
I remember reading the description of the values of the Republican party in the voter guide when I first could vote and thinking it made a lot of sense. Then I learned that instead of states rights, support of small business, and individual liberty it's all about pushing conformity at every level based on repressive ideology and taking over the federal mechanisms of power to enforce their will, I got a lot less interested.
At this point I have seen so many rabid, judgemental, hateful conservatives that I am convinced they need to burn the party to the ground and start from scratch.
Ideally Conservatism should be about being reserved/realistic and Liberalism should be about being optimistic/hopeful. Kind of like finding balance between art and science if that matters any sense.
Let's take imagination for example. A liberal view would be too help everyone that comes to America looking for help. A conservative view would be America can't just have an open border and let in everyone from every country. These are both rational views. Ideally both sides would compromise and find balance somewhere in the middle to help as many imagrants as is reasonably possible. Sadly that's not the case.
It's also worth noting that the actual best solution, even from a perspective that takes into account both viewpoints, may not be exactly in the middle. Even the average across all political questions may not be. But the real answers will likely be between the two extremes most of the time.
Yes, that's why the first word I wrote was "ideally". Because ideally both side would be trying to do what's best for their constituents. And your right, even then, meeting in the middle wouldn't always the best option. I'm just speaking in generalalities.
Note: I'm the main poster, and head mod. I'm trying my best, but I'm kind of a fuck up, and have a hard time explaining myself well.
When you're posting news articles, it's usually about the stuff that happened recently. Combined with "Not all progress is good progress", it's basically indistinguishable from "fearing new things". But fair point, and I've been trying to find good stuff happening, like the rates of gun ownership going up, and high school skeet shooting clubs. I'll give it more thought on what quality content actually looks like. In the meantime, I'll keep going.
...this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil. Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.
I do not see any “values” in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest. Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it’s wrong and that’s it. There’s no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.
Fear is a valid emotion when it comes to politics. Underlying articles based on fear, if that's what you see, are the values to be protected, sustained, or advocated. I don't really see fear itself as a problem.
That you see only fear is reductive. Isn't "conservatives are afraid of everything" too easy? For me, it has no explanatory power. Why are they afraid?
it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.
Yeah, but also meet them halfway.
Go beyond the hatred and the fear to what values they're really trying to communicate. If all you see in a Trump speech, for example, is his fascist tendencies (of which there are many, don't get me wrong), then you'll miss the appeal to regular people on the losing side of Democratic policies. The pathetic, in both the colloquial and rhetorical sense, appeal to leftists as invasive vermin is itself an expression of values defined in opposition.
As far as I'm concerned, the job of leftists in this community is to tease out the values that conservatives routinely fail to identify clearly and discuss that. That should be what makes this place different.
Fear is the mind killer. It's rarely valid, despite being an emotion. Often highly irrational. Leading to bad decisions. Policy and legislation should never be based on fear. Fear should be the last thing anyone accommodates politically.
And that's the point of deliberation. While a policy or a perspective might be advocated based on fear, it's actual implementation should be based on a variety of considerations, of which fear, rational or not, is but a small part.
And it's not like the any of the commenters here are trembling in their boots from fear of anything. So, even if it is fear that motivates conservative beliefs in this community, it's an imminent mind-killing fear that can't be opposed with our passion and reason.
I would describe conservatism as the belief that changing things can make them worse, which can manifest (or appear to manifest) as a fear of change.
Im a libertarian-leaning socially-liberal economically-conservative person rather than a standard Republican so I don't know how representative I am, but here are my conservative values: the people of the USA are amazingly free, wealthy, and safe. I am an immigrant; my family got enough government support to survive when we came here with almost nothing, I attended excellent public schools and went to college with a generous scholarship, and now I live a secure upper-middle-class lifestyle. For me, the American Dream is very much real.
I worry when I hear people (most of whom had great opportunities like I did) claim that America is exceptionally bad and demand drastic change. I would say that they want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but many of them are worse than that because they apparently don't recognize that the eggs that the goose is laying are even golden. I'm not claiming that there's no room for improvement, but improvements must be made slowly and carefully in order to avoid breaking what we do have already, which is both precious and fragile.
my family got enough government support to survive when we came here with almost nothing, I attended excellent public schools and went to college with a generous scholarship
And most of those things have gotten significantly worse because of "conservatives". And the people who want "drastic change" are the progressives who want to restore the old values. What you already have is getting worse all the time.
Because the problem in the US is that political left is seen as the same as progressive and political right is conservative. And the right opposes government interventions in the form of social safety nets, free education, etc. Those are not conservative values, but since the US only has 2 parties, they've become conservative value because the conservatives are also right-wing.
If you're a libertarian, I don't see how you even support tax-funded programs like these.
I don't think these things have gotten worse, but my perception is based on looking at immigrants in NYC, which isn't a Republican area. With that said, I don't disagree with you. A lot of current Republicans are willing and even eager to break things - the distinction between them and the most extreme Democrats seems to be which "utopian" vision they want to reach by burning down the current system, and IMO that willingness to destroy what we already have should be unacceptable to reasonable conservatives.
As an aside: I'm not captial-L Libertarian. I lean towards libertarianism because I really don't like being told what to do and therefore I oppose both Democratic "nanny state" policies and Republican moral busybodies. However, I think that government is the best tool for providing a level of social services that almost everyone is willing to support out of basic human decency, and I also think that these social services make good economic sense from a purely selfish perspective too - I pay a lot more in taxes than I ever received in social services so the USA got a good deal on me.