Three Pillars of Leftdom

[grumbler]

  I wish I'd said that.

You probably will get the next few. With college football here I'm devoting most of my thought energy more toward the lines of brady hoke fat jokes. 

I understand. If I was a Miami fan, I'd probably focus on trying to make lame jokes about other teams' coaches, too.

[alfred russel]

I understand. If I was a Miami fan, I'd probably focus on trying to make lame jokes about other teams' coaches, too.

I think the days of Miami fans limiting themselves to jokes about just other team's coaches ended monday night.

[Martinus]

No, the best are the true (classical, if you will) conservatives.  They figure everything is pretty damn good as it is, so why go messing things up.

Doesn't it sort of discredit those sorts of conservatives that they really came to the forefront in an era that we now recognize as really sucking compared to current times?

"everything is pretty damn good as it is, so why go messing things up.", has been wrong for hundreds of years; sure that doesn't exactly prove it is wrong today, but a historical pattern has developed....

Not at all - the historical record ahs in fact vindicated the conservative point of view.

Look - it's not that a conservative says "nothing should ever change". but rather "our society has evolved this way for a reason, so let's be careful and cautious when we change things".

Look, I think we all agree that the modern social democratic welfare state is a place that 100 or 200 years ago would sound like a socialist paradise.  But every time that liberals tried to make the change all in one big jump it has failed miserably (French revolution, communism).  The "slow and steady" approach demonstrated by the west has been the winner.

The problem with conservatism is exactly exemplified by this post - 200 years of waiting for things to get better in an evolutionary and cautious manner does not work for anyone but those who are already privileged. Everybody else will be dead before it gets better for them. This has always been the conservatives' sin - whether it came to slavery, equal rights, women's suffrage, equal marriage etc. Personally, I'd rather be a hotheaded idealist than a callous and cold-hearted monster.

[Barrister]

No, the best are the true (classical, if you will) conservatives.  They figure everything is pretty damn good as it is, so why go messing things up.

Doesn't it sort of discredit those sorts of conservatives that they really came to the forefront in an era that we now recognize as really sucking compared to current times?

"everything is pretty damn good as it is, so why go messing things up.", has been wrong for hundreds of years; sure that doesn't exactly prove it is wrong today, but a historical pattern has developed....

Not at all - the historical record ahs in fact vindicated the conservative point of view.

Look - it's not that a conservative says "nothing should ever change". but rather "our society has evolved this way for a reason, so let's be careful and cautious when we change things".

Look, I think we all agree that the modern social democratic welfare state is a place that 100 or 200 years ago would sound like a socialist paradise.  But every time that liberals tried to make the change all in one big jump it has failed miserably (French revolution, communism).  The "slow and steady" approach demonstrated by the west has been the winner.

The problem with conservatism is exactly exemplified by this post - 200 years of waiting for things to get better in an evolutionary and cautious manner does not work for anyone but those who are already privileged. Everybody else will be dead before it gets better for them. This has always been the conservatives' sin - whether it came to slavery, equal rights, women's suffrage, equal marriage etc. Personally, I'd rather be a hotheaded idealist than a callous and cold-hearted monster.

Whatever you say Robespierre.

[alfred russel]

The problem with conservatism is exactly exemplified by this post - 200 years of waiting for things to get better in an evolutionary and cautious manner does not work for anyone but those who are already privileged. Everybody else will be dead before it gets better for them. This has always been the conservatives' sin - whether it came to slavery, equal rights, women's suffrage, equal marriage etc. Personally, I'd rather be a hotheaded idealist than a callous and cold-hearted monster.

Marty, I wanted to ask you this a while back. I remember way back in the paradox days like 13 years ago when you first came out. You made some comments along the lines being unhappy with a hostile situation in Poland, and you just wanted basic acceptance, and for that reason didn't want to push for things like gay marriage or more flamboyant things like extravagent gay pride parades (say in NYC), as they were too confrontational. I wonder what you think about that now.

[Razgovory]

Whatever you say Robespierre.

In the US we've had pretty good luck with revolution.  For instance we became independent two hundred years before Canada did.

[DGuller]

Whatever you say Robespierre.

In the US we've had pretty good luck with revolution.  For instance we became independent two hundred years before Canada did.

[Barrister]

Whatever you say Robespierre.

In the US we've had pretty good luck with revolution.  For instance we became independent two hundred years before Canada did.

[Martinus]

The problem with conservatism is exactly exemplified by this post - 200 years of waiting for things to get better in an evolutionary and cautious manner does not work for anyone but those who are already privileged. Everybody else will be dead before it gets better for them. This has always been the conservatives' sin - whether it came to slavery, equal rights, women's suffrage, equal marriage etc. Personally, I'd rather be a hotheaded idealist than a callous and cold-hearted monster.

Marty, I wanted to ask you this a while back. I remember way back in the paradox days like 13 years ago when you first came out. You made some comments along the lines being unhappy with a hostile situation in Poland, and you just wanted basic acceptance, and for that reason didn't want to push for things like gay marriage or more flamboyant things like extravagent gay pride parades (say in NYC), as they were too confrontational. I wonder what you think about that now.

Hmm, I don't recall but it is very well possible that I said that. Let's say I feel quite differently these days. It's not to say I am 100% on board with the more extravagant aspects of parades (I find those aspects quite tacky) but in the political and social engineering sense, they are quite an effective tactics - and I go to them (although the fire is burning out slightly recently, mainly because I am growing old). I think I could come up with a very long response, as the issue is somewhat ambivalent, but if I were to give you a short response, I would say the kind of view I used to have - as you say - is intellectually lazy, when coming from gay people. I may be not into pushing boundaries myself, but at least I have enough decency to acknowledge that those who push boundaries are making more room for me, so to speak.

[mongers]

With three pillars of leftdom and three pillars of rightdom we only need one more for the Seven Pillars of Wisdom!

With the three pillars of leftdom and the three pillars of rightdom I fear we will still need seven more pillars for the seven pillars of wisdom. 

You know I never got around to properly finishing that book, last weekend I was even within a mile or so of the scene of his death and the last place he lived.   

[Ideologue]

I'll bite.

The Left (at least here in Sweden) is based on three pillars. They are the foundations on which the lofty edifice of Socialism/Communism/Feminism/Environmentalism has been built. They are as follows.

Ignorance Of The Issues. The Lefty is clueless. He doesn't understand, at all, how things work. Science, technology, business, history, economy etc etc are all mysteries to him.

Perhaps this holds more water in Sweden, but the Left in the U.S. is the only political group that seems to understand--nearly literally--anything at all.  On the right, you have insane retards who think the Earth is 6000 years old and evolution didn't happen, and even in the center you have slightly more sophisticated retards, but retards all the same, who believe hyperinflation is happening or that our welfare system is financially unsupportable.

That said, too many Leftists even in America refuse to take the harder but more rewarding road of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine.  This is partly due to the corrupt Leftists who rule liberal arts academia, who have brainwashed a generation (or three) into believing ridiculous things that, when you look at it with the critical thinking they say they teach but don't, solely benefit liberal arts academics.

Someone Else Should Pay. Regardless of what's being considered, with the Lefty it is ALWAYS about how someone else should pay. The idea that you pay for stuff you yourself want hasn't crossed his mind.

Leftists are redistributionists?  What a shock.  I'm glad you're here to bring us this hard-hitting analysis.

What I Don't Like Should Be Banned. When the Lefty doesn't like something his response is that it should be banned. He cannot grasp the concept of people doing thing differently, let alone see any value in it.

Totalitarianism is no vice.  Stop pretending it is.  In fact, the biggest problem with modern Leftism is that while it retains the mildest totalitarian streak, the discipline is missing.  This has actually been a perennial problem of the Left, though: constantly splintering, while Rightists, hierarchical by nature, organize as a machine rather than an unruly mob.  More Leftists should voluntarily do time in the military.

However, I'm surprised you missed the big doublethink in modern Leftism: if a white male is doing something differently, it should be banned; if some less privileged group is doing it, go nuts.  For just one example, witness the failure of the Left to oppose Islam in the same way they (successfully, vociferously, and for the same exact reasons) oppose Christianity.

Apaling.

If you only got paid $60k a year to do your job, you'd do it anyway, so suck it, John Galt.

[Razgovory]

I'm still miffed nobody liked my IKEA joke. 

[jimmy olsen]

I'm still miffed nobody liked my IKEA joke. 

I liked it.

[Siege]

That's why best are true (classical, if you will) liberals. They don't want your money and they don't want laws banning everything they don't like, plus not all of them are stupid.

They are a dying breed, I give you that much.

No, the best are the true (classical, if you will) conservatives.  They figure everything is pretty damn good as it is, so why go messing things up.

That's not true. The American conservative movement does not look at the past as being better, with the exception of Pres Reagan's presidency.
It was the Republican party who fought to end slavery and aborted Pres Andrew Johnson's, a Dem, attempt to reinstate the southerner ex-confederates.
It was the Democratic party who oppoussed the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

[Valmy]

That's not true. The American conservative movement does not look at the past as being better, with the exception of Pres Reagan's presidency.
It was the Republican party who fought to end slavery and aborted Pres Andrew Johnson's, a Dem, attempt to reinstate the southerner ex-confederates.
It was the Democratic party who oppoussed the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Andrew Johnson was not a Dem when he was President, he ran with Abraham Lincoln against McClellan and the Dems.  And the Democratic Party both opposed and supported the Civil Rights movement.  The Democrats managed to be the party of Segregation AND Blacks which was a pretty impressive political juggling act you have to admit.  Anyway the split of Conservatives being mostly Republicans did not occur until much later so it really has nothing to do with the modern parties.  The Democrats wish their tent was as absurdly big as it once was.

Anyway he was talking about classic Burkean Conservative types not whatever modern American Conservatism is.