ALBERTA: Provincial Elections!

[Jacob]

Social conservative is the opposite of tolerance.

I don't mean to rag on you BB, but that's pretty much my understanding as well. It's about punishing teenage sluts, keeping the gays out of sight, making "those people" stick to themselves away from "us", pushing everyone to conform to a baseline behaviour anchored in an idealized version of the past, class divisions are entrenched, and making sure anyone who strays from that suffers (criminals are sanctioned harshly, there's little social structure to help the unemployed, teenage mothers, street kids etc).

Now, that may not be what social conservatism means to you, nor to the social conservative movement as a whole, but it's the impression I've been left with.

I'll be happy to be corrected though.

[Neil]

But there are more positive aspects to a "social conservative" agenda that have much better traction.  Support for families and communities, more room for religious charities, all plays well.

All the jibber-jabber about families and stuff turned me off Wildrose.  Well, moreso than I was already turned off.

[Valmy]

More room for religious charities?  Are they being boxed out by secular charities or something?

[Neil]

Social conservatism is about limiting tolerance, not abolishing it.  Social conservatism acknowledges that some things are intolerable.

[Neil]

More room for religious charities?  Are they being boxed out by secular charities or something?

Well, it should help that some of the secular charities are going to stop being charities so that they can go to war against the federal Conservatives.

[Jacob]

Much like with CC - do we really need to try and stake out the semantic high ground?

Honestly, I'm not trying to stake out the semantic high ground.

I'd like to get a grip on what it is you mean by socially conservative because it doesn't seem congruent with mine. What you posted, I thought was either pretty vague (drug policy - so I tried to clarify what I thought you meant, but maybe you mean something else?) or general enough that it wouldn't be a hard sell to a rank and file NDPer... so I'm not really any closer to understanding what you mean by socially conservative.

And just to be clear, that's my objective here: to get a better understanding of what you mean by socially conservative. I think we have some common ground on some issues, though I expect that we disagree on more.

[viper37]

Social conservative is the opposite of tolerance.

I don't mean to rag on you BB, but that's pretty much my understanding as well. It's about punishing teenage sluts, keeping the gays out of sight, making "those people" stick to themselves away from "us", pushing everyone to conform to a baseline behaviour anchored in an idealized version of the past, class divisions are entrenched, and making sure anyone who strays from that suffers (criminals are sanctioned harshly, there's little social structure to help the unemployed, teenage mothers, street kids etc).

Now, that may not be what social conservatism means to you, nor to the social conservative movement as a whole, but it's the impression I've been left with.

I'll be happy to be corrected though.

I agree with Jacob on this.

[Jacob]

Social conservatism is about limiting tolerance, not abolishing it.  Social conservatism acknowledges that some things are intolerable.

That's actually very apt, but I'm not sure BB is going to sign on to that 

Do you consider yourself a social conservative, Neil?

Thinking a bit more on it, by that definition I'm a social conservative as well. I put a limit on tolerance and won't tolerate severe intolerance and infringement on personal liberty. I guess it really comes down to what things you put into the intolerable category.

[Barrister]

BB, you are the one trying to claim the virtues of social conservatism.  Your problem is that you are identifying issues that are not necessarily execlusive to social conservatives.

Try identifying policies that fall into that categorie.

I can tell this is going to be futile.

"Social conservatism" is government being active and interventionist in social (rather than economic) issues, whether that is restricting pornography or promoting policies that encourage families to have more children.

Picture a typical busybdy evangelical church lady who wants to tell everyone how to live.  There are things you and her would disagree on - certainly the sex and abortion issues.  But you and the church lady could probably agree on a lot of issues - that couple should generally stay together in committed relationships, that education and child care are important, that people should be more invovled in their local community, that alcoholism and drug use should be discouraged.

Or, picture that X/Y political axis for political ideologies:



It's the Y axis.  Which here is simply labelled Authroitarian / "Conservative", but I have been calling social conservative (because I thought the terms liberal /conservative are more associated with the X axis).

As far as I can tell you're simply labelling a bunch of issues you disagree with as "socially conservative".  Those words are 100% negative to you, and I doubt anything I can say otherwise will convince you.

[Neil]

Social conservatism is about limiting tolerance, not abolishing it.  Social conservatism acknowledges that some things are intolerable.

That's actually very apt, but I'm not sure BB is going to sign on to that 

Do you consider yourself a social conservative, Neil?

Thinking a bit more on it, by that definition I'm a social conservative as well. I put a limit on tolerance and won't tolerate severe intolerance and infringement on personal liberty. I guess it really comes down to what things you put into the intolerable category.

I don't think that my turn of phrase is an all-encompassing definition.  It describes socially conservative attitudes vis-a-vis tolerance, that's all.

I am not a social conservative.  I am something else.  But at the same time, I appreciate that there are limits to what should be tolerated (and not just that 'intolerant of intolerance' rhetorical trick that is popular amongst the extremely socially liberal) and that personal liberty should and must be limited for the good and coherence of society.

[Jacob]

I don't think that my turn of phrase is an all-encompassing definition.  It describes socially conservative attitudes vis-a-vis tolerance, that's all.

I am not a social conservative.  I am something else.  But at the same time, I appreciate that there are limits to what should be tolerated (and not just that 'intolerant of intolerance' rhetorical trick that is popular amongst the extremely socially liberal) and that personal liberty should and must be limited for the good and coherence of society.

Fair enough.

[Valmy]

Wait did you just post something that described you as "authoritarian"?

[crazy canuck]

But you and the church lady could probably agree on a lot of issues - that couple should generally stay together in committed relationships, that education and child care are important, that people should be more invovled in their local community, that alcoholism and drug use should be discouraged.

But that is the problem BB, church lady, I, Jacob and every other thinking human being would likely agree to all of that.  Just because church lady agrees with the rest of us, doesnt mean she can make those issues social conservative issues.

What may make Church Lady different from me, and I daresay Jacob, is that Church lady may, depending on how extreme her social conservatism goes, say that commited relationships are so important that a womans ability to divorce her husband should be limited, that a woman should get limited spousal support; that education of the "proper" values is so important that intelligent design should be taught rather than evolution, that sex education plays no proper role in schools - other than teaching abstinence; that alcoholism and drug use should not just be discouraged but made illegal, that treating drug addiction as a medical issue is nonsense and that the insite clinic in Vancouver is an abomination.

You see, its easy to say one is for committed relationships.  The important part is what parties do to see that goal achieved.

[Jacob]

But you and the church lady could probably agree on a lot of issues - that couple should generally stay together in committed relationships, that education and child care are important, that people should be more invovled in their local community, that alcoholism and drug use should be discouraged.

I think 95% of people could probably agree on that. The differences arise when you get down to if and how the government should intervene in any of those areas.

Sure, couples should stay together in committed relationships. That's nice. Does that mean we give tax credits for married couples or does it mean we ban divorce? Do we imprison fornicators, or do we provide good and comprehensive sex educations to young adults so they'll have better sex lives and thus be more likely to stay with their partners?

[Barrister]

But you and the church lady could probably agree on a lot of issues - that couple should generally stay together in committed relationships, that education and child care are important, that people should be more invovled in their local community, that alcoholism and drug use should be discouraged.

I think 95% of people could probably agree on that. The differences arise when you get down to if and how the government should intervene in any of those areas.

Sure, couples should stay together in committed relationships. That's nice. Does that mean we give tax credits for married couples or does it mean we ban divorce? Do we imprison fornicators, or do we provide good and comprehensive sex educations to young adults so they'll have better sex lives and thus be more likely to stay with their partners?

Well of course it's all a matter of degree.

I hardly want Big brother surveillance inside my home - but that doesn't mean the state doesn't have some role in people's private lives.

Committed relatinships - I mean I think we give tax credits and make divorce somewhat difficult.  Note of course how this is not very libertarian of me.   We do ban fornication with children, I think we do privide some sex education but also discourage teenage sexuality and limit availability of sexually explicit material.  Again you might say these are fairly common political views - and they are.  But they're not socially libertarian.