The problem with Conservatism

[Scott Mayers]

The minimal 'right' in the world that is agreed upon universally is to one's OWN 'right' to life and equal freedom to at least SOME part of the Earth.

That's "property."

It is "ownership". "Property" is a word describing what one has proprietary claim over that is more specific about what one owns where it is used to reference something OTHER than one's body or their necessary consumption (food and water). I keep emphasizing the word "own" to be sure one notices the root of the word "ownership" given it points out what it means with intention. If you 'own' something but dropped it on someone else's 'own' land, the land owner may take proprietary concern in a potential law is made to assign priority on competing claims. So that is a legal term that requires a 'government' to officiate. Thus it is a privilege that whatever government (a management by or for the people) decides to legislate.

Nature does not guarantee us to 'own'

"Nature" is a meaningless anthropomorphism, and as such, is not even capable of guaranteeing us anything. Not life, not liberty, and not property. But God does.

I used the word "Nature" to encompass any interpretation of the world and the laws of physics and whatever the Universe is that includes a potential supernatural being such as God. Many treat "God" to mean this [See Anselm's Ontological Argument where it assigns totality and all one can potentially conceive this way and how even most of the ancients thought of this. Nature 'commands' that we do whatever it takes to survive and this make us as individuals the only proprietary owner ,as the only property rightfully assigned by nature' of ourselves and we all 'agree' to this most universally without literal negotiating. That is the only 'right' that even all living things share and why we wouldn't say it is 'wrong' for one to act in any way that conserves our life.

"Human rights" are only meaningfully agreed to among all people by some degree of democratic acceptance by those parent/ancestors who permit this for us.

Then there is no such thing. For they are only "anchored" in the whims of the people who are alive at a particular time, and can change on a moment's notice. And that means we can never legitimately appeal against a government for them to give us any "rights," since the government itself determines what rights we are allowed to have at a given time.

But that would then include 'private property' beyond one's own body and survival. The ONLY means for 'civilization' to exist is BY some form of 'government'. If there is no literal "government" BY THE PEOPLE, then any power of those who have the force assured by the castles or guns they have to enforce what they have or WANT as their 'own', BECOMES a total prietary owner of the management system (government) they alone command.

If government BY THE choice of the collective people of this world do not take priority right over the management of themselves, those who OWN become a private government and take proprietary control over those who don't who are then 'slaves' since they float like aliens without power on this Earth.

IF you think that a system of management should assure ANY degree of 'ownership'as some right this has to be backed 100% by the humans and would require they all have the identical ownership privileges. That is, we have to be born to the identical 'ownership' VALUE that any other person inherits as a member of the human race and to this planet.

There's no principle of equality manifest anywhere in nature. You won't ever find nature doling out things evenly.

And if Nature is all there is, then there is no objective value to any life, human or otherwise. There is, at most, temporary and dispensable utility for some, and not for others, and this limited utility would exist only in projects not guaranteed to be right in the first place.

No wonder the Left dispatches with human rights as soon as it takes power. Look at Soviet Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea...etc. Where is the value of the individual human in these regimes? It only exists if the individual serves the regime's purposes; otherwise, the individual is utterly worthless, or even pernicious, so far as these regimes are concerned.

You are wrong about no objective value. WE are parts of Nature and when we convene to set up a management system, this 'governing' body BECOMES what we ASSIGN as 'morals', even if these don't have unique absolute supreme value outside of our creation. And since we cannot get absolute agreement upon these and things change in time, then whatever we legislate, is our contingent set of morality.

The people are NOT perfect and could never be. So we cannot get an absolute closure upon some particular laws we make for all time. The conservative thinks these are fixed by some universal God who no longer needs new lawmaking to apply beyond public taxes by ALL the non-owners who are expected to pay for the private property owners' security alone. These are the police and military intended to protect only ownership at the expense of extorting the non-owners to pay for it by forced servitude.

[Scott Mayers]

Note that the poor 'white' or 'male' who are defaulted to be associated with the culture of the 'right' are also LEFT out where they might have favored more liberal left-wing ideals.

Actually, I observe the opposite. I observe that poor conservatives are often quite proud and self-reliant people, and visible minorities that are conservative are often faring much better than those that are dependents of the Left, and constant subjects of Leftist social experiments, as in Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and so on. The Left has been running those cities for decades now; and they contain the most awful misery among minorities.

The word, "proud" is from "pride", and references a 'cultural' belief that is to me mere boasting of one's own heritage as though they are significant in contrast to others. It can have fair intentions and is something that is internally valuable to us.

I say "white" and/or "male" when used as a general term of referencing anyone of the general benefiting class in the way others are effectively using it as a stereotype. I'm not for these terms and do not think the those who are 'white' or 'male' are literally the only ones benefiting. So I am using it in defiance of those who presume that only the whites or males ARE the benefactors of fortune in this world. This stereotyping is of ANY side of the politics who believe some purity accross the white males as a class. Those on the right become the white supremacist extremes and embrace those on the left who think the white male as being theives of power unfairly. The left helps prolong the existence of them by acting to stereotype all white males as being 'privileged' and who ask those on their side to accept sacrifice for the sake of assuring diversity.

The concept of ANY 'tribalism' that defines pride as significant of a genetic definition of people are racist or sexist. You want to avoid thinking the right wing supporters are equally as racist or sexist. Pointing to the left as though the distinct genetic stereotyping is NOT on the same on the right is false. The only difference is that those on the left are relatively MONO-cultural while those on the left are MULTI-cultural. On both sides you'll get those who are neither but are NOT as significantly powerful compared to ANY emotionally invested supremacy-believing groups based upon something genetic.

Women as a class have its 'supremacists' lie mostly on the left simply because they do not want to 'conserve' the traditional stereotype women who embrace the traditions more on the right. Thus the "women supremacist" are one such emotively powerful group on the left today with great influence. Since the left places people as a priority on the left as democrats, then they have the most diverse and more numerous 'supremacists' there but in opposition to the same extreme supremacists on the right who hold less diverse and less numerous such 'supremacists' today.

I already understand what the problems are on the left that I favor. My favor is NOT of the cultural, ethnic, racial, nor sexual extremes that exist there. But they still have the greatest number of individuals than the right and are the ones who actually suffer more than those supporting the right who tend to have less impoverished people. You just asserted the whites there as 'self-reliant' on top of having 'pride'. They thus have less percentage of impoverished individuals supporting that side outside of the white supremacist thinkers.

Regardless, the left-wing side is what is sincerely about what having a government is about and the right-wing is only there only to undo its existence by the powers of democracy so that the wealthy alone can run the country.

[Immanuel Can]

The minimal 'right' in the world that is agreed upon universally is to one's OWN 'right' to life and equal freedom to at least SOME part of the Earth.

That's "property."

It is "ownership". "Property" is a word describing what one has proprietary claim over that is more specific about what one owns where it is used to reference something OTHER than one's body or their necessary consumption (food and water).

No, you're stipulating something there, something not generally conceded. When Locke, for example, speaks of "property," he was not specifying "capital" or "excess value," but rather anything one could possibly own, including food and water, but going well beyond both.

Nature 'commands' that we do whatever it takes to survive and this make us as individuals the only proprietary owner ,as the only property rightfully assigned by nature' of ourselves and we all 'agree' to this most universally without literal negotiating. That is the only 'right' that even all living things share and why we wouldn't say it is 'wrong' for one to act in any way that conserves our life.

No, "Nature" is a pseudo-God. In reality, it "commands" nothing. It doesn't even command that the fittest must survive, although if one said it "commanded" anything, that would be it. But even the survival of the fittest is merely a contingent situation, not a necessary one, if Nature is the beginning and end of the story.

You'll learn nothing about property rights from "Nature, " Scott. It has no opinions.

The ONLY means for 'civilization' to exist is BY some form of 'government'.

That's probably true. But then, according to Nature, there is no necessity that civilization must exist.

If there is no literal "government" BY THE PEOPLE, then any power of those who have the force assured by the castles or guns they have to enforce what they have or WANT as their 'own', BECOMES a total prietary owner of the management system (government) they alone command.

Under this thinking, might makes right. Or rather, there is no "right," only might, which forces things to be whatever they are.

IF you think that a system of management should assure ANY degree of 'ownership'as some right this has to be backed 100% by the humans and would require they all have the identical ownership privileges. That is, we have to be born to the identical 'ownership' VALUE that any other person inherits as a member of the human race and to this planet.

There's no principle of equality manifest anywhere in nature. You won't ever find nature doling out things evenly.

And if Nature is all there is, then there is no objective value to any life, human or otherwise. There is, at most, temporary and dispensable utility for some, and not for others, and this limited utility would exist only in projects not guaranteed to be right in the first place.

No wonder the Left dispatches with human rights as soon as it takes power. Look at Soviet Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea...etc. Where is the value of the individual human in these regimes? It only exists if the individual serves the regime's purposes; otherwise, the individual is utterly worthless, or even pernicious, so far as these regimes are concerned.

You are wrong about no objective value.[/quote]
I didn't say I believed that. I said that rationally, that's what it comes to, if Nature is all there is.

But Nature is not all there is.

And since we cannot get absolute agreement upon these and things change in time, then whatever we legislate, is our contingent set of morality.

Then, when, say, a government legislates that revenge rape, female circumcision, bride burnings, child abuse and racism are approved social practices (as they do, and with associated laws, of course) then you would be rationally obligated to call their way of life "moral."

Would you do that? I think not, probably.

The conservative thinks these are fixed by some universal God who no longer needs new lawmaking to apply beyond public taxes by ALL the non-owners who are expected to pay for the private property owners' security alone.

Not so, Scott. Many conservatives are, in fact, agnostics and atheists. Libertarians, for example, often have far more affection for Adam Smith or Ayn Rand than for any deity.

Now, I happen to be a Theist; but that's not at all rationally necessary to my conservatism -- or even involved in it.

[Immanuel Can]

Regardless, the left-wing side is what is sincerely about what having a government is about and the right-wing is only there only to undo its existence by the powers of democracy so that the wealthy alone can run the country.

That's not at all true, Scott. In fact, I would argue that the wealthy, in places like New York, San Fran and LA, for example, use big government as a way of managing "the unwashed masses," while they amass their own fortunes and increase their own power. Those are the Left-wing heartlands, and yet they are populated by the absurdly wealthy, who are enjoining higher taxes while storing their own wealth in the Grand Caymans or other offshore places. And I know they do this, for a fact.

Leftism is very serviceable for the elites. It's not at all in the interest of the masses.

Moreover, government regulation is a very useful tool for big business to bully and restrict their upstart competitors from below. Corporations can lobby and manipulate in ways simply not available to the ordinary citizen, and government is their handiest tool to get themselves ahead. Additionally, government contracts are huge "cash cows" for bloated, greedy bureaucracies such as those that run the universities and colleges today. And as for fiscal sustainability and accountability, big government just doesn't do that at all.

Consolidating power in the government suffocates "the little guy," and prevents individual initiative. It throws crumbs to the masses, then slaps them in chains of dependence.

[Scott Mayers]

Immanuel Can,

I wrote a response but didn't realize that I timed out and didn't save it before hand. So I'll try again later. But just note that I understand your defense of the conservative and so my arguments are definitely not in defiance of you as a person. Politics are not resolvable and no particular ideal will work without the power of people over the mere power of debt held against others (money). The only means to use money as power is if one has might that favors the use of weapons and walls against the masses who have to be necessarily 'slaves' given they are the ones who define the debt that empowers the few when respected.

Given how the Middle East and Northern Africa represents the encrouchment of desert upon prior lands of plenty, the cradle of all our civilizations' wars and destruction prove to me what the rest of the world will end up on because there will never be satisfaction that all of us could ever agree to. We will be the 'owners' of our own destruction regardless. And that makes me the pessimist to your optimism.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can,

I wrote a response but didn't realize that I timed out and didn't save it before hand. So I'll try again later.

No problem.

A helpful hint...if you think you've been working at it too long, and maybe you've been timed out, then select and "copy" it before you hit "submit." That way, if your message has been wiped out, you can "paste" it back over, and you're good to go.

I made the same mistake a couple of times...wrote too long, and lost a good message I'd worked hard on. Hope this helps you.

But just note that I understand your defense of the conservative and so my arguments are definitely not in defiance of you as a person.

I get that, Scott. I try to keep my thinking about ideas separate from my attitude to the people who offer the ideas. So I can like you as a person and as a conversationalist (I do), and still take issue with an idea you share. Even strongly. But it won't make me dislike you, because I'm not going ad hominem.

What's more, you can do the same to me. Please don't feel that in order to remain a decent, civil and appreciated human being, you have to pretend to agree, or to soft sell your views to me. I'm good with straight talk.

Fair enough?

Politics are not resolvable...

Well, we'd better hope that not everything in politics is unsolvable, or that things become unsolvable the minute they have political implications; because if that's true, then politics are no more than an interminable and bitter power struggle. But I think the aspiration of politics, at their best, is to negotiate the best overall solution for problems that affect multiple people of varying belief and value systems.

If we can't ever get that much, we're in trouble.

...and no particular ideal will work without the power of people over the mere power of debt held against others (money).

The problem with that, Scott, is that "money" is an inert thing. It has no opinions, plans or projects. Rather, it's an abstract tool used by human beings to maximize their ability to acquire things or get things done, especially in exchange. Likewise, "debt" is a concept governing relations among people...as in, you did me a solid, so now I owe you a solid back.

So it's not a story of debt against people. It's a story of some people against other people, with debt as the tool. But the problem is the relation of debtor to debt holder. And this has two sides. It may be true that you, as my debt holder, are powerful over me; but it is also true that as the debtor, I took your money in the first place, in order to get something I wanted. And I agreed to become your debtor in order to do that. So if my debt is just cancelled, I robbed you, and used government to do it.

Similarly, if you imposed usurious interest on me, then you are quietly robbing me, and using the economic rules to achieve that. And that's very bad.

So moral economic relations are what we both need. And that means we need to talk about that 25% interest you're charging me, but we also need to talk about how I got $10,000 from you, and now want not to repay what I took.

The only means to use money as power is if one has might that favors the use of weapons and walls against the masses who have to be necessarily 'slaves' given they are the ones who define the debt that empowers the few when respected.

Well, it's true that the debt unfairly empowers the few. It's also true that people get into absurd levels of debt in order to gratify their desires to live at a much higher level than they actually need to live, or to have luxuries they really don't need. So we've got immoral economics on both sides, really. And that's the problem we really have to deal with.

...there will never be satisfaction that all of us could ever agree to. We will be the 'owners' of our own destruction regardless. And that makes me the pessimist to your optimism.

I'm not an "optimist," Scott. I'm an "optimalist."

I am suggesting we need an "optimal" solution to the unavoidable tension between the inherent greed of different factions of people. An "optimal" solution does not mean an ideal one...it means only the most stable, fair and workable, given the realities of the situation.

Neither Liberals nor Conservatives (I use these in the non-Canadian sense, to speak of the centrists on both sides, not of extremes like Libertarianism or Leftism) have a total solution here: they need an ongoing dialogue in which each side respects the fact that both are aiming at morally good outcomes, but they differ on where the balance is to be set. Liberals know that people are suffering; but conservatives are often better economic realists, and know that without a stable and just economic arrangement, misery for the people is sure to follow anyway. So both have something to offer to the equation.

We just have to get rid of the extremes on both sides, and start to talk sanely again. "Politics" ought to be the grounds where we do the talking. Right now, it's not.

[RCSaunders]

Not so, Scott. Many conservatives are, in fact, agnostics and atheists. Libertarians, for example, often have far more affection for Adam Smith or Ayn Rand than for any deity.

And that's what is wrong with trying to identify views in terms of labels. While I'm sure you cannot make a direct connection between people's religious views and the political views, while they will certainly be related, the labels do not clarify anything.

Those who call themselves Libertarians (and that includes a range of views from capitalist republicanism to mimimalism to anarchism), except for some capitalist libertarians, have views very different from most conservatives. Most conservatives hold views consistent with Theism, being for things like prayer in the schools, teaching creationism, against abortion, pro-military (i.e. pro war), anti-drugs, etc. which very few Libertarians would support. While both conservatives and Libertarians sometime quote Smith and Rand, true Randians, politically are staunch believers in a, "capitalist," form of government (i.e. one that supports capitalist principles, individual liberty, property rights, and rule of law, etc.) and are strongly opposed to conservatism, liberalism, and libertarianism. Liberalism is almost impossible to pin down since it supports almost any irrational social view spawned by post-modernism and cultural Marxism perhaps best described as militant nihilism.

[Immanuel Can]

Liberalism is almost impossible to pin down since it supports almost any irrational social view spawned by post-modernism and cultural Marxism perhaps best described as militant nihilism.

Well, not Classical Liberalism, right?

I assume you mean Leftism...Progressivism...Collectivism...that sort of thing, not the centrists, correct, RC?

[RCSaunders]

Liberalism is almost impossible to pin down since it supports almost any irrational social view spawned by post-modernism and cultural Marxism perhaps best described as militant nihilism.

Well, not Classical Liberalism, right?

I assume you mean Leftism...Progressivism...Collectivism...that sort of thing, not the centrists, correct, RC?

Of course, and that's another thing wrong with labels. They do not facilitate communication, they only confuse it. If you want to compare political views the only way to compare is to specify the views.

[Immanuel Can]

Liberalism is almost impossible to pin down since it supports almost any irrational social view spawned by post-modernism and cultural Marxism perhaps best described as militant nihilism.

Well, not Classical Liberalism, right?

I assume you mean Leftism...Progressivism...Collectivism...that sort of thing, not the centrists, correct, RC?

Of course, and that's another thing wrong with labels. They do not facilitate communication, they only confuse it. If you want to compare political views the only way to compare is to specify the views.

Liberalism has that unique problem, that sometimes people use it as a synonym for "Leftist extremism," and at other times they merely mean moderate or centrist "Classical Liberalism". I think it's that particular term we need to specify, and all labels have to be affixed lightly; but not all such terms are ambiguous to that degree.

[uwot]

And that's what is wrong with trying to identify views in terms of labels. While I'm sure you cannot make a direct connection between people's religious views and the political views, while they will certainly be related, the labels do not clarify anything.

Well yeah, today conservatism is a coalition of different interests groups, which in fairness has been far more successful at presenting a united front than the motley crew that disagree with those disparate beliefs. Here's the wiki intro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusionism The trick that fusionists have pulled off is to convince lots of not very bright people that their pet interest is threatened by anyone outside of that coalition, rather than just the equally dim fringe radicals on the left, who wish to impose their views on others as much as religious, social and economic right wing nuts. There is a whole swathe of people who think that things like education, healthcare, opportunity, natural resources and wealth could be far more equally distributed in the middle who are marginalised, simply for being tolerant. We'll be back and we won't hurt anyone.

[Impenitent]

fusionism sounds like it has a bright future, but it will burn out sooner than we think...

-Imp

[RCSaunders]

Well, not Classical Liberalism, right?

I assume you mean Leftism...Progressivism...Collectivism...that sort of thing, not the centrists, correct, RC?

Of course, and that's another thing wrong with labels. They do not facilitate communication, they only confuse it. If you want to compare political views the only way to compare is to specify the views.

Liberalism has that unique problem, that sometimes people use it as a synonym for "Leftist extremism," and at other times they merely mean moderate or centrist "Classical Liberalism". I think it's that particular term we need to specify, and all labels have to be affixed lightly; but not all such terms are ambiguous to that degree.

Well, it doesn't really matter to me. Use labels if you like. Attempting to sort them out only leads to confusion as far as I'm concerned, so I don't. My political views do not need or have a label. All government and all, "social systems," oppress the smallest of all minorities--individuals.

Governments, like disease, ignorance, and natural disasters, are inevitable. The only way to deal with any of them is to learn to recognize and evade them. Nobody is ever going to eliminate them, fix them, or make them nice. All politics, like fixing government education, is an attempt to find the right way to do the wrong thing. The only fix for government education is to eliminate it (which can actually be done); the only fix for government is to eliminate it (which cannot be done).

[RCSaunders]

There is a whole swathe of people who think that things like education, healthcare, opportunity, natural resources and wealth could be far more equally distributed in the middle who are marginalised, simply for being tolerant.

Marginalized by whom?

[uwot]

There is a whole swathe of people who think that things like education, healthcare, opportunity, natural resources and wealth could be far more equally distributed in the middle who are marginalised, simply for being tolerant.

Marginalized by whom?

Ah well, that's the joke. The centre ground is marginalised by the nutters on either side of them.