What's conservative about Chico? (Sacramento, Roseville: home, taxation, live in)

[nullgeo]

Kind of curious the way conservative types so typically feel entitled to co-opt concepts and philosophies and institutions as their sole, righteous domains.

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

While liberals participate in all of these (because it's impossible to be a consistent liberal), liberalism as an ideology has been attacking and undermining their foundations for years. Remember "Hey, hey, ho, ho, western civ has got to go?" There goes your symphony and chorale. It's no coincidence that CSU Chico has eliminated its strings and organ programs - too "eurocentric", you see - and replaced them with classes in electronic noise, hip hop, and MTV.

Liberal attacks on religion, the Boy Scouts, homeschooling, religious education and traditional families are so common as to barely raise eyebrows anymore. Agriculture is constantly under fire by environmentalists who would prefer the entire valley be returned to wilderness.

Chico, nevertheless, retains all of these great things and is therefore a good place for conservatives to live and raise their families.

I was raised in classical music environments (mother was a professional violinist as well as English teacher), and though I was substantially deafened in military service, I earned my first degree in [classical] music performance at a very large and well respected university music school. My deafness precluded realization of my dream of professional performance -- if indeed I had the talent to compete for symphony positions -- yet I taught music and did some minor performing and remained in the music community for many years. I did not find either the university school of music, nor the classical community outside, conservative bastions. Au contraire.

I was also a Boy Scout in the troop sponsored by my [essentially atheist) parents' Unitarian church -- another community hardly considered a conservative bastion.

I also home-schooled two of my 4 children -- and my wife and I are strong advocates of home-schooling ... seriously doubt you'd consider me a conservative.

I suspect, Pilgrim, that you felt these were conservative identities because they also exist within the cloistered halls of your own conservative church experience. You might consider getting out into the world more.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

Conservatism has no definition apart from a specific historical and cultural context. In the United States, it means the conservation of our western Christian heritage, which upholds the quaint old notion that the earth was made for man, not man for the earth.

The delta smelt will not become extinct, nor will the salmon that feed upon it, but if its population must be reduced for the flourishing of humanity, the loss is negligible. This happens in nature all the time apart from human intervention and the environmentalists don't cry about it. Nature adjusts.

A rather extraordinary couple of statements from someone who purports to be such a logical intellectual as you have in the past. Conservatism is defined quite often non-specifically all around you by highly respected, erudite, scholarly individuals and venues -- including conservative ones.

Then you jump to a self-contradicting sentence immediately following, in which you state a generic meaning as if granted power to speak for all mankind.

And then followed by another unilateral statement not at all widely held by the majority of the world's population: that "earth was made for man". Where do you GET these permissions? How much do they cost? I wanna buy summa dat!

Earth wasn't made for man -- nor was man made for the earth.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

True. There's nothing wrong with "strange" per se. I'm pretty strange myself. The problem is that yesterday's evil is today's normal. The question is whether yesterday was right and today is wrong on any particular issue. Answering this question requires a little more gravitas than personal opinion.

Yes, you are pretty strange. And yes, the questions require / deserve gravitas ... How about you supply a little yourself? And consider doing so with some sense of humility before your god, rather than speaking as if your god can't take care of his business without you.

[BeauCharles]

What's good about Chico is it has a nice mix of all population subsets. So by all means, if you are liberal consider moving there to keep the balance lest it become another Redding. You can join the many thousands of former CSUC students who chose to remain there after graduation (and offset the huntin', fishin', homeschoolin' townies).

Love, a Butte County native (born in Paradise).

[WesternPilgrim]

Originally Posted by .highnlite

According to your definition Jews and Muslim and Hindu and Sikh Americans could not be conservatives.

They could be conservatives if, despite their religious beliefs, they valued America's western Christian heritage enough to desire its continued hegemony. That's not unheard of. I know of many non-Christians who are conservative in this way. In fact it was the influence of Vietnamese Buddhist refugees and their appreciation of western culture that helped awaken my inner conservative many years ago.

Originally Posted by .highnlite

In this country Conservatives have opposed everything good for this country, including this country.

Sure, buddy. Have another toke.

[WesternPilgrim]

Originally Posted by TrueTimbers

What happens when "nature adjusts" by making the planet inhospitable to human existence?

That would be bad. See, we can agree on lots of things.

Fortunately, even if the delta smelt were to become extinct (and they almost certainly would not), the planet would remain very hospitable to human existence. Species go extinct all the time without any help from human beings. Similarly, we are constantly discovering new species, courtesy of mother nature.

The problem with environmentalist fanatics is that man is seen as alien and hostile to an abstraction called "the environment", rather than nature's raison d'tere and something integral and essential to it.

Originally Posted by TrueTimbers

I for one am not so confident that for example the salmon will not become extinct... Eco systems are complex and intertwined, not a place for lay people to make assumptions, nor a place for the thought that "god" will take care of his people......

I think you've put your finger on the reality that disbelief in God leads to an exaggerated fear of the fragility of "nature" or "the environment". Granted, we are to be good stewards of creation, and there is always room for improvement in that department. But man has no option but to assume his place among creatures, which like any other creature, impacts all the rest by his very existence. We have no choice but to make assumptions. Ever squash a bug? You, too, are making assumptions - assumptions that are natural to you as a human being. That's not to say that we shouldn't be mindful of ecosystems and so forth. We can be proud of the forestry industry, for example, that plants more trees than it harvests. But if we lose sight of what nature is for, and what man is for, we're going to "conserve" ourselves out of a planet, which is exactly what is happening in the San Joaquin Valley.

[WesternPilgrim]

Back to the topic of this thread ... another thing about Chico: I'm always impressed with the number of clean-cut, well-mannered, good-natured, non-tattooed young people in this city when you get outside of the downtown freak show. A trip to Safeway or Jiffy Lube is always a pleasure.

[.highnlite]

But if we lose sight of what nature is for, and what man is for, we're going to "conserve" ourselves out of a planet, which is exactly what is happening in the San Joaquin Valley.

No it isn't, you are repeating a fable. The only reason there is anything but dry farming in the Central Valley is socialist government water distribution schemes. Either socialist federal canals bringing water from the central and souther Sierra

Or socialist State canals bringing water from the northern Sierra. The farmers use water that is subsidized by us taxpayers, they are essentially, welfare farmers supported by the taxpayers of California and the nation.

The environmental consequences of the dams and canals are profound, you can start with the salmon. rather than the millions of salmon that used to stream up the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, today, thousands stream up to the Nimbus fish hatchery in Sacramento.

I suggest you run don't walk to your nearest socialist free library and check out these three books. Read them, base your comments on fact not belief.

Beyond the 100th Meridian, by Wallace Stegner

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner

Theodore Roosevelt the Wilderness Warrior, by Douglas Brinkley

[nullgeo]

So many fallacious assumptions -- so little time ...

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

... The problem with environmentalist fanatics is that man is seen as alien and hostile to an abstraction called "the environment", rather than nature's raison d'tere and something integral and essential to it.

The environment is an "abstraction"? I did not know that.

But no, man isn't seen as "alien" to the environment at all ... man is seen as having become an aberrant life form rampaging on an out-of-control, self-destructive path that wantonly disrespects other life as well. Not very "Godly" of us is it? And would appear entirely consistent with the clinical definition of cancer. Raison d'etre my arse. About as raison d'etre as the plague.

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

I think you've put your finger on the reality that disbelief in God leads to an exaggerated fear of the fragility of "nature" or "the environment".

Another bucketload. Nature's strength or fragility isn't the issue. Our own species survival and respect for that which gives us life and sustains us are the issues. If we don't respect all life as we love ourselves, we are simply unworthy of stewardship -- or even co-existance.

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

... But if we lose sight of what nature is for, and what man is for, we're going to "conserve" ourselves out of a planet, which is exactly what is happening in the San Joaquin Valley.

And there you go again, defining what only your god could define. Back to 'a priori' for you, Pilgrim. Think about it: even if homo-centric assumption has any possible validity (and it does NOT) how will nature serve us when we have destroyed those aspects of it that sustain us?

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim

I think you've put your finger on the reality that disbelief in God leads to an exaggerated fear of the fragility of "nature" or "the environment".

I'm about as atheistic as any human can get, yet I don't give two ****s about the Delta Smelt or the whatever fly that's holding up development of a huge tract of raw land East of my town. 95% of the species that have inhabited this planet have gone extinct, and that includes the dinosaurs that the Bible oddly neglected to mention.