Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes. I've never been a fan of the right's social conservatism regarding things like religion and drug policy. But I was always conservative, heavily libertarian, growing up. That is until the 2004-2007 housing bubble when I began to question the "free market" nature of the system.
And then when the 2008 collapse and bailouts came along, I completely abandoned American conservatism.
There is a long list of things that people have argued as causal factors in the collapse of the housing market and people will be debating the relative importance of those causes for the next hundred years. However, let's assume for the sake of argument that the predominant cause was a market failure resulting from insufficient regulation, i.e. that the government failed in properly regulating credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations, for example.
Why would that cause you to completely switch ideologies? I don't know of any classical liberal who believes in no regulation of markets. Free markets cannot exist without regulation, it is a necessary condition for their existence. You cannot have free markets without a governing body of some sort or another (typically government) which sets the rules, enforces contracts, polices fraud, etc.
Furthermore, if the housing market collapse caused you to become a socialist, why haven't the numerous failures of socialist governments that have occurred throughout history not caused you to abandon socialism? Why hasn't this failure of government to properly regulate the housing market not caused you to question your faith in government, but has instead seemingly strengthened it?
Last edited by EugeneOnegin; 06-11-2016 at 02:47 PM..
And then when the 2008 collapse and bailouts came along, I completely abandoned American conservatism.
For the most part, since 2008, I've been waiting on conservatives to stand up and take responsibility for what was their crisis. For their part, they buy into GOP propaganda that it was "the liberal's fault," and have a whole song-and-dance about "the government made Wall Street do it." So they are out of touch with reality, and there's no responsibility forthcoming.
What did Republicans do to create the housing crisis? It was caused by mortgage securitization, which allowed lenders to give people loans without caring whether or not they could pay them back because the loans would just be sold off for someone else to hold the bag. Further, it's not like either party is trying to pass regulation forbidding loan securitization & cut off federal funds flowing through fannie/freddie to force loan originators to only underwrite mortgages they think won't fail.
No question our politicians - democrat and republican - have failed to take appropriate action to immunize the economy against a repeat of the crisis but I also have no clue why you would lay it at conservative's feet when neither side saw it coming and neither side seems to have learned the lesson.
If either party has any blame it's a bit for the Democrats because the CRA by forcing lenders to make loans they believed to be bad triggered the brainstorming of how to get them off their books (which then someone realized, hey, we can do this profitably for any loan we can sign) -- although even then the blame is limited because that was the spark that set off the kindling, but the kindling and wood in the fire were securitization which, again, neither party caused and neither is taking an appropriate response to.
When I was younger, I was extremely liberal to the extent that my views in the 1990s were in line with SJWs of today. My views were based on seriously false premises and it wasn't until I actually critically examined the foundations of my views, did I realize how wrong that they were. Most Leftist views aren't based on ill intentions, but instead are built off the easily disproven notion that all humans are literally equal. That is the Big Lie of the modern Western world, which has caused so many of the problems that we see in our societies today.
Yes. I was once a right-wing conservative. Back then my views aligned nicely with Cruz, Rubio, et al. I voted for Bush Jr. in '04, and took an interest in politics with the '02 CA gubernatorial election. I was rooting for Bill Simon. I'm intimately familiar with conservative politics and ideology, from dominionism to Libertarian philosophy (used to be a registered Libertarian and was a Ron Paul supporter in '08).
I'm about as liberal as they come now. Complete and utter 180.
Yes. I was once a right-wing conservative. Back then my views aligned nicely with Cruz, Rubio, et al. I voted for Bush Jr. in '04, and took an interest in politics with the '02 CA gubernatorial election. I was rooting for Bill Simon. I'm intimately familiar with conservative politics and ideology, from dominionism to Libertarian philosophy (used to be a registered Libertarian and was a Ron Paul supporter in '08).
I'm about as liberal as they come now. Complete and utter 180.
So what was the issue or series of issues that caused you to change your point of view? What did you see that was wrong about conservatism?
I used to be a huge Ron Paul supporter too. I don't agree with many of the libertarian philosophies anymore, but I didn't become a liberal because of it. I'm curious as to what issues you align with that would make you consider yourself a liberal.
What did Republicans do to create the housing crisis? It was caused by mortgage securitization, which allowed lenders to give people loans without caring whether or not they could pay them back because the loans would just be sold off for someone else to hold the bag. Further, it's not like either party is trying to pass regulation forbidding loan securitization & cut off federal funds flowing through fannie/freddie to force loan originators to only underwrite mortgages they think won't fail.
No question our politicians - democrat and republican - have failed to take appropriate action to immunize the economy against a repeat of the crisis but I also have no clue why you would lay it at conservative's feet when neither side saw it coming and neither side seems to have learned the lesson.
If either party has any blame it's a bit for the Democrats because the CRA by forcing lenders to make loans they believed to be bad triggered the brainstorming of how to get them off their books (which then someone realized, hey, we can do this profitably for any loan we can sign) -- although even then the blame is limited because that was the spark that set off the kindling, but the kindling and wood in the fire were securitization which, again, neither party caused and neither is taking an appropriate response to.
So I realized I made an assertion here -- that neither party caused mortgage securitization in the U.S. -- that was driven more by assumption than fact and just did a quick bit of research and apparently I was wrong -- mortgage securitization in the United States was initially driven by Ginnie Mae starting in 1970 as a result of a law called the "Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968." Haven't dug in deep enough yet to get the history of who passed that law and why but apparently my earlier statement and belief as of 5 minutes ago that mortgage securitization in America wasn't the government's fault was wrong.
edit: Johnson, apparently......so I was wrong that mortgage securitization was a market failure and not attributable to either political party; this one is on the Democrats, which contradicts my prior belief but isn't surprising:
Quote:
The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, Pub.L. 90–448, 82 Stat. 476, enacted August 1, 1968, was passed during the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration. It established Ginnie Mae to expand availability of mortgage funds for moderate income families using government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities
Granted at this point stopping the government from doing all of this stupid **** is insufficient because the private sector is now doing it (securitizing home loans) on it's own and the government needs to both stop funding/encouraging loan securitization AND ban the practice.
When I was younger, I was extremely liberal to the extent that my views in the 1990s were in line with SJWs of today. My views were based on seriously false premises and it wasn't until I actually critically examined the foundations of my views, did I realize how wrong that they were. Most Leftist views aren't based on ill intentions, but instead are built off the easily disproven notion that all humans are literally equal. That is the Big Lie of the modern Western world, which has caused so many of the problems that we see in our societies today.
The majority of liberals and conservatives want most of the same results but have different means of getting there. Conservatives generally feel that people should have the same opportunities and put the burden of the results on the individual, while liberals feel a very involved government is requir d to get us there.
It appears to me that over the last few hundred years, governments tend to cause too many problems when they are overly involved, and they have a habit of some degree of tyranny.
In a perfect world, the US would be a perfectly fair, laissez-faire, free-market utopia where everyone could do whatever they want so long as they aren't physically attacking or stealing from others.
But unfortunately, the government insists on heavily taxing their citizens, imposing regulations that make starting a business difficult, zoning laws, endless regulations and restrictions, government surveillance, victimless crimes, etc.
So if the government is going to make it difficult for Americans to make a living their own way, then it should be prepared to help fill in the gaps. If you're gonna be a nanny government, then be consistent about the nanny part.
I hope you realize that much of what you state that you don't like has it's foundations in liberals in charge.
Or, have you switched sides from globalist to nationalist, or nationalist to globalist, which is the paradigm that appears to have replaced the ideological contest between "conservatives" and "liberals"?
If you prefer to think you are not either a globalist or a nationalist, then looking at the question from that point of view, how would you characterize your perspective along these lines?
Liberals today are a completely different breed than they were 25 years ago. There is no way in hell I could identify with these kooks today. It was nice back then when the two sides were able to work together and get things done. No more, it is impossible to talk sense with a liberal. Liberal today lean on the communist and social side.
..........and totalitarian too.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
