A response to a conservative declaration of values (Hugo Chavez, middle east, enemies)

[Vicman]

There was a thread in the Houston forum that is starting to get into politics. There's a post I'd like to respond do, so I'm doing it here Looking to move to conservative area around suburbs of Houston

Originally Posted by TheMoreYouKnow

For me it's easy as well.
Respect for the environment while not using it as a political token
Respect for equal rights and equal respect for all
Respect for everyone regardless of race, sex or religion
Respect for a family/person's inalienable rights to protect their family, home and property as protected by the US Constitution
Respect for our protectors, whether it be our police, border enforcement, EMS, our military.
Freedom of religion as defined in the US Constitution
Respect for all people's right to make decisions about their own body while protecting the lives of those who are too young to defend themselves
Respect for a parent's ultimate right to raise their children without government intervention
Respect for a parent's right to choose their children's education path in order to minimize indoctrination or political persuasion of children
Support for common sense energy policies that take our current reality into account while pushing for private innovation at the same time.
Respect for health care access to all Americans
Respect for our borders and national security
Respect for our sovereign nation and it's citizens who's needs, safety and priorities should always be put before those needs of our allies and most certainly our enemies.

• 1. It is annoying when things are used as "political tokens" - The movie Miss Sloane wags its finger at the whole gun ban debate, and people like Leland Yee do not have my respect at all. Nonetheless, it's important to acknowledge that there are people who genuinely care about the environment and those who do care for self-interest reasons.
• 2. Good
• 3. Good - On affirmative action, it was made deliberately to compensate African-Americans of all social classes for having slavery and Jim Crow for hundreds of years (Martin Luther King said this), but as the country changes, it should shift to income-based affirmative action for all races and ethnic backgrounds
• 4. I side with #4. In a jury selection process, I found Texas states that if somebody defends himself with a weapon of a higher order (gun versus a knife-wielder) he/she could still be found criminally liable, and I said that somebody could kill with a fist...
• 5. This should be conditional respect, so long as they do their job professionally. Corrupt law enforcement and/or those who act with willful misconduct, and those who aid/abet willful misconduct shouldn't be respected.
• 6. Re: "as defined in the US Constitution" - Since the constitution deliberately only outlines key concepts, it is necessary for case law and court decisions to elaborate on what this means exactly. "Living document" philosophies are key to protecting rights.
• 7. Re: "while protecting the lives of those who are too young to defend themselves" - If this is abortion, there are reasons why abortion should be regarded as distasteful and as a serious subject, but also note born babies can't defend themselves against resentful parents who don't want them. I am aware that fire departments have baby drops, and I am aware that some unplanned pregnancies have resulted in happy lives, but my understanding is that a large number of unplanned pregnancies which didn't result in abortion have resulted in difficult lives. Abortion is less controversial in East Asia, and historically in the Talmud/Old Testament, babies before birth had little value (as childbirth death was a thing). Since you are a tax payer, you will have to support people who are born in unhappy circumstances, and prisons cost a lot of money to run.
• 8. I have already responded to "ultimate right to raise their children without government intervention" - Parents do not have that ultimate right. Some parents physically or sexually abuse their children. Some parents fail to educate their children. The state has the right to intervene and remove/punish the parents in these cases. In the United States we do have a wide latitude on how we raise our children, and unlike Germany, we can homeschool if we so choose. However education is meant to prepare someone to be a productive citizen, so the state should intervene if parents fail to do their duties. In addition, a democracy requires that people have proper civics education and pro-democratic values, or else it can collapse (think what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela), so the state has an interest there too.
• 9. "Respect for a parent's right to choose their children's education path in order to minimize indoctrination or political persuasion of children" - Remember everyone's "indoctrinated" - Every society has its own set of values and beliefs. In the United States one has a lot of choices. You can choose your religion. You can choose your place of residence. You can choose your partner. You can choose to have or not have children. You can choose to vote or not vote. However for this to be sustained, the population has to believe that this choice is acceptable. If people fail to get civics education and they vote in for a smooth-talking future dictator, many of the choices will go away. People's choices matter. They affect other people. Your actions affect others. So on one hand the state should not indoctrinate a certain religion or political side. But it must "indoctrinate" respect for choice and freedom and respect for democracy.
• 10. By energy policies is this oil and gas usage? I think the energy companies are doing their best to diversify...
• 11. Re: Healthcare, this is why I support single payer
• 12. "Respect for our borders and national security" - This is necessary and this is why I dislike Ocasio-Ortez's rhetoric against ICE for being too strong. Don't start the wrong snowball...
• 13. This is most definitely true, although it's important for the president to say it in a sugarcoated way. People like it better when it tastes sweet, and it is the president's job to sell his country.

I think I agreed more than not.

[Vicman]

The problem is that unless one is a hermit, you will always find a "government", whether it's a village chief or a loya jirga, or a Swiss-style local government majority vote, which plays "a part in raising my children" because said children go on to interacting with them and taking part in society. In the US they vote.

There is such a thing as too much of that whole "society must control our behavior" thing-the odious practice of honor killing comes from the idea that a family has the rights to control the children because society will pooh pooh and look down on them if they don't (denying jobs, etc. or perhaps even attention from the authorities). Because society punishes a family for what the children do, the family kills the children. This unfortunately has happened in immigrant families in the west who refuse to share in the tradition of freedom, and this goes back to the point about raising children with values.

" Government run public schools aren't the answer for everyone, we should accept that other options might be better for students and let people raise their children."

I do agree with this to the extent so long as accredited private schools and charter schools adequately educate the children, give them a proper civics education while leaving them with an open mind (so long as they value representative democracy or a local Swiss-style one at the municipal level if they prefer).

"There's no logical reason why parents shouldn't be able to take advantage of things like school vouchers or charter schools if they choose to, it's their children and it's their tax dollars that we're talking about."

But those are "my" tax dollars too. Don't I get a say too? Public services like firefighters, police officers/etc don't work without mandatory taxation. School systems don't either. This is why elderly in Florida who vote to defund schools or Hasidic Jewish partisans in Ramapo, New York who vote to constrict the public schools (which secular/reformist Jews criticize) are disliked for a reason.

Originally Posted by TheMoreYouKnow

I've got no interest in having any dialog with anyone who wants the government to play a part in raising my children.

I pay my school and property taxes just like every other property owner in Texas and my children will never set foot in a public school because I choose not to force them to endure the indoctrination that you seem to desire more of. There's no logical reason why parents shouldn't be able to take advantage of things like school vouchers or charter schools if they choose to, it's their children and it's their tax dollars that we're talking about. Government run public schools aren't the answer for everyone, we should accept that other options might be better for students and let people raise their children.

[Vicman]

As for my case study on why the state has an interest in ensuring people have the proper educational values at home (and has the right to intervene with how parents raise children), let's look no further than Montgomery County, Texas's own Ali Irsan! He immigrated to the U.S. from Jordan, became a U.S. citizen, and had children with an American wife. Later he brought a teenage girl from Jordan over to be his second wife.

He had a curious mix of "the state isn't going to tell me how to raise my children" and Middle Eastern honor values based on societal shame -- he had his own isolated rural compound in Montgomery County, homeschooled his kids for Grades K-12, until the university level, and he told them he will kill them if they disobey the honor rules. He followed conventions of the old world even though he got US citizenship and had a new society with more freedom, and in having the attitude that the [Texas] and [American] governments won't get to tell him how to raise his kids, he denied his own daughters the freedom they have to make their own choices. The state has the right to intervene for their sake! (this doesn't mean the state should be too powerful or too bossy! Balance is key!)

The state has made it clear that murder is wrong, and also that once a child is an adult, the parents do not have the right to control him/her. Ali Irsan tried to intimidate his daughter Nesreen when she chose to stop wearing hijab and date an American man. Irsan unfortunately murdered Nesreen's best friend and Nesreen's beloved husband, but the State of Texas prosecuted Irsan (he was captured by the feds for unrelated tax fraud stuff), convicted him, and gave him the death sentence.

The State of Texas affirmed that we have the freedom to make our own choices. It also affirmed that in order to have the freedom, the state should have enough power to intervene to prevent a parent from denying his/her own children the freedom to make choices.

This case and the Ramapo school district case is also a case on why the state has the interest in making sure its citizens have a common set of values -- if a group of people decide to be selfish against others (Ramapo) and deny them their rights, or if a large number of Ali Irsans of any religious persuasion vote to deny rights to others -- the power vaccum must be filled somehow -- democracy in America is seriously harmed.

---

P.S. there are the Amish who do have a parallel society and educate their own kids and have their own values (using shunning to enforce them), but they don't overstep their bounds (trying to tell the "English" what to do), and they understand that the "English" law enforcement does have the right to intervene if someone's life or liberty are being deprived.

[homina12]

Those are mostly fine values. If only the Republican party, which claims conservatism as it's core philosophy, actually lived up to that claim.

[MTSilvertip]

I must say, I don't read the Texas forums, so i wouldn't have seen TheMoreYouKnow's fine disertation if Vicman hadn't brought it to a wider audience.

TheMoreYouKnow did a fine job of broadly listing Conservative values, (specifics may vary by individual, but that's fine too, freedom of the individual to make their own decisions), and deserves credit for a well thought out and written post.

Thank you Vicman for bringing that excellent post to a wider audience.

[Vicman]

You're welcome!

Another thing I'd like to add is often too much of a "good" thing can be harmful, which is why I criticize extreme libertarianism. For example trying to weaken government too much just creates a power vacuum in which some other entity (say major corporations) gains more power. Or on the flipside giving the state too much power makes everything stifling (why the Soviet Union and East Germany are criticized). This is why Soviet-Style Communism and Fascism are wrong.

Originally Posted by MTSilvertip

I must say, I don't read the Texas forums, so i wouldn't have seen TheMoreYouKnow's fine disertation if Vicman hadn't brought it to a wider audience.

TheMoreYouKnow did a fine job of broadly listing Conservative values, (specifics may vary by individual, but that's fine too, freedom of the individual to make their own decisions), and deserves credit for a well thought out and written post.

Thank you Vicman for bringing that excellent post to a wider audience.