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Premise 1: Conservatism is defined as the relative support of tradition, of the status quo and opposition to change, while liberalism is opposition to the status quo and support of change.
Premise 2: Democrats were not always liberals, and Republicans were not always conservatives. Remember this now, please.
Technically, if your premise is right you can make anything sound bad/good.
I don't think of the republican party as true "conservatives". Its more a quasi religious right with a mix of big money.
Premise 2 Liberalism is based on the belief that mankind is essentially good/mankind can be improved. That the path has not yet been defined and/or thought of. It is also known as Unconstrained vision.
Both visions of the world are right and wrong. Being constrained may lead you to disregard new ideas for too long (the makeup of a family, civil rights, etc). Being unconstrained may lead you into endless attempts that you argue that "next time we will get it right" i.e. Communism, social welfare, etc.
Yet the idea that conservatism doesn't move forward is an error. Once proven, the conservative should accept and move forward.
The idea that the world is black and white, and only one way is right. . .is the truest fallacy here.
Your core premise is that every change is for the better.
You know, like US expansion into Indian territories, Vietnam, Korea, grabbing Hawaii.....
Don't forget NAFTA, that was a big change.
This is such a silly silly thread.
Has nothing to do with every change being for the better, but change is change. I'd love nothing more than to get a sandwhich on demand from my woman, but I'd more often get a smack upside the head.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Joshua
Conservatism is the bedrock of civilization.
But...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Joshua
Liberalism tweaks that bedrock to help perfect it.
If liberalism is constantly tweaking it, and their "tweaks" become a part of the bedrock (like abolishing slavery), then society is constantly shifting in the direction of the liberals tweaking.
These tweaks, now make up the bedrock. Conservatives will defend the abolition of slavery (well, the sane ones will) as it has become part of the foundation of our society.
So if liberals are constantly tweaking it, and the conservatives adopt the tweaks (be it 1 year or 100 years to do so, it'll still seem to happen it appears). In that case it seems liberals make the bedrock, let it cement, conservatives take over sitting on it, then when liberals make more tweaks, the conservatives eventually are dragged onto the new bedrock. Shifting society along.
(Isn't meant to really be a conservative vs liberal thing. Just bored.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisFromChicago
Yet the idea that conservatism doesn't move forward is an error. Once proven, the conservative should accept and move forward.
Those premises are pretty sound. If a conservative is by definition a person who wants the status quo and a liberal is a person uprooting the status quo, then it follows that liberals caused change. It's pretty simple.
You're telling me that if the premises are true, that makes them true.
And you're proud of how simple your logic is.
Well, it can't get any "simpler". That's certainly true!
Hilarious how the leftist fanatics can make a six-page-long (and counting!) thread out of a couple of complete lies.
But that's nothing. They're doing the same thing with an entire Convention today in North Carolina!
The pendulum swings back and forth and history works in cycles. Since the late 1960s we have been in an overall liberal-leaning era of history and the culture has been permeated with liberalism and liberal values. This wasn't always the case though. Through most of the first half of the 20th century, conservatives had the spotlight and controlled the direction of culture. It WILL swing back again, its just a matter of time.
The pendulum swings back and forth and history works in cycles. Since the late 1960s we have been in an overall liberal-leaning era of history and the culture has been permeated with liberalism and liberal values. This wasn't always the case though. Through most of the first half of the 20th century, conservatives had the spotlight and controlled the direction of culture. It WILL swing back again, its just a matter of time.
99.9% of historians who study the 20th century would disagree.
This overwhelming number of historians generally agree that conservatism has permeated society and things like the New Deal and the Great Society were nothing but a blip of liberalism. Robert Weisbrot and G. Calvin MacKenzie argue in a book entitled The Liberal Hour that the 1960s were really just "an hour" of liberalism when compared to the rest of the political leanings and control of national politics by certain ideologues throughout the 20th century. And I think they have a point. The 1920s were controlled by conservatives. Even the 1930s had its share of conservatives (at the state level and in the Supreme Court) attempting to block the New Deal. The 1940s were generally conservative for the obvious reasons, likewise the 1950s when conservatism began to coalesce with those outside the mainstream of the Republican Party, like religious conservatives and libertarians.
I also take issue, as do 99.9% of historians, with your characterization of the contemporary era--the 1960s to the present. Just a run down of presidential administrations since 1968 shows otherwise--Nixon, Ford, Carter (one termer), Reagan, Bush I, Clinton (a very conservative Democrat), Bush II, Obama. From roughly 1970 to the present, the New Right has controlled the national debate. They've consistently painted liberal ideas, i.e. feminism, civil rights reform, abortion rights, etc as inherent evils to be avoided. Even the term "liberal" has negative connotations, thus demonstrating how conservatives have managed to control the debate by controlling the terms used for debate.
The New Right, in ascendancy beginning with the Goldwater campaign of 1964, has largely convinced most Americans that government is a bad thing and that the private sector can solve America's problems better and more efficiently than can government. We see this with the few supposedly "liberal" presidents since 1968. Bill Clinton claimed that the era of big government had ended when he signed the Welfare to Work Act into law. Jimmy Carter tried to bring Christian religious values to Washington, D.C., Barack Obama pushed a healthcare law through Congress that mandates Americans go to the private sector to buy insurance or pay a penalty.
In other words, conservatism has been such a huge influence on American society since the 1960s that even liberals have toned down their goals to reflect the stranglehold that conservative ideology has on the country.
As for the 1960s, I'd suggest reading a few other books to help you further develop your contentions. Read America Divided by Kazin and Isserman. Read A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch (she demonstrates how the 1960s was as much about conservatives organizing as it was about the antiwar movement). I'd also suggest Lisa McGirr's revelatory case study of Orange County, Cali. conservatism in Suburban Warriors. Matthew Lassiter discusses how conservatives came to control the American political debate in Silent Majority. Kevin Kruse writes about how conservatives drew upon their suburban identity in establishing broadbased political networks to help elect conservative candidates to office in White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. I'd also suggest reading the many articles and books by Bruce Shulman on conservatism and American politics since the New Deal.
Progressivism was shared by politicians in both political parties, and conservatives and liberals alike promoted and supported alcohol prohibition. Wilson--definitely a progressive. Teddy Roosevelt, and Taft, too, were progressive.
I think people on this thread are getting their labels all mixed up. Naziism is not equal to socialism; liberalism is not socialism; liberalism is not fascism; progressivism (as an ideology in world history) is not modern day liberalism, etc, etc.
I think what is needed to aid this discussion is for a few of you to go out an actually read some books on the subjects you're writing about on this thread. Then there can be an informed discussion, rather than just the butchering of history.
You raise some good points. One of the biggest problems is that too many people start to confuse (or intentionally mislabel) various ideologies. That is one of the reasons why I hate the labels "right-wing" and "left-wing". Because there are so many variations of ideologies that you cannot place all of them into one clear camp.
I'm a libertarian for example. I'm very socially and economically permissive and a fiscal conservative. I'm also a moderate on foreign policy (not a bloodthirsty hawk, but I know that "minding your own business" isn't necessarily going to guarantee peace). I wouldn't fit in well with groups that are generally understood to be right-wing or left-wing. Another example would be neoconservatives. Their foreign policy would separate them from isolationists (which are often considered to be old school conservatives), but they tend to be socially liberal or even borderline socialist in regards to economic policy (thinking of the late Christopher Hitchens here).
That being said, with American politics divided among two parties, I think that a lot of people who are neither liberal nor conservative and extremists end up in them because there are no other viable alternatives. I have little doubt there are indeed Democrats who are socialists and Communists at heart and I have no doubt that there are Republicans that would be Fascists or openly racist if there was a viable mainstream outlet for it.
Let us remeber Lenin caused change. So did Pol Pot.
Ah, yes the exceptions. You got me. Lenin is like every modern liberal in the nation, as is Pol Pot. Is it possible not to evoke the names of psychos? People could easily do the same with conservatives.
You raise some good points. One of the biggest problems is that too many people start to confuse (or intentionally mislabel) various ideologies. That is one of the reasons why I hate the labels "right-wing" and "left-wing". Because there are so many variations of ideologies that you cannot place all of them into one clear camp.
I'm a libertarian for example. I'm very socially and economically permissive and a fiscal conservative. I'm also a moderate on foreign policy (not a bloodthirsty hawk, but I know that "minding your own business" isn't necessarily going to guarantee peace). I wouldn't fit in well with groups that are generally understood to be right-wing or left-wing. Another example would be neoconservatives. Their foreign policy would separate them from isolationists (which are often considered to be old school conservatives), but they tend to be socially liberal or even borderline socialist in regards to economic policy (thinking of the late Christopher Hitchens here).
That being said, with American politics divided among two parties, I think that a lot of people who are neither liberal nor conservative and extremists end up in them because there are no other viable alternatives. I have little doubt there are indeed Democrats who are socialists and Communists at heart and I have no doubt that there are Republicans that would be Fascists or openly racist if there was a viable mainstream outlet for it.
As a libertarian, then, I think you would find Rebecca Klatch's book about the 1960s (A Generation Divided) to be very interesting. She writes about how conservatives organized politically in the 1960s by courting a growing number of libertarians on college campuses--men and women who were disenchanted by their mainstream liberal peers and began organizing counter organizations. In her research, she finds that modern day conservative ideology and modern day liberal ideology came out of the same roots and same general belief that government was the problem. And this is not so hard to figure out in the context of the 1960s. Antiwar "radicals" hated the government for obvious reasons. Libertarians philosophically believe in small government.
You're telling me that if the premises are true, that makes them true.
And you're proud of how simple your logic is.
Well, it can't get any "simpler". That's certainly true!
Hilarious how the leftist fanatics can make a six-page-long (and counting!) thread out of a couple of complete lies.
But that's nothing. They're doing the same thing with an entire Convention today in North Carolina!
No, it's simply taking the definitions and applying them.
Let's take slavery. Conservatives at the time wanted to keep the status quo, slavery. Liberals, those who are against the status quo wanted it abolish. Slavery was then abolished, a very liberal stance. Now conservatives and liberals alike don't believe in slavery.
How are these lies? EVERY credible history book kind of confirms this. Please state an example where conservatives took an issue and changed it from the status quo or not revert to a previous position. Conservatives, by definition, try to retain the status quo.
No, it's simply taking the definitions and applying them.
Let's take slavery. Conservatives at the time wanted to keep the status quo, slavery. Liberals, those who are against the status quo wanted it abolish. Slavery was then abolished, a very liberal stance. Now conservatives and liberals alike don't believe in slavery.
How are these lies? EVERY credible history book kind of confirms this. Please state an example where conservatives took an issue and changed it from the status quo or not revert to a previous position. Conservatives, by definition, try to retain the status quo.
It's true.
Yesterday's "progressive" stance is today's "pillar of conservatism."
Just look at anything, from social security, to Medicare, civil rights to worker protections.
"Of COURSE we conservatives support a woman's right to vote! Who wouldn't?! (Besides our predecessors)!?"
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