Is Political Conservatism a Mild Form of Insanity?

well said.

ATRey wrote:

First, liberals are far more open-minded and accepting of others viewpoints than conservatives are or have ever been.

Obama to Eric Cantor: "There are consequenses to elections... and I won."

Must make Obama a conservative. /sarc

I'm just wondering how the study on the democratic socialists faired. Was probably a rave review.

And France and Europe's "social democracy" is working so well. France had a bill in the works that would have instilled a 75% millionaire's tax. Fortunately it got defeated, but stuff like that shouldn't even be in the works. The problem with social democracy is that eventually you run out of other people's money. And because of their social democracies, they have HUGE illegal immigration issues from Asia and Europe. Even the UK does, just watch UK Border Patrol and see how many people try to illegally enter.

Thank you for putting into words what I think. I really appreciate the structure of your points.

The main point I want to make is I never found conservatives anything but mildly repugnant. Let them talk for a few minutes and then bug out of there. I was educated by my various schools to always reconsider another's point of view to look for undue bias on my part, so I did, but never found the merit in what I considered rather harsh words about other people.

Moving on, I have heard such disgusting, malicious things coming form the oral and written communications of conservatives I would be hard put to disagree that they are mentally ill. I have yet to hear anything indicate that they love anything, including themselves. I will continue to look for that evidence of love. But not too hard because it is like looking into the abyss. Paying too much attention to conservatives is very harmful to my blood pressure and peace of mind. Sorry, that is just the way it is.

ATRey said nothing but the truth!

ATRey said nothing but the truth!

norman wrote:

1. Look up the term "socialist". 2. Read up a bit on Hitler. You will discover that Hitler indeed had socialist beliefs and that socialism was central to National Socialism ideology.

The only 'socialist' attribute of Hitler was that he stole from the Jews. Hitler was about as socialist as Henry Hill, the late gangster.

The word "socialist" was a reference more to the State as determiner of who prospered and who failed than to any social justice. Workers lost their rights to strike and even to change jobs under Hitler.

Hitlkert was admantly opposed to socialism, actively murdering them with the same zeal as if they were Jews (whom he frequently blamed for inventing the concept of a more egalitarian distribution of the product of workers labor.
The East German communists who followed the fall of nazism called their state the German Democratic Republic. The brutal dictatorship that has long savaged the people of the Congo call themselves Democratic East Congo. As did white South Afrikans if asked whether true democracy existed in S. Afrika.

Were they all democracies simply because that's what they named it? So why would fascism, an ideology that Mussolini is credited with developing into a full-fledged political framework that the right-wing of the day was desperate to find as a counter to the growing attraction that working class Europeans had for the message of egalitarian wealth distribution...a natural development considering how they had been systematically used then discarded like trash when too old to produce for the landowners.

You will not find a single historian with articles appearing in scholarly journals who claims the Nazis were leftists. (Hint: Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz or Robert Spencer are NOT credible historians)

I disagree. Both conservatives and progressives are heir to the great classical liberal values and institutions that comprise the Western tradition. This tradition’s contributors include Judeo-Christian religious moralists; secular humanists; classical Greek/Roman philosophers; medieval thinkers; Renaissance artists; French humanists; English/Scottish/American individual rights theorists; German psychologists; etc.

We conservatives advocate conserving the Western tradition, i.e. constitutional guarantees of individual freedoms/rights to life, liberty, property, political speech, and self-defense; enumerated powers of limited government; Christian-inspired charitable institutions such as the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, and Catholic hospitals; social integration such as e pluribus unum, a single official language of government, and legal immigration; the preservation of the single man-single woman marriage custom as the ideal social example to protect young women and children.

By contrast, the political left seems apparently determined to deconstruct and destroy values and institutions that make free and prosperous society possible. For example, the increase of the size and power of massive debt-ridden tax-heavy government programs that common people are forced to participate in (while exempting politically connected unions). For example, official multiculturalist claims that Western traditions are inherently NO better than Islamic traditions. For example, oppression and victimhood rhetoric directed towards minorities meant to drum up race-hatred and class-hatred rather than focusing on individual self-improvement and social integration. For example, government giveaway programs that discourage personal responsibility and debases common people (e.g. the Atlanta housing voucher mob incident). For example, empowering federal/state government departments to impose their own regulations, fees, and increase their mandate without legislative approval (e.g. the FCC increased its powers to regulate the Internet). For example, local governments are taking property from individuals in the name of increasing property taxes (e.g. the Kelo Supreme Court case). For example, judicial activists creatively discovered inalienable rights to abortion, sodomy, and same-sex marriage licenses in the “living” Constitution. However you might feel about these issues– there is nothing about them in the Constitution.

I certainly agree that the left are advocates of environmental purism. In fact, environmental fanaticism fundamentally exposes the left at its heart – i.e. deep resentment of strong happy free prosperous independent people who do not sufficiently appreciate the left’s utopian visions for transforming/saving the world. Hence, the left hopes to ultimately confine humanity to tiny population centers so that the forests are not troubled by ATVs, industry, or children.

Yes, lastly, conservatives want business and industry to thrive – which enables common people to become economically independent – who are thus in a position to afford reasonable environmental protections balanced with human needs.