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Ask a Conservative Anything: Part 1, Rage Welcome - Page 4
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MstrJinbo
United States1251 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
1. What philosophy underpins US conservatism? I lack the proper educaion in the subject to relate conservatism to a specific discipline. I guess the easy answer is, I hope it is distinct enough from other teachings to represent its own philosophy. Maybe I'm missing your question a bit. 2. To what extent are my opinions based on biased coverage? It's a fairly settled point that people are most receptive to views that validate their own. I try very hard to see both sides of an issue, and assume the best in terms of motives from the other side of the aisle. But I won't swear to some sort of perfectly centrist understanding. In fact, I am very much NOT a centrist. I am genuinely hoping to move the country to the right on a number of issues, either through legislation or just through understanding (e.g. I don't think abortion should be illegal necessarily, but I wish people would view it as a very unfortunate necessity and not just a morally neutral act). As to Europe, I think I did a poor job representing my arguments comparing the US to Europe in my first posts. Hopefully, I have made progress since. 3. Differentiating liberalism, socialism, communism You are right, of course, in that language gets very careless during these debates. But on that particular subject, that is, the concept of equalizing income, I think American "liberals" are very socialistic in their advocacy. There is a distinction between conservatism and Republican politicians just like there is between liberalism and Democratic politicians. I was speaking of Democratic politicians. | ||
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Otolia
France5805 Posts
Context : I am also against transgender operations and gender studies for various reasons that I shall not develop here but people would be foolish to call me conservative since I was a member from the socialist party in France. Still it doesn't prevent me from considering Scarlett as female if that's what she wishes. | ||
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deathly rat
United Kingdom911 Posts
On April 26 2012 23:28 SaintBadger wrote: @deathly rat Re: Denying science I don't understand how anyone could possibly still claim to be certain of global warming in the face of several instances where leading authorities on the subject have admitted to manipulating the data. I never once denied anything; I'm merely pointing out that there is still work to be done. Even Al Gore himself admitted to deliberately exaggerating "An Inconvenient Truth" because he believed this was too important to NOT exaggerate. I suppose I admire the motives, but that doesn't bring us any closer to certainty. Not sure where religion came into global warming. The process of "doing science" is not a matter of facts and certainties, it is about theories and evidence. It is impossible to prove a theory is fact, it is only possible to provide evidence which undermines said theory. In the case of global warming the overwhelming evidence is that it is occurring and that it's a product of human activities. So much so that some people falsely call it a "fact". Religion is entwined in this because 99% of everybody who is a global warming denier is part of a religious group. It's the same willingness to reject science and logic that enables religion as it is to deny global warming. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
1. Why do poor people vote Republican? EXCELLENT QUESTION. And I'll be the first to admit that in the short run, they seem to be voting against fiscal interests. Some of them are one-issue voters, and simply concern themselves with a particular social issue or gun control or something like that. I hope above all hope that at least some of them vote Republican because they hope for a time when their work, or the work of their children, is rewarded in the way this country promises it can be. I like to believe that the reason the majority of America doesn't resent the rich is because they understand the desire to be wealthy and know that one day, one of their family members might reach that level of wealth. I suppose it varies heavily based on other demographics. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
More global warming I can go find 100 names, all of whom have appropriate PhD's, that will tell you you're overestimating the overwhelming nature of the evidence, but let's just take one. Dr. Ivan Giaever, 1973 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, and NORWEIGAN (bringing it back!). Spend a moment going out and reading his words on the reason he quit the APS. If you are not moved to at least admit that there is stil room for debate, then again, there is not much more to discuss here. I AM NOT SAYING GLOBAL WARMING DOESN'T EXIST. I am saying that many of the organizations tasked by various governments with studying the ways to address the situation have stopped looking for evidence. In a manner of speaking, they take global warming on faith. That is not acceptable to me, when so much is at stake in the present and the future. Again, Giaever is smarter than me. If he won't convince you to be a little less overwhelmed by the evidence, I never will. I have no idea if he has a religious affiliation. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
@ alQahira Am I too centrist to represent conservatives? CENTRIST?!? How dare you? First of all, let me suggest that the average "conservative" is far less extreme than the stereotypes imply. On the subject of taxes, I have no idea whether Romney would actually live up to that whole "not one dollar of taxes even for ten dollars of spending cuts" pledge, but I certainly hope so. Not because taxes are never appropriate, but because Democrats have NEVER delivered on their side of those sorts of deals. I don't have a problem levying taxes for certain legitimate expenses, but we've been taxing long enough. It's definitely the other side's turn to go first. Of course, after eight years of President Bush, I think it probably takes someone saying "no taxes under any circumstances" for anyone to believe there is any intent to stop the growth of federal expenses. He was a Republican, but a very poor conservative, and that's all I have to say about that. On the subject of abortion, you have to understand there are two very different types of pro-life voters. One believes that abortion is already a crime equivalent to murder, and we are simply not punishing the offenders. The other type believes, as I do, that it is morally wrong, it is NOT a guaranteed right in our government, and states should have the right to do as they wish. That is the extent of my political stance on the issue, and trust me, that's where the vast majority of conservative voters, and not a few independents, stand. Regarding the other social issues you mention, I was merely pointing out that this rigid line between fiscal and social issues doesn't actually exist. When someone says to me, "I'm a fiscally conservative libertarian," I try to inform them in the politest of ways that they have told me nothing. I agree that the ethics probably trump the money on most of these issues, but we'll see. | ||
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deathly rat
United Kingdom911 Posts
Re: The philosophy of Conservatism: As a signed up member to this group I would have a real problem not knowing what underpins the policies created by the Republican party. One of my criticisms of US Conservatives, and US politics in general, is that there aren't enough over-riding philosophies which inform policy, and this leads to vacuous policy making devoid of ethics or logic motivated primarily by short term political gain. However, if I look at the ideas of Conservatives and try to find the root of their beliefs I must say that it seems that it is the modern political extension of Christian ideas. Would I be wrong? | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
I'm working on responses, if you haven't noticed, this is sort of a one-man sounding board. 1. Should a woman be able to sue for getting paid less than a man for the same job? On a multiple choice test, I'd say "not enough information", but I'll do my best to guess at the variations of the question you might have. First of all, let's assume it's a salaried job with no consideration of overtime or incentive-based bonus structure. Let's further assume that the woman and the man have the same level of seniority. Let's further assume that we live in the post-2009 world where Congress fixed their idiotic oversight concerning the statute of limitations. With all of these assumptions, there's no "should" involved. She can sue. Now, I'll admit there are still genuine instances of unequal pay for equal work, and that obviously shouldn't be. But the majority of the disparate pay statistics usually quoted around this issue is explained by maternity leave and subsequent leave for childcare. Employers are not required to credit women with seniority for the time off, and aren't required to grant paid leave beyond the minimum in Title IX, which I think is something like 8 weeks? Don't quote me. Not sure where the conservatism comes in there, it's mostly just a legal question. I don't think there's a moral imperative one way or the other. 2. Am I in favor of getting rid of Planned Parenthood? No politician of which I'm aware wants to "get rid" of PP. I believe my candidate and I personally advocate the halting of public funding to that organization. But that's a matter of advocacy. I do not want to fund an organization that provides termination of pregnancies, but PP could very easily divest that portion of its business and happily maintain funding for the other important work it does. Or we could split said funding among state health clinics that provide the same services. I list out these options only to underscore the fact that not funding abortion services does not equate to the ever-popular War on Women. 3. Am I in favor of restricting women's reproductive rights or to pressure and shame women into keeping children? If witholding public funding from PP equates to restricting reporductive rights in your mind, then we should discuss definitions. Otherwise no, I'm on record as not personally being in favor of outlawing abortion. I am, however, respectful of people's right to vote to do things that I don't think are particularly smart. Two examples of that would be outlawing abortion and electing our current President  As to "pressuring" women into keeping their children, I could frankly care less whether they keep the children or not, assuming we can get this country's adoption system under control. I am all for pressuring them to BIRTH their children rather than abort them. I don't know what you refer to regarding "shaming". 4. RE: Financial implications of homosexual marriage You make an excellent point. I would be interested to see data regarding how it all shakes out when you look at commercial tax revenue vs. "lost" personal income tax revenue. As I said subsequently, I don't have the numbers on that issue; I was simply pointing out that there is no such thing as a non-fiscal issue. 5. Re: Eric Cantor I've met the man personally on two occasions. He seems genuine in his faith and his political convictions. A political party is not always going to have every member in agreeement, and if you're referring to what I think you are, I think he made some reasonable points. John McCain stood up in the Senate and lambasted the Tea Party for squandering a chance to knock out a Democrat majority by running Sharon Angle and the Christine O'Donnell, and I don't think he was betraying his party either. Did Bart Stupak betray his party by holding out for the EO on funding for abortion? I don't know | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
Regarding patents and copywrights: As a general principle, I'd say the ability to own private property and the use thereof is essential to making a capital-driven system work. The Constitution is actually explicit on the notion of giving inventors exclusive rights to the fruits of their labor for a given period of time before they become available to the public. That concept is a good balance between the profit motive driving the scientist to invent the longer lasting lightbulb and the goal of fostering competition via offbrands and the like. It's a complicated subject in law, but I'm content with the American system. And yes, I shouldn't have, but I did use Napster back in the day. The trick is international enforcement. The only way we get that is through trade agreement, and even then, how do we verify that other countries are enforcing as they claim? It's a very complicated subject, and I'm somewhat disappointed that with all the cordial relations this administration is allegedly building around the world, that hasn't yet been front and center of any major international deals. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
Beretta 9mm and an H&K .40 compact I drove a 1998 Firebird until I wrapped it around a tree breaking my back, then a 2002 Firebird. Weirdly, my father's last 4 cars have also been Firebirds. @MstrJinbo I'm a gold leaguer thru and thru, though I hadn't placed in over two seasons and bombed my placement matches last week. Also, in keeping with the discussion, Terrans are people who want to keep mining coal (i.e. they mostly use minerals), Zerg are the environmentalists (they use natural gas for the important stuff but still go through minerals like nothing flat, and they hate terran), and Protoss are us 200 years from now when we understand how to turn coal byproducts into oxygen and sea salt. And we hate them for it. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
2. Am I in favor of getting rid of Planned Parenthood? No politician of which I'm aware wants to "get rid" of PP. I believe my candidate and I personally advocate the halting of public funding to that organization. But that's a matter of advocacy. I do not want to fund an organization that provides termination of pregnancies, but PP could very easily divest that portion of its business and happily maintain funding for the other important work it does. Or we could split said funding among state health clinics that provide the same services. I list out these options only to underscore the fact that not funding abortion services does not equate to the ever-popular War on Women. Cutting public funding from contraceptive services and health insurance providers for women definitely is part of the war on women. Contraception is actually a pretty serious health and financial issue for women. Mitt openly said he wanted to stop all funding for PP. You cannot act like this isn't an issue. As to "pressuring" women into keeping their children, I could frankly care less whether they keep the children or not, assuming we can get this country's adoption system under control. I am all for pressuring them to BIRTH their children rather than abort them. I don't know what you refer to regarding "shaming". Wait, what? Why do you want to pressure and shame women into birthing children? Didn't you just say you don't care one way or another? There has been recent legislation requiring ultrasounds (transvaginal and not) or isolating the woman from her family before undergoing abortion. That is what I am referring to. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
I was fairly outspoken about my beliefs, but I did so in a way that I thought was unobtrusive. For example, 14th Amendment professor would say something neutral and unbiased, like, "people who are pro-life also believe that contraception should be illegal because it's all just privacy rights and you can't be for one without the other. They also believe the state can jail homosexuals." I would respond that I don't accept the premise that all three of these things simply refer to some nebulous legal concept of "privacy", and suddenly I hated women. Whatever works. After some of the insults James Carville and Debbie Schultz have thrown at us over the years, you better have a hell of a vocabulary if you think you can insult me more deeply than them. I didn't have it nearly as bad as the evangelists. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
RE: Conservative philosophy a la Christianity It's possible. I think both parties tend to couch their arguments in the same thematic elements of Christianity because we all sort of assume that those ideas carry some power with our listeners. And it is ABSOLUTELY TRUE that no conservative or liberal tows the party line all the time. Sometimes, as with my issue with the death penalty, I am reassured by the notion that we aren't all mindless drones. Other times, as with President Bush's addiction to deficit spending, I just realize that some people see the political parties as means to an end. I started this because I am a true believer in what I understand to be conservative principles. An important consequence of that, however, is that I find myself disowning Republicans from time to time. I think that's just a part of the two-party system. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
On April 27 2012 01:00 DoubleReed wrote: Cutting public funding from contraceptive services and health insurance providers for women definitely is part of the war on women. Contraception is actually a pretty serious health and financial issue for women. Mitt openly said he wanted to stop all funding for PP. You cannot act like this isn't an issue. Wait, what? Why do you want to pressure and shame women into birthing children? Didn't you just say you don't care one way or another? There has been recent legislation requiring ultrasounds (transvaginal and not) or isolating the woman from her family before undergoing abortion. That is what I am referring to. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED AT ALL IN THIS BLOG, PLEASE READ THIS POST Ok, so earlier I stated that part of my method of doing politics is to assume good motives and basic levels of intelligence in my opposition. We can always assume the worst of people and find something to take in a different way than was meant, but that doesn't advance the argument. If you assume good intentions and even go so far as to assume the most logical meaning in your opponent's words, and you STILL DISAGREE, then we're in business. DoubleReed is refusing to do me that courtesy. As you'll note in the nested quotes, I answered his questions to the best of my abilities and stated the areas in which I was confused. Regarding Planned Parenthood, I said that Romney advocates removing public funding from organizations that provide abortion services. I then noted that PP could easily divest into two organizations, one of which did not provide that particular service, but still provided contraception and health insurance for women AND receive the public funds. I then suggested another option where public funding would flow to contraception and health insurance while avoiding abortion providers. The response I got ignored my words completely, referring to "cutting all funding" (which the government can't do, because the vast majority of PP funding is privately given) and somehow managed to avoid addressing the abortion concern altogether, while reaffirming the War on Women over my considered denial. Regarding "pressuring and shaming" women to keep children, I said that I didn't care whether they kept them or not; I merely hoped they would give birth to the child and that the child could be adopted. I also said I didn't know what he meant by "shaming" The response I got suggested there was something absurd about differentiating between birthing the child and "keeping" it. I will assume this was due to a misunderstanding over the word "keep"; I assumed you meant "raise" the child, not "keep" as opposed to abort. I think that was fairly obvious from my context. Now that I know what you mean by "shaming", I will say that I think some of the ultrasound requirements are absurd and more than a little grotesque, BUT, I think they exist as a manifestation of deeply-held frustration by a large portion of the public which believes that abortion is not some sacred right enshrined in the founding documents of the country. I fully respect if you simply want to use this forum to make your own point. I certainly don't have a monopoly on opinions. However, I thought this was a good opportunity to show exactly what I think is NOT a productive dialogue. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
Romney never issued an ultimatum or whatever to PP saying that "if you continue to fund abortion we will cut off public funds." He simply stated that he was going to cut public funding to Planned Parenthood. I honestly don't get how you get to your very complex conclusion from that. It seems to me like you just wanted to talk about abortion, and you were the one dodging. I'm not sure where you got abortion from, honestly, because that's not the stated stance. I also ninja edited my post, saying that I was referring to state legislation that got rid of equal pay laws, so that women could not sue in the very example you gave. That is also part of the war on women. It's not some silly abstract thing. Republicans have been passing lots of legislation against women recently. Now that I know what you mean by "shaming", I will say that I think some of the ultrasound requirements are absurd and more than a little grotesque, BUT, I think they exist as a manifestation of deeply-held frustration by a large portion of the public which believes that abortion is not some sacred right enshrined in the founding documents of the country. Okay, this needs some mighty clarification. You can't say something is grotesque and then defend it like that. I have absolutely no idea where you stand on this issue at all. Is it disgusting or understandable? Those really are mutually exclusive. | ||
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Delwack
123 Posts
Also 'anti-circumvention' laws like those of the DMCA mean that if you circumvent protections for fair use purposes, you have still committed a crime. This, for all practical purposes, shuts down any form of fair use on any type of DRMed media because you'd have to 'circumvent' the protection measures in order to access the content you have a fair use right to. Also, private right of action through DMCA (e.g. copyright holders notify services like youtube to issue take down notices) bypass due process and are extremely open to abuse. So far, there hasn't been any repercussions for abusive uses of the system by many different parties (especially large corporations). I can dig up stories of abuses if you'd like, but of course such things are anecdotal to some degree, and I think we all recognize that there will always be some abuse and some cost associated with such things. Do such updates to copyright and patent legistlation put us where we should be today? One of the main problems I have with copyright and patents is that they often encourage economic rent seeking behaviors more often than encouraging innovation, which is the stated purpose of patents and copyright. The economic costs of a legally enforced monopoly, such as these, as great. Also, patent trolling is far too common, and very expensive legally. America also has no provision for 'independent invention' when one or more people arrive at similar inventions at the same time (which is much more common than people 'stealing' inventions from each other). This should be relatively obvious if multiple competitors in the same space have similar expertise, and a good read on their markets (the smart phone market is probably a good example of this). Right now however, whoever files for a patent first, 'wins' so to speak. Also, rather than licensing technology to a competitor to encourage innovation and profit from it, they instead make licensing prohibitively expensive to discourage competition. Practices like this mean the system is not working as intended. While the ideal of rewarding inventors/copyright holders and serving the public good by encouraging the progress of art and science is good, our implementation and balance between these interests is terrible. I take it from your position that unlike in most EU countries, you don't believe there is a moral right associated with copyright (e.g. an author of a work has a moral right to do whatever he wants with it and control it however he wants. This moral right typically precludes any type of fair use). This is common for most American views (since we never raised with moral right being one of the things we value), and I agree that artists don't have one. I think international enforcement is a very tricky issue. From an international point of view, America is being somewhat imperialist in this regard. Because companies are granted an effective monopoly, you get monopoly pricing. Companies are also afraid to export goods and services because of 'reverse importing' fears. As an example, even though pharamas could sell drugs cheaper overseas to a much wider market, they are afraid that US citizens would 'reverse import' these drugs, and therefore cut into their own monopoly profit margins at home. This is why so many drugs tend to unavailable at any reasonable price worldwide. About your claim that the administration isn't doing anything about it in international deals, you should read more about ACTA and TPP. The USTR is actually trying very hard to get its version of copyright and patent law implemented around the world. The problem is the world is fighting back, hard, because they recognize that American copyright and patent law is harmful in many cases (see drug example above). Even as a US citizen myself, I consider forcing our patent and copyright law onto other countries to be a bad idea. If you don't mind me suggesting some reading on this topic: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm It's a book that's clearly against intellectual property (and generally wary of patents and copyrights in general), so that is something to keep in mind as you read it, but I think you can glean a lot of insight about copyright and patents, even if you don't necessarily agree the position in the book. It is presented in a reasonable manner with sourced examples and data, as well as anecdotal arguments. I understand this probably isn't a traditional issue that sets conservatives apart from the other political affiliations. I have found your explanations of your positions very interesting so far, even if I don't necessarily agree with you in all cases. I think your views are quite centrist and reasonable (with a conservative spin), which gives me hope that America may yet be able to work out its problems if we can all just agree to get away from the extremes on both sides. More questions: I think most people can accept that our current government system is very corrupt, with the system encouraging rent-seeking behaviors from everyone, lobbying, pandering, and all kinds of other insanity in the political process (tell me if you disagree!). If we assume that the majority of American is genuinely willing to discuss these issues and come to reasonable agreements (as you are doing here), what are your thoughts on improving the American political process to better reflect this, instead of getting terrible forced legislation that everyone hates? Edit: a metric ton of spelling errors corrected. | ||
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archonOOid
1983 Posts
Unlike many of the somewhat outlandish spending priorities our federal govrernment manages to find, there is a pretty clearcut authorization for the feds to levy taxes to facilitate interstate commerce. In my mind, that covers the interstate systems, ocean docks, rail lines, and various inland navigable waterways. As much as I don't like these words leaving my mouth, this is the sort of thing for which taxes should be paid and paid willingly. I don't think many conservatives will disagree with that general point. Now, I could write for an hour about the corruption in the process by which the feds award contracts, but that's another story. The part about corruption and i suppose the inefficient government bodies is classical republican phrase to limit good public projects. Instead of working for an efficient and transparent government it seems that it much easier to cut the funding. So my follow question is whether it's better to focus on a stronger (efficient) and smarter (fair and open) government instead of weaker and dumber government. Government is supposed to service the public and by cutting funding you are cutting the beneficial public services. | ||
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BajaBlood
United States205 Posts
With that, I do have a couple questions for you: 1.) What is your opinion of Grover Norquist and his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge"? 2.) What is your opinion of the "Fact Check" and "Politifact" websites? Do you believe politicians are knowingly lying or misrepresenting the truth in the cases highlighted by these sites, or are they unknowingly passing on incorrect information given to them by their campaign staff? | ||
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Zorkmid
4410 Posts
On April 26 2012 23:57 SaintBadger wrote: @ Zorkmid 1. Why do poor people vote Republican? EXCELLENT QUESTION. And I'll be the first to admit that in the short run, they seem to be voting against fiscal interests. Some of them are one-issue voters, and simply concern themselves with a particular social issue or gun control or something like that. I hope above all hope that at least some of them vote Republican because they hope for a time when their work, or the work of their children, is rewarded in the way this country promises it can be. I like to believe that the reason the majority of America doesn't resent the rich is because they understand the desire to be wealthy and know that one day, one of their family members might reach that level of wealth. I suppose it varies heavily based on other demographics. That's what I thought you might say, it's like they think they're going to win the lottery, and are voting based off that. I'll NEVER understand this wish-thinking, ever ever ever. Other than this, everything else makes some sort of sense to me. | ||
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