The lost world of Conservatives

[mqbush]

Recapping earlier posts, then continuing:

Conservatives lost their presumed entitlement to superiority three times,-in the French Revolution, as a result of the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, and with Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legislation. By that time there was no longer any chance of going to a frontier area and setting up a society to their liking. If they were to broaden class divisions to create an aristocracy it had to be through electing Conservative candidates to office. It didn’t matter if the voters used to accomplish this were ever aristocrats or not, as long as they could be used to get these candidates into power. Many groups feel/felt persecuted,-numerous immigrant populations, religious groups, even blacks who were once the victims of Conservatism,-all could be appealed to through their various narratives of persecution to side with Conservatives

Such persecution narratives are easily turned into bellicose paranoia; there are enemies everywhere, enemies that will get you if you don’t get them first. People whose identities are dependent on this world view have to believe and are absolutely certain that America must militarily and economically, unequivocally dominate the rest of the world or face extinction. It can appear to them to be literally a matter of life and death to have a Conservative government.

Some people, self-identified as Conservative, may not feel this way at all, and some of them voted for Obama. Some of these mislabeled people are social conservatives,-small ‘c’,- and are concerned about abortion and gay marriage, not about fantasies of America being invaded by Iceland or nuked by Belgium. Some others are fiscal conservatives,-small ‘c’,-and want balanced budgets and market controls, not an extravagant global empire. Still other people call themselves conservative because they want to believe they are sober, responsible citizens, without realizing that Conservatives,-large ‘C’,-are anything but conservative. Surveys such as those done by Pew Research consistently show that large majorities of Americans want strong Social Security, national medical insurance, higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, greater environmental accountability by corporations, and all the other responsible (“daddy”) and nurturing (“mommy”) attributes of socialist governance. These large majorities of Americans think of these attributes as sensible and conservative. That Conservatives are the opposite of conservative doesn’t enter their mind. Hence the falseness of the claim that America is a center-right country. It is far from it.

Many of these conservative socialists do indeed get turned into Conservatives by calculated appeals to their personal or group persecution narratives. These conversions take several years to unravel and, for as long as they last, skew the picture of what the normal American really is.

[izzie]

1. Is that pushing their views pretty far into the right?

I am sort of a conservative in my views but they are so mild beside what you say they are . I just think we should keep some of what is old if it is good for us. I came from a family that were all in the GOP and gave money to it as they wanted it to win but they were hardly like what we have in office today. If you are right in how they think I can see why I left the party and it seems so odd from the party my family all called the Grand Old Party. I call my self a liberal but I still think we should drag the good old stuff into our age and make it better if we can. Here is a Conservative thought. I think the language of the country should be English (by law). It is what our Laws are under and our constitutions is in and I feel a country should have at least one common thing every one falls under. Maybe like the faith and credit thing. Some standards need to be in place that are just the same for every one. Being an Am. has always seemed like an abstract thing to me. It is a belief and the great part of it is that we have sent it world wide and that is also the bad thing as so many countries do not wish a country that is ruled by the common man. Heck we our self have trouble with the whole thought.

[mqbush]

2. This is why I wrote this, to point out how the nice word conservative

with a small c unfortunately gets mixed in with the not so nice historical Conservative world view, which has nothing to do with being stable and traditional and wise, but has everything to do with an American version of aristocracy accomplished through class or race division into superior and inferior, and the militancy that is needed to maintain this hierarchy.

Some of the oldest things we have are the best,-the Golden Rule, for example. But there are also some old things we're struggling to root out of our traditional thought. The thrust of modern governance has been away from kings and the like, and toward what has that hated name, socialism. All illegitimate power hates socialism, and this power fights with all its wealth and authority to keep power an elite thing, bad-mouthing anything that helps the common man.

The old Republican Party was fine. Then it reached out to Conservatives and evangelicals to plump up their vote count, and this destroyed the GOP.

[izzie]

3. I do think you are right and the evangelicals destroyed the GOP

They also did seem to drag in all the odd groups that seem to think a few should run our govt. From the top down. Just like many of their churches are run and like they were born to rule. God but I hate that stuff. I re-call once being told I should not be able to vote as I was renting a house so paid no property tax. I had to ask these people, 'just how do you think the man who owns this house gets his money to pay HIS tax if not from me"? (Maybe he should not vote and only I for that crazy way of thinking.) My guess is I am a social Dem. at heart. I believe the people need to control the things that they need in a society to live. Such as the water that comes into your home, the military that serves you, the fire and police dept, and I guess I could go on. In a society that is growing larger all the time one just has to think different than one did in 1940 etc.