But, just one thing. Even a moron can say something worth considering, is all I’m saying. Who is eradicating what? (that link does not take you to a moron) Your money goes somewhere when you spend it. When you buy cigarettes, it goes into the pockets of big fat monopolies and rich white men who don’t care if you get lung cancer – that’s my biggest motivation in quitting. I drive a car that burns a fossil fuel. Everytime I buy gas, I contribute $30 to continuing the problems in the Middle East, as well as ruining the environment. None of us are innocent.
I am not especially liberal-minded, believe it or not; I am more conservative than anything else, just not in the same way as most people calling themselves conservatives. What the fuck do they want to conserve? Not the environment, not democracy, not civil liberties. What, then?
Patriarchy and white supremacy?
Oh, thank you. That is better — better expressed, better bringing up the dilemma of it.
Ok, since I’m kind of a conservative (albeit a pretty libertarian one), I’ll bite. The term ‘conservative’ doesn’t derive from the word ‘conserve.’ It means just what it says. The conservative mindset starts from the premise that human nature is essentially constant and that 50,000 years of human history have led to a useful set of rules and customs for balancing the good and bad of that nature. That being the case, rapid changes in those rules and customs are suspect. Conservatives are not opposed to change – which only morons don’t realize is inevitable – they are merely circumspect about it. Slow and gradual change minimizes the dangers of unintended consequences.
I take issue with the notion that conservatives don’t wish to preserve democracy and civil liberties. It is not conservatives – in either Europe or the USA – who push at all times for more centralized authority and undemocratic decison-making by unelected elites. The concentration of power in Brussels and Washington, DC are the creation of the left, not the right. Local decison-making is, in most instances, the first instinct of a conservative (some exceptions apply, to be sure). Uniformity mandated from above is the policy preference of the left.
As for the environment, well, disagreement on the merits of environmental policy and the alleged science upon which it is based does not equate to opposition to the environment itself. Acknowledging that economic growth and prosperity are the fastest and best proven path to environmental improvement requires only a clear-eyed look at the evidence. OTOH, one need only look at the environmental degradation perpetrated by the “progressive” bastions of the former Communist (leftist) bloc to see how effective the liberal preference for top-down, government-controlled environmental policy is.
You’re not saying the way Bush assumed office was “preserving democracy” are you? Or that the present trend to holding suspects – even U.S. citizens – without charges for indefinite periods is “preserving civil liberties”?
Fast change makes me uncomfortable; but no one has initiated faster or more radical changes in American society than the last several Republican administrations. Anything Clinton managed to do was peanuts compared to Reagan’s deregulation drive, which had a very destabilizing effect on business, the marketplace and society; and I don’t think Bush is going to be much better in this regard. The banking scandal in the 1980s – which of the Bush boys was involved in that one? Now we have Enron et al.
Environmental policy – the choice is not between Communist abuse of the environment or Republican abuse of the environment. Yes, the environment was greatly damaged in most Communist countries. Texas is also the most polluted state in the Union.