Conservatism - C or D? Or is it even a question?

And I think it's becoming harder and harder to be a conservative in power that tows that dual-sided pro-corporate/pro-religion line without becoming rapidly unpopular.. especially since americans, over time, tend to lose certain liberties and gain others, and conservative thinking has been stubbornly upholding the status quo to the point where most of it is getting outdated really quickly, therefore making it quite frustrating.

x-post

The problem is, you can't just cut off illegal immigrants like that without putting the economy and health of the region in question into quick jeopardy at this point in time. Anyone who buys in Los Angeles probably has bought many products that wouldn't be there had it not been for illegal immigrants.. nor would the price have been so cheap.

One of the stupidest fucking things i ever witnessed was the venomous Barbara Coe (from Orange County) - an awful old woman who is bigotted towards Latinos dressed in a cape with "Anti-illegal immigrant" written on it -- start a California proposition that would deny illegal immigrants and their children basic health care and insurance. Um, sure, help create major diseases and epidemics amongst EVERYBODY in the region, why don't you, Babs... And i won't even get to the part where school officials were required to track these people down.. "OK, hmmm, that's a Latino sounding last name.. bring her in"

Again, illegal immigrants are here illegally. I'm not against that principle.. but in some cases, the "damage" is done. The city's mechanics depend on this large population of illegals at this point. What do you do now?

This differs from case to case of course. (Also, many issues involving state border cities can be pretty analogous, too.)

Sounds like more "liberals love welfare queens driving Cadillacs" bullshit to me.

Whatever problems the liberal welfare state has in the US, it's not because they're systematically trying to keep people in poverty.

What is wrong with NOT handing shit out (drivers licenses and voting rights to illegals in CA? That's fucking MADNESS)?
As already mentioned, why is that "fucking MADNESS"?

Illegals are a significant portion of the California population, generating a significant portion of the California economy. They are never going away. Why not recognize the issue, make them more accountable and more productive, and hopefully ease their way into 'legal' status?

Why does someone get branded as fascist for simply not wanting to swell the public teat?

Because whining about "swelling the public teat" always goes in one direction.

Where's the conservative worry about corporations swelling the public teat to previously unimaginable proporations? (To the tune of $50+ bln in the US every year in corporate welfare.)

What are the alternatives to "the public teat"? Throwing people off of welfare to work for minimum wage while trying to raise children, with no education/training and no hope for a way out? (While allowing the corporations sucking on the corporate teat to simultaneously ship middle-class jobs to the devloping world for slave-wages.)

You're right, the Democratic Party is completely useless. The rest of the left is so lost and has had no significant victories in so long they've abandoned all hope for a better America. I don't see how that really makes an argument for conservatism.

What kind of shit being handed out (I've never been to California so I can't speak to your examples) upsets you so much? I mean, let me talk like a conservative here: if somebody brands you as a fascist why are you complaining to me about it? I admit there are some on the far left (like anywhere else on the spectrum) that will do this or - worse - just cough and look uncomfortable when you don't agree w/them, but eh, that's their problem.

conservatism of that sort, however, has been hunted to near-extinction. about the only refuge i know of is the libertarian party -- and even there, it's questionable how much it's thriving (esp. if said libertarians are of the ayn rand stripe as opposed to the michael nozick/milton friedman stripe).

The classical liberal/libertarian arguments would be easier to buy if they weren't selective in which parts of the "Founding Fathers" actions and beliefs they treat as the Holy Grail in US politics. Somehow I doubt that they're pro-revoking corporate charters.

And what exactly do they get to vote on?

Sounds like a great way to encourage more illegal immigrants.

What are the alternatives to "the public teat"? Throwing people off of welfare to work for minimum wage while trying to raise children, with no education/training and no hope for a way out? (While allowing the corporations sucking on the corporate teat to simultaneously ship middle-class jobs to the devloping world for slave-wages.)

If we're playing the full out capitalist society then minimum wage goes bye-bye and those slave laborers are once again American. We win!

(northern ireland is not exactly a big profit-maker either, for the state at least)

seems to me there are half a dozen rival and probably contradictory defns/ideas of conservatism floating around in this thread

That's true enough, but on the other hand the US, in a sense, wouldn't have happened without slavery. And in any case it took a century after 1865 for the 'reconstruction process' to take place - certainly before the 1910s the situation hardly changed radically.

Mark's right too, although before the 1870s the empire was profit-making. I'm not really thinking of N Ire, more of the place of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Of course your classic conservative position is anti-empire; but rarely anti-empire-in-Ireland.

In any case, one problem with conservatism is its basi

'Conservatism' as political grouping / tendency: often dangerous and very harmful, albeit that it takes many forms and versions

One can be a compassionate human being and a capitalist at the same time. Capitalism does not necessarily = worship of money to the detriment of one's moral/ethical character, it just means that one believes in working hard for one's own money, being upwardly mobile, and striving to become something more. One can certainly make lots and lots of money without losing one's humanity -- charitable-minded individuals prove that time and time again. It is socialism and its suppression of ambition and motivation ("Hey! I have to pay TONS of taxes if I move up the socioeconomic ladder! I guess I'll just stay down here where I'm at! No sense in trying to move up!") that I personally feel is the truly inhumane thing to do.

I suppose the big reason why I consider myself at least partly a conservative, though, is that I'm more traditional-minded in terms of what I myself view is appropriate in my own life. I'm very tolerant when it comes to other people's behavior -- in fact, I feel that as long as you're not doing anything to hurt anyone else, I'm totally okay with what you do. When it comes to my own life, however, I have very high standards and very strict rules of what I feel is and isn't acceptable. Fact of the matter is, I'm a mixture of conservative and liberal, and combined with the fact that I am a very highly patriotic (I am a huge fan of my country) person who supports our armed forces, a practicing Christian, and a capitalist, is probably why I've "been co-opted" by the Republican party.

I have no problem with immigration, either -- legal immigration. The media doesn't seem to focus as much on the fact that millions of legal immigrants filter in from Mexico and the rest of Latin America and are perfectly capable of filing the necessary paperwork to at least become permanent residents of the U.S. Instead, we hear nothing but stories that are engineered to try to elicit feelings of sympathy toward the "poor illegal immigrants". I have a problem with people who try to break the law when it's actually easier in the end to come in legally, and cheaper too. ("Coyotes" often charge around $1,000 a person or more to take illegals across the border, but a U.S. government application to become a legal permanent resident, which comes with the right to get a Social Security number and a driver's license or identification card, costs at most $100.) And before you get started on me, recognize that my grandparents were able to emigrate to the States legally, and they had no expediting factors whatsoever.

(Heh, I'm going to be really popular now that I've posted this.... *laughs and waits for the oncoming reaction*)

Well, perhaps, but capitalism *does* mean making money from the work of others, ie exploitation. The debate has nothing to do with moral character, or not much; it has to do with the ownership/control of the means of production. That isn't necessarily a 'Marxist' analysis - Marx's forbears, like Adam Smith, knew this. No-one in a system as complicated as the one we inhabit 'works for their own money', as if they dug it up with their bare hands from the virgin earth.

Likewise, socialism has nothing to do with high taxes; it's about getting rid of the 'socioeconomic ladder', and replacing it with a classless society. Obv this raises more questions, but the debate is about more than one's moral character or place in the hierarchy.

A certain sector of my family started as illegal immigrants. They're all dead now. Unrelatedly, I mean, they just got old, it wasn't like the government came and killed them or anything.

What if you're not upwardly mobile? Is it possible to believe in capitalism even if you're bad at climbing the economic ladder?

It is socialism and its suppression of ambition and motivation

I think I said this on the other thread, but one of the points of socialism is that it allows people other ambitions than that of climbing the ladder.

And anyway, more taxes isn't a disincentive as long as you have more money to pay them with (and more left afterwards).

Name me an instance in which socialist doctrine has worked and I'll buy you a pie. I'd love for it to work, but it just doesn't. Why? Because the majority of human beings all seem to be like me: that's a wonderful theory! But what's in it for me?

That is really, really, REALLY stupid and lazy thinking.

When you say doctrine, are you looking for Chapter-and-Verse from Das Capital?

A bit overused but still powerful: JR Rowling single mother on the dole can write part time -> brings joy to the world (and lots of money).

Damn right you're going to buy me a pie: you still owe me five bucks.

Andrew, who, exactly, did JK Rowling's success provide wealth for, besides herself? You've basically just told us a nice heartwarming story, soon to be a made-for-tv movie on Lifetime, about the wonders of capitalism and marketing.

(xpost)

But then, perhaps I am mistaken. That could well be.

I hope that the Nipper has seen this thread and chuckled at its connotations, or denotations, or revelations, or confirmations.

What the HELL is this supposed to mean? Something more? Unless you're a capitalist, you're some kind of aimless, bottom-sucking schmuck? Since when is becoming wealthy the only way to make the most of one's life? I'm not even convinced it's even a way at all. Eyes of the needles, camels, heaven, rich men and all that. Jesus!

'Jesus'.

1) Theoretically, neither system hurts people.
2) In practice, both systems hurt people (in different ways, obv).
a) Capitalism hurts people because it often allows the biggest bastards to succeed.
b) Socialism hurts people because it needs people under duress to be inherently selfless in order to work properly.

(massive xpost: "something more" is a bad way of saying "achieving whatever you want to be" filtered through a personal bias towards wanting to work a traditionally high social status profession; am I the only one who read that that way?)

What socialism would look like I have no idea, but probably not people under duress being selfless; possibly it would involve "achieving whatever you want to be", though I still don't know what that means exactly, and if it's necessarily good [ie I want to be a selfish bastard - don't you get in my way].

In any case "whatever you want to be" always seems to involve the same things... I can't imagine why...

capitalism
n : an economic system based on private ownership of capital
[syn: {capitalist economy}] [ant: {socialism}]

Let's get that down, that's got nothing to do with conservatism, you can be conservative and socialist or conservative and capitalist. Capitalism is the very epitome of Liberalism in the 19th century or european sense of the word. The best capitalists (the sort that write the economist) are very very liberal in the modern US sense of the word, they don't give a toss what people get up to as long as there is a way to make a fast buck out of it or, to put it another way a happy contented population is more likely to buy your stuff and less likely to throw rocks at you.

Now conservatism is anti-capitalist in many ways, it is socially restrictive inhibiting the ability of people to fully take part in the benefits of the private ownership of capital, women, gays, non-white people; all, to a greater or lesser sense, in conservative eyes ought not to take full part in society, and therefore the free movement of capital.

It would be fair to say that the conservatives are about protecting vested interests to the detriment of capitalism. If you look at the British Tories or the Conservatives that they became they have always been about preserving the interests of the few with money, cf. Corn Laws, restrictions on immigration, peterloo, the ludites as a conservative force, obstructing labour laws, restricting union power etc etc.

Conservatives are about protecting vested interests from the capital, collective and individual, monetary, natural and intellectual of the many.

Because people generally have the same basic desires would be my guess.

An argument for socialism there!

Pierluigi Collina?? Que?

Ed's OTM, I spose the thread drifted. But the idea that having a working class with a large disposable income is good for capitalism was controversial for a long time.

But in any case, conservatives in the UK have had to make their peace with the liberals: hence the crazy situation now where the 'conservative party' (which absorbed the actual proper liberal party in 1922) includes vicious neoliberal cut-their-benefits types, who are agianst labour power *and protectionism* with old-fashioned ineffectual country squire types who just want the freedom to hunt and use racist language. But this is Carmody territory.

I think socialism is the best answer on paper. I have no idea what the best answer in practice is.

The simplest model of politics is a Trapezoid with Socialism, Liberalism, Capitalism and Conservatism at its vertices. Your political gamut is an amorphous blob contained within 4 triangular walls, or 3 walls and a floor if you wan to get nit picky.

Dan, use your noodle. The second, pejorative definition is immaterial because you were trying to refute the statement 'exploit' doesn't necessarily mean 'hurt'. 'Doesn't necessarily mean' implies that if any other definition of 'exploit' can be found, your attempt at refutation fails. Not only was another definition found, but the benign definition was number one in every dictionary consulted.

In your own words, 'if you can't or refuse to see the distinction, we don't really have anything more to talk about.'

A deus ex machina

http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/cms.asp?Page=/Home/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/497#howmuch

Benefits in general:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/benefits/index.asp

And yet, they don't do the intellectually honest thing, and judge capitalism the same way. Suharto, Pinochet (the living embodiment of Friedman's school?), Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, etc.

His usage was absolutely correct, per the dictionary you cited.

So what's your argument?

But he did, anyway. How many times did he need to say "doesn't mean 'to hurt'"?

It is socialism and its suppression of ambition and motivation ("Hey! I have to pay TONS of taxes if I move up the socioeconomic ladder! I guess I'll just stay down here where I'm at! No sense in trying to move up!") that I personally feel is the truly inhumane thing to do.

the idea that poor people don't want to "move up the socieconomic ladder" because of taxation is ridiculous.

I've never understood (and probably never will understand) the "conservative" argument (at least in the United States) that rich people have too high a tax "burden."

The reasoning seems clear doesn't it?

And yet, they don't do the intellectually honest thing, and judge capitalism the same way. Suharto, Pinochet (the living embodiment of Friedman's school?), Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, etc.

OTM

It AIN'T even a question
how my dough flows, I'm good to these bad hoes
Like my bush wet and undry like damp clothes
What y'all niggaz don't know, it's eazy, to pimp a hoe