CDZ Five Types of Conservative; The Reflective, the Reflexive, the New, The Real and the Classic

[JimBowie1958]

Where do the Birchers fit into this?

The Birchers would fit into the Reflexive Conservative category, circa 1950. Their principles vary from one to the next and you dont often hear them appeal to anything consistently other other than their interpretation of the Constitution.

And the odd commie negro conspiracy

Look, there are odd balls in every group, no?

I grew up in a Bircher household. That film-strip was standard issue.

There was a correspondence between the leaders of the Civil Rights community leadership and the hard left, but it was nothing more than that; a correspondence of allies with common goals for the time.

Most Birchers I knew realized that whatever association King and Abernathy had with the communists was only coincidental and they discontinued it into the 80s and focused on Globalism, which is a better sell for them..

 

[JimBowie1958]

Where do the Birchers fit into this?

The Birchers would fit into the Reflexive Conservative category, circa 1950. Their principles vary from one to the next and you dont often hear them appeal to anything consistently other other than their interpretation of the Constitution.

And the odd commie negro conspiracy

Look, there are odd balls in every group, no?

Actually, I think this is where you are going off the mark here.

Especially in your debate with 320 years of History.

The thing is, yes, labels are useful, but their weakness is the risk in that they don't encapsulate in a nice tidy way every POV. They don't give you a big picture of what is going on, and threaten to leave out very salient facts.

For instance, in America, for so long, the JBS society has been shut out of the political conversation for a reason, they stand opposed to the goals of the CFR. That does not mean they are "odd balls," nor does it mean they are "conspiracy theorists."

What it means is that they are anti-globalists, and think the interests of the nation should come before the interests of the international community. Your labels do not apply to them, because there are all manner of conservatives in their ranks. There are even liberals that go to their resources for information.

They stand with the LaRouche PAC in their common views on this issue.

In like manner, many Americans view the LaRouche PAC the same way. These two organizations have been fighting the internationalist cable that has been working to destroy the fabric of local American communities in favor of the internationalists looting the value of our currency, our companies and our land for decades.

As most folks that know me, I don't hold a partisan bias, neither left or right. What I do care about are the conditions in my local community and my state. These two organizations will watch the corporate media which is controlled by the CFR. The Council on Foreign Relations is just a satellite of The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London controlled by the international Banking Cabal.

The JBS and LaRouche PAC know this, they are honest with us, and they will tell us what is going on. This is why CFR controlled media slanders them. If you are conservative, no matter what kind of conservative you are, go to them for truth. If you are liberal, seek out the LaRouche PAC for your info.



Trump, Cruz, and the Establishment
Trump, Cruz, and the Establishment

The LaRouch PAC needs to learn how to edit their vids after they go out live. . . it doesn't get interesting till the 4:00 minute mark. The point here? Their POV is pretty much the same as the Birchers.

You can even watch their PAC meet live, how many establishment PAC's would let you do that?



Our Job is to Keep Fighting, and Build Up Things We Can Build Up
Our Job is to Keep Fighting, and Build Up Things We Can Build Up


The point here, is the internationalists and globalists are dividing and destroying the good people of this land, both conservative and liberal. The labels will hide the truth. This works well for the international cabal.

The Birchers have their uses but they seem to have a paranoid view of the global elites that shuts them off from working together with them when it is to our advantage. I remember one article I read from a Bircher group that asserted all the nations of Europe were communist. Not Marxist or hard socialist, mind you, but full blown communists who were deceiving the public as to their true nature.

I too am concerned about Globalism, but to approach the topic as proof of Stalinism is lunacy.

 

[Agit8r]

Where do the Birchers fit into this?

The Birchers would fit into the Reflexive Conservative category, circa 1950. Their principles vary from one to the next and you dont often hear them appeal to anything consistently other other than their interpretation of the Constitution.

And the odd commie negro conspiracy

Look, there are odd balls in every group, no?

I grew up in a Bircher household. That film-strip was standard issue.

There was a correspondence between the leaders of the Civil Rights community leadership and the hard left, but it was nothing more than that; a correspondence of allies with common goals for the time.

Most Birchers I knew realized that whatever association King and Abernathy had with the communists was only coincidental and they discontinued it into the 80s and focused on Globalism, which is a better sell for them..

Right. It was standard issue when film-strips were still a thing. I didn't see it until the early 90's, when my parent's moved us to a house with electricity.
(I know it sounds like I'm pulling your leg now, but I kid you not)

 

[MisterBeale]

Where do the Birchers fit into this?

The Birchers would fit into the Reflexive Conservative category, circa 1950. Their principles vary from one to the next and you dont often hear them appeal to anything consistently other other than their interpretation of the Constitution.

And the odd commie negro conspiracy

Look, there are odd balls in every group, no?

Actually, I think this is where you are going off the mark here.

Especially in your debate with 320 years of History.

The thing is, yes, labels are useful, but their weakness is the risk in that they don't encapsulate in a nice tidy way every POV. They don't give you a big picture of what is going on, and threaten to leave out very salient facts.

For instance, in America, for so long, the JBS society has been shut out of the political conversation for a reason, they stand opposed to the goals of the CFR. That does not mean they are "odd balls," nor does it mean they are "conspiracy theorists."

What it means is that they are anti-globalists, and think the interests of the nation should come before the interests of the international community. Your labels do not apply to them, because there are all manner of conservatives in their ranks. There are even liberals that go to their resources for information.

They stand with the LaRouche PAC in their common views on this issue.

In like manner, many Americans view the LaRouche PAC the same way. These two organizations have been fighting the internationalist cable that has been working to destroy the fabric of local American communities in favor of the internationalists looting the value of our currency, our companies and our land for decades.

As most folks that know me, I don't hold a partisan bias, neither left or right. What I do care about are the conditions in my local community and my state. These two organizations will watch the corporate media which is controlled by the CFR. The Council on Foreign Relations is just a satellite of The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London controlled by the international Banking Cabal.

The JBS and LaRouche PAC know this, they are honest with us, and they will tell us what is going on. This is why CFR controlled media slanders them. If you are conservative, no matter what kind of conservative you are, go to them for truth. If you are liberal, seek out the LaRouche PAC for your info.



Trump, Cruz, and the Establishment
Trump, Cruz, and the Establishment

The LaRouch PAC needs to learn how to edit their vids after they go out live. . . it doesn't get interesting till the 4:00 minute mark. The point here? Their POV is pretty much the same as the Birchers.

You can even watch their PAC meet live, how many establishment PAC's would let you do that?



Our Job is to Keep Fighting, and Build Up Things We Can Build Up
Our Job is to Keep Fighting, and Build Up Things We Can Build Up


The point here, is the internationalists and globalists are dividing and destroying the good people of this land, both conservative and liberal. The labels will hide the truth. This works well for the international cabal.

The Birchers have their uses but they seem to have a paranoid view of the global elites that shuts them off from working together with them when it is to our advantage. I remember one article I read from a Bircher group that asserted all the nations of Europe were communist. Not Marxist or hard socialist, mind you, but full blown communists who were deceiving the public as to their true nature.

I too am concerned about Globalism, but to approach the topic as proof of Stalinism is lunacy.

I could be lunacy, but then again, there might be something to it too.

I thought it was absolute insanity, I really did.

I never paid attention to the JBS society, I never did. I never gave them a look till around 2008.

After I started reading the reports of Christopher Edward Harle Story's work with Anatoliy Golitsyn, I then took a second look at their materials and the LaRouch materials.

The Perestroika Deception
Articles: The Perestroika Deception

I have nothing wrong with voluntary cooperative organization. I recommend everyone read Howard Zinn's book. It's terrific. But the when the State or the international Banking cabal uses collectivism, the result is usually disastrous.

 

[JimBowie1958]

The Birchers would fit into the Reflexive Conservative category, circa 1950. Their principles vary from one to the next and you dont often hear them appeal to anything consistently other other than their interpretation of the Constitution.

And the odd commie negro conspiracy

Look, there are odd balls in every group, no?

Actually, I think this is where you are going off the mark here.

Especially in your debate with 320 years of History.

The thing is, yes, labels are useful, but their weakness is the risk in that they don't encapsulate in a nice tidy way every POV. They don't give you a big picture of what is going on, and threaten to leave out very salient facts.

For instance, in America, for so long, the JBS society has been shut out of the political conversation for a reason, they stand opposed to the goals of the CFR. That does not mean they are "odd balls," nor does it mean they are "conspiracy theorists."

What it means is that they are anti-globalists, and think the interests of the nation should come before the interests of the international community. Your labels do not apply to them, because there are all manner of conservatives in their ranks. There are even liberals that go to their resources for information.

They stand with the LaRouche PAC in their common views on this issue.

In like manner, many Americans view the LaRouche PAC the same way. These two organizations have been fighting the internationalist cable that has been working to destroy the fabric of local American communities in favor of the internationalists looting the value of our currency, our companies and our land for decades.

As most folks that know me, I don't hold a partisan bias, neither left or right. What I do care about are the conditions in my local community and my state. These two organizations will watch the corporate media which is controlled by the CFR. The Council on Foreign Relations is just a satellite of The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London controlled by the international Banking Cabal.

The JBS and LaRouche PAC know this, they are honest with us, and they will tell us what is going on. This is why CFR controlled media slanders them. If you are conservative, no matter what kind of conservative you are, go to them for truth. If you are liberal, seek out the LaRouche PAC for your info.



Trump, Cruz, and the Establishment
Trump, Cruz, and the Establishment

The LaRouch PAC needs to learn how to edit their vids after they go out live. . . it doesn't get interesting till the 4:00 minute mark. The point here? Their POV is pretty much the same as the Birchers.

You can even watch their PAC meet live, how many establishment PAC's would let you do that?



Our Job is to Keep Fighting, and Build Up Things We Can Build Up
Our Job is to Keep Fighting, and Build Up Things We Can Build Up


The point here, is the internationalists and globalists are dividing and destroying the good people of this land, both conservative and liberal. The labels will hide the truth. This works well for the international cabal.

The Birchers have their uses but they seem to have a paranoid view of the global elites that shuts them off from working together with them when it is to our advantage. I remember one article I read from a Bircher group that asserted all the nations of Europe were communist. Not Marxist or hard socialist, mind you, but full blown communists who were deceiving the public as to their true nature.

I too am concerned about Globalism, but to approach the topic as proof of Stalinism is lunacy.

I could be lunacy, but then again, there might be something to it too.

I thought it was absolute insanity, I really did.

I never paid attention to the JBS society, I never did. I never gave them a look till around 2008.

After I started reading the reports of Christopher Edward Harle Story's work with Anatoliy Golitsyn, I then took a second look at their materials and the LaRouch materials.

The Perestroika Deception
Articles: The Perestroika Deception

I have nothing wrong with voluntary cooperative organization. I recommend everyone read Howard Zinn's book. It's terrific. But the when the State or the international Banking cabal uses collectivism, the result is usually disastrous.

Well, just because one might be paranoid, it doesnt mean that they arent all out to get you.

 

[tinynascarfan]

Lots of talk about what conservatives are in this election, so I thought I would toss a couple of thoughts in here.

A Reflective Conservative is an ideologue most often in the mold of William F. Buckley Jr, or at least they think they are. More of them are Libertarians these days, but Buckley was not a libertarian because as a Catholic, he abhorred the notion that the poor should go unhelped. He simply felt that the government was not the best helper for the poor if it gave them fish, and he advocated the government teaching the poor how to fish instead. The conservative principles of prudence, prescription, institutional variety, freedom being linked to property rights, etc are detailed here, but most conservatives are not familiar with them any more and more quickly speak of Ayn Rand, who is not a conservative.

The critique of reflective Conservatism is that it is only half of the apple, and there has long existed a flip side to conservatism, Liberalism, and the two worked quite well together, but both spiral into wreckage when separated and unlinked. Reflective Conservatism and Liberalism are two broad perspectives on Judeo-Christian society and norms over the centuries, and while liberals have brought many changes to Western Civilization, that these institutions have endured at all till 1970 testifies to its effectiveness as well. Liberals like to see what can be done to right wrongs and perfect our society and Reflective Conservatives are the tapping brake, saying 'Not so fast; let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

The Reflexive Conservative is far more common than the Reflective sort. It is typically the liberal youth who sees everything to be going to hell in a hand basket in his old age. He sees many of the flawed assumptions of Liberal change and reflexively denounces it for unnecessary change of things he is familiar with and loves. Where the Liberal sees evil segregation, the Reflexive Conservative sees people having the freedom to live in the kind of neighborhoods they want to. Where the Liberal sees churches that need to be denounced and attacked for opposing social change, the Reflexive Conservative sees ancient institutions that harbor Eternal Truths that bubble Gum philosophers cant even comprehend, let alone validate. The Reflexive Conservative is at eternal war with change in society which he tends to see as another manifestation of Entropy rather than evolution. And he has no use for Liberalism in any of its forms, the Destroyer of the way of life the Reflexive Conservative has come to love and hold dear. Many of the Reflexive conservatives of today are reformed liberals of 20 years ago and are identifiable by what year they thought things were best and want things to be restored to.

The 'new conservatives' or Neocons are ideological refugees from the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing, that fled, with their money and connections, to the Republican Party. Welcomed as allies by the long standing conservatives, the neocons first befriended them and then betrayed them by buying out the conservative publications then purging them of their old Conservative authors like Schlafley, Roberts, Sobran and Novak. They are strong central statists who value religion and tradition for their roles in strengthening the state, and see no genuine independent Truth to any of it. They believe that Truth is merely a lie well told, and consider the previous two types of conservatives as useful relics, but nonetheless still relics of a bygone age of Enlightenment thinking. They are only concerned with attaining and using power to advance their Pax Americana as the last hope of saving Planet Earth from the Marxism that surrounds us all, and so they undermine all other resistance to Marxism as not ideologically pure enough. They are a form of what I think of as 'Fascism Light', having a strong central government regulating the economy instead of outright Socialism, Nationalistic, Militaristic, Amoral and Elitist.

The 'Real Conservative' is a figure of speech, and nothing more. He is what a speakers opponents are not. Undefined, ambiguous and malleable to the need of the moment, 'Real Conservatism' implies that there is only one way to be a conservative, which has to be the biggest crock of bullshit since Das Kapital.

Then, finally, there is the Classic Conservative who wants to preserve eternal values and Truths, independent of local and transitional ideology. He is both Liberal and Conservative by today's jargon. He wants to feed the poor and evaluate our root assumptions and knows that every nation is only here for a moment, while at the same time he deeply loves the variety of humanity and beliefs, loves our institutions that he has seen so much good come from and that in his heart he knows but One thing; the Creator will weigh and measure his life and how he spent it. He is the Timeless Conservative who tries to take the Heavenly perspective and is not going to trade any of it for temporal political advantage.

He is the Defender of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

Then I guess I'm closest to a classic conservative. You tell me.

I work hard, averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week driving a truck. I believe in family, and family values, I am a regular attending member in my Christian church, but I'm a Protestant. I smoke, and in the words of Tom T. Hall, "I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow." I been married to the same woman for almost 28 years, and I'm a young grandfather, I'm only 45 and have 3 grandkids with another due anytime, but we were married at 17, and had our first kid just over a year later.

My family ate a lot of soup beans, onions and corn bread, when we had 4 kids at home, and going out to eat was something that might happen once a month. Yet, all our bills got paid without government assistance.

I believe in education, and I want my kids to do better than I did, and not make the same mistakes that I made. I own 1 gun, which ive never even fired, I like farming, there's nothing better than fresh picked corn on the cob. I'm a good neighbor, and I try to be honest and fair with everybody I deal with.

I don't have a lot of people I consider my friends, probably less than 20, and I don't worry about how much I don't have, but I take pride in what I do have, which is a house, 2 cars, a 2 car garage, and 2/3 of an acre sitting adjacent to a church, not my church.

I go to church because I know I'm a sinner, not because I think I'm a saint, and I try to let people live their own life, and make their own choices without judging anyone. I know I was born lucky, because I am a white male, who had a mother who raised me and my sister, pretty much single handedly.

I started out with virtually nothing of my own at 17, and now I have a lot at 45, and I'm thankful for that, and I give thanks everynight.

So what kind of conservative am I?

 

[JimBowie1958]

Lots of talk about what conservatives are in this election, so I thought I would toss a couple of thoughts in here.

A Reflective Conservative is an ideologue most often in the mold of William F. Buckley Jr, or at least they think they are. More of them are Libertarians these days, but Buckley was not a libertarian because as a Catholic, he abhorred the notion that the poor should go unhelped. He simply felt that the government was not the best helper for the poor if it gave them fish, and he advocated the government teaching the poor how to fish instead. The conservative principles of prudence, prescription, institutional variety, freedom being linked to property rights, etc are detailed here, but most conservatives are not familiar with them any more and more quickly speak of Ayn Rand, who is not a conservative.

The critique of reflective Conservatism is that it is only half of the apple, and there has long existed a flip side to conservatism, Liberalism, and the two worked quite well together, but both spiral into wreckage when separated and unlinked. Reflective Conservatism and Liberalism are two broad perspectives on Judeo-Christian society and norms over the centuries, and while liberals have brought many changes to Western Civilization, that these institutions have endured at all till 1970 testifies to its effectiveness as well. Liberals like to see what can be done to right wrongs and perfect our society and Reflective Conservatives are the tapping brake, saying 'Not so fast; let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

The Reflexive Conservative is far more common than the Reflective sort. It is typically the liberal youth who sees everything to be going to hell in a hand basket in his old age. He sees many of the flawed assumptions of Liberal change and reflexively denounces it for unnecessary change of things he is familiar with and loves. Where the Liberal sees evil segregation, the Reflexive Conservative sees people having the freedom to live in the kind of neighborhoods they want to. Where the Liberal sees churches that need to be denounced and attacked for opposing social change, the Reflexive Conservative sees ancient institutions that harbor Eternal Truths that bubble Gum philosophers cant even comprehend, let alone validate. The Reflexive Conservative is at eternal war with change in society which he tends to see as another manifestation of Entropy rather than evolution. And he has no use for Liberalism in any of its forms, the Destroyer of the way of life the Reflexive Conservative has come to love and hold dear. Many of the Reflexive conservatives of today are reformed liberals of 20 years ago and are identifiable by what year they thought things were best and want things to be restored to.

The 'new conservatives' or Neocons are ideological refugees from the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing, that fled, with their money and connections, to the Republican Party. Welcomed as allies by the long standing conservatives, the neocons first befriended them and then betrayed them by buying out the conservative publications then purging them of their old Conservative authors like Schlafley, Roberts, Sobran and Novak. They are strong central statists who value religion and tradition for their roles in strengthening the state, and see no genuine independent Truth to any of it. They believe that Truth is merely a lie well told, and consider the previous two types of conservatives as useful relics, but nonetheless still relics of a bygone age of Enlightenment thinking. They are only concerned with attaining and using power to advance their Pax Americana as the last hope of saving Planet Earth from the Marxism that surrounds us all, and so they undermine all other resistance to Marxism as not ideologically pure enough. They are a form of what I think of as 'Fascism Light', having a strong central government regulating the economy instead of outright Socialism, Nationalistic, Militaristic, Amoral and Elitist.

The 'Real Conservative' is a figure of speech, and nothing more. He is what a speakers opponents are not. Undefined, ambiguous and malleable to the need of the moment, 'Real Conservatism' implies that there is only one way to be a conservative, which has to be the biggest crock of bullshit since Das Kapital.

Then, finally, there is the Classic Conservative who wants to preserve eternal values and Truths, independent of local and transitional ideology. He is both Liberal and Conservative by today's jargon. He wants to feed the poor and evaluate our root assumptions and knows that every nation is only here for a moment, while at the same time he deeply loves the variety of humanity and beliefs, loves our institutions that he has seen so much good come from and that in his heart he knows but One thing; the Creator will weigh and measure his life and how he spent it. He is the Timeless Conservative who tries to take the Heavenly perspective and is not going to trade any of it for temporal political advantage.

He is the Defender of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

Then I guess I'm closest to a classic conservative. You tell me.

I work hard, averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week driving a truck. I believe in family, and family values, I am a regular attending member in my Christian church, but I'm a Protestant. I smoke, and in the words of Tom T. Hall, "I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow." I been married to the same woman for almost 28 years, and I'm a young grandfather, I'm only 45 and have 3 grandkids with another due anytime, but we were married at 17, and had our first kid just over a year later.

My family ate a lot of soup beans, onions and corn bread, when we had 4 kids at home, and going out to eat was something that might happen once a month. Yet, all our bills got paid without government assistance.

I believe in education, and I want my kids to do better than I did, and not make the same mistakes that I made. I own 1 gun, which ive never even fired, I like farming, there's nothing better than fresh picked corn on the cob. I'm a good neighbor, and I try to be honest and fair with everybody I deal with.

I don't have a lot of people I consider my friends, probably less than 20, and I don't worry about how much I don't have, but I take pride in what I do have, which is a house, 2 cars, a 2 car garage, and 2/3 of an acre sitting adjacent to a church, not my church.

I go to church because I know I'm a sinner, not because I think I'm a saint, and I try to let people live their own life, and make their own choices without judging anyone. I know I was born lucky, because I am a white male, who had a mother who raised me and my sister, pretty much single handedly.

I started out with virtually nothing of my own at 17, and now I have a lot at 45, and I'm thankful for that, and I give thanks everynight.

So what kind of conservative am I?

Eliphino.

Assuming your telling the Truth, you sound like a conservative, but I dont know from what you derive your values and where you place God, Reason and Revelation in your scheme of knowledge and so forth.

Only you and God truly know that.

But you also sound like a good neighbor, a good father and probably a good husband also. Just a good human being. That can be liberal or conservative.

 

[tinynascarfan]

Lots of talk about what conservatives are in this election, so I thought I would toss a couple of thoughts in here.

A Reflective Conservative is an ideologue most often in the mold of William F. Buckley Jr, or at least they think they are. More of them are Libertarians these days, but Buckley was not a libertarian because as a Catholic, he abhorred the notion that the poor should go unhelped. He simply felt that the government was not the best helper for the poor if it gave them fish, and he advocated the government teaching the poor how to fish instead. The conservative principles of prudence, prescription, institutional variety, freedom being linked to property rights, etc are detailed here, but most conservatives are not familiar with them any more and more quickly speak of Ayn Rand, who is not a conservative.

The critique of reflective Conservatism is that it is only half of the apple, and there has long existed a flip side to conservatism, Liberalism, and the two worked quite well together, but both spiral into wreckage when separated and unlinked. Reflective Conservatism and Liberalism are two broad perspectives on Judeo-Christian society and norms over the centuries, and while liberals have brought many changes to Western Civilization, that these institutions have endured at all till 1970 testifies to its effectiveness as well. Liberals like to see what can be done to right wrongs and perfect our society and Reflective Conservatives are the tapping brake, saying 'Not so fast; let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

The Reflexive Conservative is far more common than the Reflective sort. It is typically the liberal youth who sees everything to be going to hell in a hand basket in his old age. He sees many of the flawed assumptions of Liberal change and reflexively denounces it for unnecessary change of things he is familiar with and loves. Where the Liberal sees evil segregation, the Reflexive Conservative sees people having the freedom to live in the kind of neighborhoods they want to. Where the Liberal sees churches that need to be denounced and attacked for opposing social change, the Reflexive Conservative sees ancient institutions that harbor Eternal Truths that bubble Gum philosophers cant even comprehend, let alone validate. The Reflexive Conservative is at eternal war with change in society which he tends to see as another manifestation of Entropy rather than evolution. And he has no use for Liberalism in any of its forms, the Destroyer of the way of life the Reflexive Conservative has come to love and hold dear. Many of the Reflexive conservatives of today are reformed liberals of 20 years ago and are identifiable by what year they thought things were best and want things to be restored to.

The 'new conservatives' or Neocons are ideological refugees from the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing, that fled, with their money and connections, to the Republican Party. Welcomed as allies by the long standing conservatives, the neocons first befriended them and then betrayed them by buying out the conservative publications then purging them of their old Conservative authors like Schlafley, Roberts, Sobran and Novak. They are strong central statists who value religion and tradition for their roles in strengthening the state, and see no genuine independent Truth to any of it. They believe that Truth is merely a lie well told, and consider the previous two types of conservatives as useful relics, but nonetheless still relics of a bygone age of Enlightenment thinking. They are only concerned with attaining and using power to advance their Pax Americana as the last hope of saving Planet Earth from the Marxism that surrounds us all, and so they undermine all other resistance to Marxism as not ideologically pure enough. They are a form of what I think of as 'Fascism Light', having a strong central government regulating the economy instead of outright Socialism, Nationalistic, Militaristic, Amoral and Elitist.

The 'Real Conservative' is a figure of speech, and nothing more. He is what a speakers opponents are not. Undefined, ambiguous and malleable to the need of the moment, 'Real Conservatism' implies that there is only one way to be a conservative, which has to be the biggest crock of bullshit since Das Kapital.

Then, finally, there is the Classic Conservative who wants to preserve eternal values and Truths, independent of local and transitional ideology. He is both Liberal and Conservative by today's jargon. He wants to feed the poor and evaluate our root assumptions and knows that every nation is only here for a moment, while at the same time he deeply loves the variety of humanity and beliefs, loves our institutions that he has seen so much good come from and that in his heart he knows but One thing; the Creator will weigh and measure his life and how he spent it. He is the Timeless Conservative who tries to take the Heavenly perspective and is not going to trade any of it for temporal political advantage.

He is the Defender of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

Then I guess I'm closest to a classic conservative. You tell me.

I work hard, averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week driving a truck. I believe in family, and family values, I am a regular attending member in my Christian church, but I'm a Protestant. I smoke, and in the words of Tom T. Hall, "I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow." I been married to the same woman for almost 28 years, and I'm a young grandfather, I'm only 45 and have 3 grandkids with another due anytime, but we were married at 17, and had our first kid just over a year later.

My family ate a lot of soup beans, onions and corn bread, when we had 4 kids at home, and going out to eat was something that might happen once a month. Yet, all our bills got paid without government assistance.

I believe in education, and I want my kids to do better than I did, and not make the same mistakes that I made. I own 1 gun, which ive never even fired, I like farming, there's nothing better than fresh picked corn on the cob. I'm a good neighbor, and I try to be honest and fair with everybody I deal with.

I don't have a lot of people I consider my friends, probably less than 20, and I don't worry about how much I don't have, but I take pride in what I do have, which is a house, 2 cars, a 2 car garage, and 2/3 of an acre sitting adjacent to a church, not my church.

I go to church because I know I'm a sinner, not because I think I'm a saint, and I try to let people live their own life, and make their own choices without judging anyone. I know I was born lucky, because I am a white male, who had a mother who raised me and my sister, pretty much single handedly.

I started out with virtually nothing of my own at 17, and now I have a lot at 45, and I'm thankful for that, and I give thanks everynight.

So what kind of conservative am I?

Eliphino.

Assuming your telling the Truth, you sound like a conservative, but I dont know from what you derive your values and where you place God, Reason and Revelation in your scheme of knowledge and so forth.

Only you and God truly know that.

But you also sound like a good neighbor, a good father and probably a good husband also. Just a good human being. That can be liberal or conservative.

I was taught my values, by my mother and grandmothers, by people who taught me in school, and in church.

Treat other people, how you would want them to treat you. That's pretty simple, but simple is not always a bad thing.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I was taught my values, by my mother and grandmothers, by people who taught me in school, and in church.

Treat other people, how you would want them to treat you. That's pretty simple, but simple is not always a bad thing.

But that makes you neither a conservative, a liberal, or a libertarian.

There is no issues driven definition that would reflect on your ideology, though I would agree you are a good person based on what you have told me.

 

[gtopa1]

Lots of talk about what conservatives are in this election, so I thought I would toss a couple of thoughts in here.

A Reflective Conservative is an ideologue most often in the mold of William F. Buckley Jr, or at least they think they are. More of them are Libertarians these days, but Buckley was not a libertarian because as a Catholic, he abhorred the notion that the poor should go unhelped. He simply felt that the government was not the best helper for the poor if it gave them fish, and he advocated the government teaching the poor how to fish instead. The conservative principles of prudence, prescription, institutional variety, freedom being linked to property rights, etc are detailed here, but most conservatives are not familiar with them any more and more quickly speak of Ayn Rand, who is not a conservative.

The critique of reflective Conservatism is that it is only half of the apple, and there has long existed a flip side to conservatism, Liberalism, and the two worked quite well together, but both spiral into wreckage when separated and unlinked. Reflective Conservatism and Liberalism are two broad perspectives on Judeo-Christian society and norms over the centuries, and while liberals have brought many changes to Western Civilization, that these institutions have endured at all till 1970 testifies to its effectiveness as well. Liberals like to see what can be done to right wrongs and perfect our society and Reflective Conservatives are the tapping brake, saying 'Not so fast; let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

The Reflexive Conservative is far more common than the Reflective sort. It is typically the liberal youth who sees everything to be going to hell in a hand basket in his old age. He sees many of the flawed assumptions of Liberal change and reflexively denounces it for unnecessary change of things he is familiar with and loves. Where the Liberal sees evil segregation, the Reflexive Conservative sees people having the freedom to live in the kind of neighborhoods they want to. Where the Liberal sees churches that need to be denounced and attacked for opposing social change, the Reflexive Conservative sees ancient institutions that harbor Eternal Truths that bubble Gum philosophers cant even comprehend, let alone validate. The Reflexive Conservative is at eternal war with change in society which he tends to see as another manifestation of Entropy rather than evolution. And he has no use for Liberalism in any of its forms, the Destroyer of the way of life the Reflexive Conservative has come to love and hold dear. Many of the Reflexive conservatives of today are reformed liberals of 20 years ago and are identifiable by what year they thought things were best and want things to be restored to.

The 'new conservatives' or Neocons are ideological refugees from the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing, that fled, with their money and connections, to the Republican Party. Welcomed as allies by the long standing conservatives, the neocons first befriended them and then betrayed them by buying out the conservative publications then purging them of their old Conservative authors like Schlafley, Roberts, Sobran and Novak. They are strong central statists who value religion and tradition for their roles in strengthening the state, and see no genuine independent Truth to any of it. They believe that Truth is merely a lie well told, and consider the previous two types of conservatives as useful relics, but nonetheless still relics of a bygone age of Enlightenment thinking. They are only concerned with attaining and using power to advance their Pax Americana as the last hope of saving Planet Earth from the Marxism that surrounds us all, and so they undermine all other resistance to Marxism as not ideologically pure enough. They are a form of what I think of as 'Fascism Light', having a strong central government regulating the economy instead of outright Socialism, Nationalistic, Militaristic, Amoral and Elitist.

The 'Real Conservative' is a figure of speech, and nothing more. He is what a speakers opponents are not. Undefined, ambiguous and malleable to the need of the moment, 'Real Conservatism' implies that there is only one way to be a conservative, which has to be the biggest crock of bullshit since Das Kapital.

Then, finally, there is the Classic Conservative who wants to preserve eternal values and Truths, independent of local and transitional ideology. He is both Liberal and Conservative by today's jargon. He wants to feed the poor and evaluate our root assumptions and knows that every nation is only here for a moment, while at the same time he deeply loves the variety of humanity and beliefs, loves our institutions that he has seen so much good come from and that in his heart he knows but One thing; the Creator will weigh and measure his life and how he spent it. He is the Timeless Conservative who tries to take the Heavenly perspective and is not going to trade any of it for temporal political advantage.

He is the Defender of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

Then I guess I'm closest to a classic conservative. You tell me.

I work hard, averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week driving a truck. I believe in family, and family values, I am a regular attending member in my Christian church, but I'm a Protestant. I smoke, and in the words of Tom T. Hall, "I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow." I been married to the same woman for almost 28 years, and I'm a young grandfather, I'm only 45 and have 3 grandkids with another due anytime, but we were married at 17, and had our first kid just over a year later.

My family ate a lot of soup beans, onions and corn bread, when we had 4 kids at home, and going out to eat was something that might happen once a month. Yet, all our bills got paid without government assistance.

I believe in education, and I want my kids to do better than I did, and not make the same mistakes that I made. I own 1 gun, which ive never even fired, I like farming, there's nothing better than fresh picked corn on the cob. I'm a good neighbor, and I try to be honest and fair with everybody I deal with.

I don't have a lot of people I consider my friends, probably less than 20, and I don't worry about how much I don't have, but I take pride in what I do have, which is a house, 2 cars, a 2 car garage, and 2/3 of an acre sitting adjacent to a church, not my church.

I go to church because I know I'm a sinner, not because I think I'm a saint, and I try to let people live their own life, and make their own choices without judging anyone. I know I was born lucky, because I am a white male, who had a mother who raised me and my sister, pretty much single handedly.

I started out with virtually nothing of my own at 17, and now I have a lot at 45, and I'm thankful for that, and I give thanks everynight.

So what kind of conservative am I?

You're a bloody good bloke!! So who cares what TYPE you are??

Greg

 

[gtopa1]

An interesting group of "types" but I couldn't possibly limit myself to one label. I hope I'm as good a bloke as our nascarfan buddy but I have my doubts. I've been a political hack ( very very small fry)but got burned when we lost and the "establishment" got nasty. It was one of the best times of my life.

Greg

 

[JimBowie1958]

An interesting group of "types" but I couldn't possibly limit myself to one label. I hope I'm as good a bloke as our nascarfan buddy but I have my doubts. I've been a political hack ( very very small fry)but got burned when we lost and the "establishment" got nasty. It was one of the best times of my life.

Greg

Yeah Tammany Hall style politics does that.

Which is why everyone tried to dismantle it in the 1960s but its back under new management.

 

[gtopa1]

An interesting group of "types" but I couldn't possibly limit myself to one label. I hope I'm as good a bloke as our nascarfan buddy but I have my doubts. I've been a political hack ( very very small fry)but got burned when we lost and the "establishment" got nasty. It was one of the best times of my life.

Greg

Yeah Tammany Hall style politics does that.

Which is why everyone tried to dismantle it in the 1960s but its back under new management.

Yeah, but we went out trying. lol. Actually it was quite naive of us to think we could get rid of the "establishment" and their incestuous regenerations but there were many good people in there also. I like to think that we got them on the move. It was interesting that a chap I would back to the hilt tomorrow was their leader a few years later. I discussed with his wife to make sure he had a run at their leadership sooner than later. He did and got there. I had no influence on that at all of course but I was still happy that he did. He should have run sooner.

Greg

 

[320 Years of History]

I am not sure how one can argue against categorization as a whole and its attendant labeling that is required by it and at the same time respect how the human mind has evolved and what it has evolved into.

I'm not opposed to classification. It's useful for some things, most especially those things for which the definition of the category itself is precise and clear enough that by using the category label it's clear what one and everyone else means. For example:

• "Liberals/conservatives think or do 'such and such'..." -- The first thing that comes to mind when I see statements in that form is "Do they? If so, how many and in what proportion to the whole class of liberals/conservatives? What is the strength of their commitment to doing/thinking so? What does it mean, objectively speaking, in general or with regard to the topic in question, to say "liberal/conservative?" Why didn't the author use a more specific categorization?
  
  When the writer/speaker proceeds to provide credible and cogent answers (direct and/or tacit, as befits the point of inquiry) to those questions, and by so doing providing the perspective needed assess the merit of the claim and the consequences of its being true or false, I'm okay with the categorization.
  
  I don't need the author to address all those questions with s/he is someone whom I know well. I do require, however, that authors who are strangers to me do so if they are of a mind to engage me in a discussion. It's incredibly and rudely presumptive of them to think they know me (or I them) well enough not to fully and clearly explain themselves in such circumstances. Making one's casual acquaintance is hardly comparable to knowing them well, and regarding a casual acquaintance as though they are one's close friend is disrespectful to one's close friends.
  
  One and one's friends have a history of interaction that is not matched by acquaintanceships. People who interact with me would do well to keep that in mind. It's not about being haughty; it's about giving each their just and earned due and giving nobody more or less than they are due. That same degree of respect must be accorded mutually between communicators and their audience members.
• "High end watches...." -- What's "high end?" Is there an objective measure of what that means? If there is, what is it, even if it's just the measure one wants to specify solely for the current discussion?
• "House cats respond to their owners "thusly." -- Well, the category "house cats" is pretty well understood, at least by me. I don't have to wonder what that categorization entails. It's not "big cats." It's not wild cats.
  
  The difference between the labels "house cats" and "liberals/conservatives" is one such that I don't need the writer to clarify what s/he means when they use it. Moreover, as the subject is not humans, who are invariably and immensely unpredictable, I can fairly accurately make many more legitimate inferences about the nature, motivations and likely actions of the subject, in this case, house cats, than I can about humans, or liberal/conservative humans for that matter.

Perhaps my mind is a bit too evolved, but those are the thoughts that come to it when I see labels tossed about as though they have some universally understood meaning when in fact they do not, yet the context of the discussion requires one to understand precisely how the author does mean the term. Here on USMB, as often as not, it seems to me that "liberal" or "conservative" means little other than "folks who have a stance differing from that of the writer, with regard to whether s/he sees themselves as liberal or conservative." Whether the object of the statement actually is liberal or conservative doesn't too often seem to factor into the picture. LOL

 

[JimBowie1958]

I'm not opposed to classification. It's useful for some things, most especially those things for which the definition of the category itself is precise and clear enough that by using the category label it's clear what one and everyone else means. For example:

• "Liberals/conservatives think or do 'such and such'..." -- The first thing that comes to mind when I see statements in that form is "Do they? If so, how many and in what proportion to the whole class of liberals/conservatives? What is the strength of their commitment to doing/thinking so? What does it mean, objectively speaking, in general or with regard to the topic in question, to say "liberal/conservative?" Why didn't the author use a more specific categorization?
  
  When the writer/speaker proceeds to provide credible and cogent answers (direct and/or tacit, as befits the point of inquiry) to those questions, and by so doing providing the perspective needed assess the merit of the claim and the consequences of its being true or false, I'm okay with the categorization.
  
  I don't need the author to address all those questions with s/he is someone whom I know well. I do require, however, that authors who are strangers to me do so if they are of a mind to engage me in a discussion. It's incredibly and rudely presumptive of them to think they know me (or I them) well enough not to fully and clearly explain themselves in such circumstances. Making one's casual acquaintance is hardly comparable to knowing them well, and regarding a casual acquaintance as though they are one's close friend is disrespectful to one's close friends.
  
  One and one's friends have a history of interaction that is not matched by acquaintanceships. People who interact with me would do well to keep that in mind. It's not about being haughty; it's about giving each their just and earned due and giving nobody more or less than they are due. That same degree of respect must be accorded mutually between communicators and their audience members.

Well, whenever we discuss classifications of human beliefs there are a number of unspoken axioms accepted for clarity and brevity.

The first is that we are speaking of people who actively reflect on what they believe and build some sort of mental construct of concepts around these ideas. To speak of Catholicism and what it teaches and believes does not mean to imply that the local five year old Irish rug hugger has any clue about what transubstantiation is. One is implying when one says that Catholicism teaches XYZ that we are speaking of the well versed Catholic authority, not necessarily a theologian, God forbid, but the well educated monsignor that has studied the topic and is more typical in his set of beliefs than some dissident or lay person within that community, perhaps, or an official document published by the Vatican.

The second assumption generally made is that one is speaking in general terms. Yes, not all 'blue cars' are 100% blue. Some of them have some accent colors, and some have a lot of chrome, and do the transparent windows count as a color? We could engage in an endless series of qualifications and exceptions to be noted and get absolutely nowhere in a discussion. Yes, these are generalities and yes they do have exceptions, but that should not prevent making some useful observations about them.

Now, of course, one cannot necessarily make the assumption that these are standard given axioms in use when conversing on the internet today, but it is, I would think, when one is trading 100 word responses that share links and 6 syllable words that most have to run to Wikipedia (may favorite for various reasons) one can reasonably take these axioms as a given. When we are confronted with an exceptional case, we react surprised to find that they are not workable axioms when discussing a subject with some anti-whatever who is merely posing as an authority on a topic he genuinely hates or deeply opposes to the point that objectivity is impossible.

But all in all, we can work on defining groups and observing commonalities among them so as to give them a definition, much as a botanist might classify a new found flower.

"High end watches...." -- What's "high end?" Is there an objective measure of what that means? If there is, what is it, even if it's just the measure one wants to specify solely for the current discussion?

When I hear that phrase, I tend to think we are talking about extremely accurate watches, but I am old and I realize that the watches made today are very accurate due to the commonality of quartz timing and other similar features.

So I would ask for clarification if it was an important matter or distinction to bother with.

"House cats respond to their owners "thusly." -- Well, the category "house cats" is pretty well understood, at least by me. I don't have to wonder what that categorization entails. It's not "big cats." It's not wild cats.

Though pound for pound house cats are probably the most lethal animal on the frigging planet, lol.

The difference between the labels "house cats" and "liberals/conservatives" is one such that I don't need the writer to clarify what s/he means when they use it. Moreover, as the subject is not humans, who are invariably and immensely unpredictable, I can fairly accurately make many more legitimate inferences about the nature, motivations and likely actions of the subject, in this case, house cats, than I can about humans, or liberal/conservative humans for that matter.

But the fact is that people self identify as conservative or liberal for a set of reasons, and trying to group those different sets of reasons into something useful, that tells us something about conservatism or liberalism is useful and not implausible due to human inconsistency. When I talk to a person at a bar about politics and they say that they are liberal, I know that that can mean that they are anything from a sexual libertine, to a socialist, to a classic pro-freedom liberal, and if I really want to know, I might ask them some questions like, 'What do you think about socialism?', or 'Should the government itself have a watchdog organization, and should that be necessarily an outside organization?' and so forth, or maybe I really dont care as something about them makes the why and how readily apparent and I can just skip all that and offer them a beer..

Perhaps my mind is a bit too evolved, but those are the thoughts that come to it when I see labels tossed about as though they have some universally understood meaning when in fact they do not, yet the context of the discussion requires one to understand precisely how the author does mean the term. Here on USMB, as often as not, it seems to me that "liberal" or "conservative" means little other than "folks who have a stance differing from that of the writer, with regard to whether s/he sees themselves as liberal or conservative." Whether the object of the statement actually is liberal or conservative doesn't too often seem to factor into the picture. LOL

It is just a little more complicated than that, most of the time, as I have seen it. Generally, if a person considers himself liberal and the person seems conservative to them, then they will say he is conservative, and vice versa. I have been told I am everything from a liberal, to a conservative, to a fascist, to a sociopathic monster. But that is OK, because I know who I am and what the moral framework is that I come from. It really tells me more about them, which is OK too.

 

[320 Years of History]

all in all, we can work on defining groups and observing commonalities among them so as to give them a definition, much as a botanist might classify a new found flower.

Yes, absolutely. Frankly, just taking the time to note something specific rather than relying on labels will do just fine in most cases. On the other hand, one should have to do so if the label be of the ilk akin to, say, "the dialectic," or " the Hegelian dialectic" or any number of other broad but well understood and agreed upon terms for concepts.

It's mostly labels folks apply to people that I take issue with....sometimes similarly in nature to ending sentences with prepositions, and other times more significantly. <winks>

I would ask for clarification if it was an important matter or distinction to bother with.

That is really what one must do. Part of what I find mildly irksome is needing to ask because an author didn't make it clear in their "opening volley." Rightly or wrongly, authors have the burden of knowing when their remarks are ambiguous/vague and removing those qualities. Now if I could only get modern politicians to agree with me.... LOL

pound for pound house cats are probably the most lethal animal on the frigging planet, lol.

ROTFL !!!

When I talk to a person at a bar about politics

Wow. If I enter a bar that's quiet enough to do that, I'm leaving it. LOL

if a person considers himself liberal and the person seems conservative to them, then they will say he is conservative, and vice versa.

True that.

I have been told I am everything from a liberal, to a conservative, to a fascist, to a sociopathic monster. But that is OK, because I know who I am

Absolutely. That is critical, but how often do you find yourself thinking that folks who espouse or advocate for a given thing/position don't have that same awareness? I find it more often than I care to, and more often than I did years ago, or looking back at the folks who were in my life back then.

 

[JimBowie1958]

pound for pound house cats are probably the most lethal animal on the frigging planet, lol.

ROTFL !!!

I kid you not.

This is just one video of such, many more are searchable.

When I talk to a person at a bar about politics

Wow. If I enter a bar that's quiet enough to do that, I'm leaving it. LOL

Meh, you sound like a young man. In my dottage I prefer the quiet pub to think in as I drown my brain like playful teen boys at a public pool.

I have been told I am everything from a liberal, to a conservative, to a fascist, to a sociopathic monster. But that is OK, because I know who I am

Absolutely. That is critical, but how often do you find yourself thinking that folks who espouse or advocate for a given thing/position don't have that same awareness? I find it more often than I care to, and more often than I did years ago, or looking back at the folks who were in my life back then.

Yeah, it seems to be much more rare today to encounter a reflective mind that isnt tethered to some ideological bandwagon.

But it still happens far more than one might think. I like loosening fetters myself and seeing the look on their faces.

 

[Chuz Life]

Lots of talk about what conservatives are in this election, so I thought I would toss a couple of thoughts in here.

A Reflective Conservative is an ideologue most often in the mold of William F. Buckley Jr, or at least they think they are. More of them are Libertarians these days, but Buckley was not a libertarian because as a Catholic, he abhorred the notion that the poor should go unhelped. He simply felt that the government was not the best helper for the poor if it gave them fish, and he advocated the government teaching the poor how to fish instead. The conservative principles of prudence, prescription, institutional variety, freedom being linked to property rights, etc are detailed here, but most conservatives are not familiar with them any more and more quickly speak of Ayn Rand, who is not a conservative.

The critique of reflective Conservatism is that it is only half of the apple, and there has long existed a flip side to conservatism, Liberalism, and the two worked quite well together, but both spiral into wreckage when separated and unlinked. Reflective Conservatism and Liberalism are two broad perspectives on Judeo-Christian society and norms over the centuries, and while liberals have brought many changes to Western Civilization, that these institutions have endured at all till 1970 testifies to its effectiveness as well. Liberals like to see what can be done to right wrongs and perfect our society and Reflective Conservatives are the tapping brake, saying 'Not so fast; let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

The Reflexive Conservative is far more common than the Reflective sort. It is typically the liberal youth who sees everything to be going to hell in a hand basket in his old age. He sees many of the flawed assumptions of Liberal change and reflexively denounces it for unnecessary change of things he is familiar with and loves. Where the Liberal sees evil segregation, the Reflexive Conservative sees people having the freedom to live in the kind of neighborhoods they want to. Where the Liberal sees churches that need to be denounced and attacked for opposing social change, the Reflexive Conservative sees ancient institutions that harbor Eternal Truths that bubble Gum philosophers cant even comprehend, let alone validate. The Reflexive Conservative is at eternal war with change in society which he tends to see as another manifestation of Entropy rather than evolution. And he has no use for Liberalism in any of its forms, the Destroyer of the way of life the Reflexive Conservative has come to love and hold dear. Many of the Reflexive conservatives of today are reformed liberals of 20 years ago and are identifiable by what year they thought things were best and want things to be restored to.

The 'new conservatives' or Neocons are ideological refugees from the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing, that fled, with their money and connections, to the Republican Party. Welcomed as allies by the long standing conservatives, the neocons first befriended them and then betrayed them by buying out the conservative publications then purging them of their old Conservative authors like Schlafley, Roberts, Sobran and Novak. They are strong central statists who value religion and tradition for their roles in strengthening the state, and see no genuine independent Truth to any of it. They believe that Truth is merely a lie well told, and consider the previous two types of conservatives as useful relics, but nonetheless still relics of a bygone age of Enlightenment thinking. They are only concerned with attaining and using power to advance their Pax Americana as the last hope of saving Planet Earth from the Marxism that surrounds us all, and so they undermine all other resistance to Marxism as not ideologically pure enough. They are a form of what I think of as 'Fascism Light', having a strong central government regulating the economy instead of outright Socialism, Nationalistic, Militaristic, Amoral and Elitist.

The 'Real Conservative' is a figure of speech, and nothing more. He is what a speakers opponents are not. Undefined, ambiguous and malleable to the need of the moment, 'Real Conservatism' implies that there is only one way to be a conservative, which has to be the biggest crock of bullshit since Das Kapital.

Then, finally, there is the Classic Conservative who wants to preserve eternal values and Truths, independent of local and transitional ideology. He is both Liberal and Conservative by today's jargon. He wants to feed the poor and evaluate our root assumptions and knows that every nation is only here for a moment, while at the same time he deeply loves the variety of humanity and beliefs, loves our institutions that he has seen so much good come from and that in his heart he knows but One thing; the Creator will weigh and measure his life and how he spent it. He is the Timeless Conservative who tries to take the Heavenly perspective and is not going to trade any of it for temporal political advantage.

He is the Defender of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

I have been a Conservative for more than 30 years and none of those come close to the kind of Conservative believes that I use as a basis for my own views.

I would consider myself to be a Realist (philosophically) and a "Constitutional Conservative" (politically.) And I would willing vote for an support any Independent candidates who fall along those lines because I have lost almost all loyalty and respect for the GOP.

I suspect that the Tea Party Conservatives came close to that expectation. . . but I never got too excited about the TP prospects. Not even when the Tea Party was at the peak of their popularity.

 

[Two Thumbs]

"Five Types of Conservative; The Reflective, the Reflexive, the New, The Real and the Classic"

And each equally wrong on the issues.

yes, preventing the country from becoming a socialist hellhole is so wrong

 

[Two Thumbs]

Lots of talk about what conservatives are in this election, so I thought I would toss a couple of thoughts in here.

A Reflective Conservative is an ideologue most often in the mold of William F. Buckley Jr, or at least they think they are. More of them are Libertarians these days, but Buckley was not a libertarian because as a Catholic, he abhorred the notion that the poor should go unhelped. He simply felt that the government was not the best helper for the poor if it gave them fish, and he advocated the government teaching the poor how to fish instead. The conservative principles of prudence, prescription, institutional variety, freedom being linked to property rights, etc are detailed here, but most conservatives are not familiar with them any more and more quickly speak of Ayn Rand, who is not a conservative.

The critique of reflective Conservatism is that it is only half of the apple, and there has long existed a flip side to conservatism, Liberalism, and the two worked quite well together, but both spiral into wreckage when separated and unlinked. Reflective Conservatism and Liberalism are two broad perspectives on Judeo-Christian society and norms over the centuries, and while liberals have brought many changes to Western Civilization, that these institutions have endured at all till 1970 testifies to its effectiveness as well. Liberals like to see what can be done to right wrongs and perfect our society and Reflective Conservatives are the tapping brake, saying 'Not so fast; let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater.'

The Reflexive Conservative is far more common than the Reflective sort. It is typically the liberal youth who sees everything to be going to hell in a hand basket in his old age. He sees many of the flawed assumptions of Liberal change and reflexively denounces it for unnecessary change of things he is familiar with and loves. Where the Liberal sees evil segregation, the Reflexive Conservative sees people having the freedom to live in the kind of neighborhoods they want to. Where the Liberal sees churches that need to be denounced and attacked for opposing social change, the Reflexive Conservative sees ancient institutions that harbor Eternal Truths that bubble Gum philosophers cant even comprehend, let alone validate. The Reflexive Conservative is at eternal war with change in society which he tends to see as another manifestation of Entropy rather than evolution. And he has no use for Liberalism in any of its forms, the Destroyer of the way of life the Reflexive Conservative has come to love and hold dear. Many of the Reflexive conservatives of today are reformed liberals of 20 years ago and are identifiable by what year they thought things were best and want things to be restored to.

The 'new conservatives' or Neocons are ideological refugees from the Democratic Party, the Scoop Jackson wing, that fled, with their money and connections, to the Republican Party. Welcomed as allies by the long standing conservatives, the neocons first befriended them and then betrayed them by buying out the conservative publications then purging them of their old Conservative authors like Schlafley, Roberts, Sobran and Novak. They are strong central statists who value religion and tradition for their roles in strengthening the state, and see no genuine independent Truth to any of it. They believe that Truth is merely a lie well told, and consider the previous two types of conservatives as useful relics, but nonetheless still relics of a bygone age of Enlightenment thinking. They are only concerned with attaining and using power to advance their Pax Americana as the last hope of saving Planet Earth from the Marxism that surrounds us all, and so they undermine all other resistance to Marxism as not ideologically pure enough. They are a form of what I think of as 'Fascism Light', having a strong central government regulating the economy instead of outright Socialism, Nationalistic, Militaristic, Amoral and Elitist.

The 'Real Conservative' is a figure of speech, and nothing more. He is what a speakers opponents are not. Undefined, ambiguous and malleable to the need of the moment, 'Real Conservatism' implies that there is only one way to be a conservative, which has to be the biggest crock of bullshit since Das Kapital.

Then, finally, there is the Classic Conservative who wants to preserve eternal values and Truths, independent of local and transitional ideology. He is both Liberal and Conservative by today's jargon. He wants to feed the poor and evaluate our root assumptions and knows that every nation is only here for a moment, while at the same time he deeply loves the variety of humanity and beliefs, loves our institutions that he has seen so much good come from and that in his heart he knows but One thing; the Creator will weigh and measure his life and how he spent it. He is the Timeless Conservative who tries to take the Heavenly perspective and is not going to trade any of it for temporal political advantage.

He is the Defender of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.

thanks, that was kinda cool.

your hate for neo-cons came shining through, so it colored your view of the rest.


I'm a Constitutional conservative, freedom is incredibly important to me, even the freedoms I don't like to see people doing.
idc if gays get married
idc is a bakery doesn't want to make a cake for them and turns them down

I do care if the gays force them to make it or get sued.