Any conservative tropers?

I guess by standards of TV tropes I am. But only because this place becomes a Tumblr Lite hug box at times.

Definitely have a conservative mindset but reject the ideology.

P.S. I love tv tropes : )

edited 10th Nov '13 1:45:09 PM by joeyjojo

Yeah, economically that's pretty much me too (and it's through this that I find /r/politics sometimes quite disgusting for instance). If I do have to identify as any sort of label, I'd most likely be a South Park Conservative (though interestingly the creators of the show aren't fond of this label) given my libertarian streak.

edited 12th Nov '13 8:49:59 AM by EarlOfSandvich

hm... i guess i'd fall into this category as well.

>_>

<_<

'economically conservative, socially liberal' doesn't it really covered either. But hey better then saying you're a space lizard eh comrades?

I'm more of the opposite, with liking liberals on economic stuff...mostly, and internally agreeing with the conservatives on most social things, but also tired of the "culture war" and thinking we should just get government out of such things entirely and end people arguing about the stuff. or at least, end political campaigns about what people can and can't do and focus on other issues.

It's really hard to say. I've grown increasingly liberal over the years, but compared to most people in OTC, I guess I still have a fair amount of conservatism in me.

Spiritually, I'm a pretty strong atheist. I don't have a particular problem with any religions, but I think many of their claims are demonstrably false.

Socially, I support LGBT rights, racial equality, and gender equality, though I don't really care to align myself with many of the self-identified feminists here. No disrespect intended.

Economically…I guess all I can say is, "Go with what works". Broadly speaking, I can find views I agree with in socialist and anarchist policies, but that doesn't say much at all.

I guess where the "conservatism" comes in is that I'm very much not a pacifist, and I strongly support a zero-tolerance policy for dealing with murder, whether it be some form of capital punishment, life imprisonment (it could be a Luxury Prison Suite for all I care), or exile. For everything else but murder I fully support the idea of rehab.

To sum up…I find the label "socialist" personally appealing, but I doubt you'll find many socialists who are so uncompromising when it comes to murder or at all open to the idea of the death penalty.

edited 19th Apr '14 1:45:48 AM by Robotnik

I guess that by the standards of Tropes I'd be conservative - I am more liberal economically (I prefer strong regulation and believe that a powerful government is the best check on corporate power and abuse), but unlike many of my comrades I think that nuclear weapons are vital for ensuring our^note The United Kingdom national interests and I support an increase in defence spending. I also feel that immigration should be reduced, and that pride in your country is healthy in moderate doses. Of course, if I mentioned any of that in the British Politics thread I'd probably be mauled.

I'm similar to many of the folks here in that I am an atheist, and that I'm for reducing/eliminating sexism and discrimination in all its forms. However, like Joeyjo I do find the Tumblr style 'social justice' extremely abrasive and in many cases nonsensical (or at least more focused on finding things to get upset about than actually doing something).

I guess that Joeyjo accidentally summed up my views when he said this:

I do agree that we should pursue nuclear power more (it's just a pretty bad idea to build a plant on a fault line by the looks of it), because it's pretty environmentally sound. The most serious meltdown in fact is a result of poor safety compliance. Also in terms of energy, I believe that the building of the Keystone XL pipeline should by now be what we'd go for, because it's either this or a more environmentally-risky boat trip to China.

On the topic of negative liberties: If it's just speech that doesn't intend infliction of harm, it's an unfortunate side effect to having freedom of speech, and we shouldn't bother regulating. Best we could do is as individuals, discourage the use of such words. Words with a serious intention to inflict harm (including suicide), however... it's a tricky issue, but the intention of harm can warrant a looking into.

edited 19th Apr '14 11:30:32 AM by EarlOfSandvich

I believe in a weak decentral small government. If I can't have that, then I'll have a big strong central government. None of this messing around in the middle stuff, getting nothing done except getting in the way.

At least by Swedish standards, I sure am a Conservative.

What are the crime policies of Scandinavian conservatives, and in what ways do they differ from American conservatives, if any?

I would say that the biggest difference between US conservatism and Swedish conservatism is that the latter is a small minority. And thus, conservatives still have more power in the US than in Sweden.

America is a lot more conservative then any other major Western nation. Most Conservative European political parties would still be Left to the US democrats.

There are ultra right wing parties in European with a sizeable following, but at the risk of No True Scotsman fallacy I would argue being right wing in and of itself is not conservatism. Radicalism represents a reactionary ideology rather than a conservation one.

edited 28th Jun '14 8:58:25 AM by joeyjojo

Well, conservative and Right-wing are not synonymous.

It varies from area to area.

A conservative Russian, for instance, would be very Left-leaning.

The European far-right tends to have an element of populism through it, which reflects its intellectual roots in fascism or Nazism. The only (recent) European conservative (as opposed to fascist/Nazi) dictatorships would probably be Salazar's Portugal and Franco's Spain. One of the more recent - and unwelcome, for me - developments in European politics is the rise of an avowedly conservative far-right movement to supplant the older parties. UKIP, FN, the PVV, and the DPP are examples - though many of them are still in a fairly populist tradition.

Now, fascism and Nazism have more in common with the right than the left, but it's not really helpful to ascribe them to either political pole except as a historical exercise.

edited 29th Jun '14 8:51:17 AM by Achaemenid

Oddly, in German speaking countries Nazism and fascism are considered the epitome of right-wing politics, with conservatism being considered the middle.

Is there any consensus on what differentiates the left and right ends of the political spectrum? I've heard it variously described as "authoritarian vs. libertarian", "individualist vs. socialist", "status quo vs. change", "violent vs. non-violent", "inequality vs. equality", or any combination of these.

Well, "status quo vs. change" is conservatism vs liberalism.

Conservatives want to conserve values and beliefs held by their culture, whereas Liberals want to liberate themselves from said values.

That's why liberals and conservatives vary from area to area.

Left vs Right is a bit more complicated.

"Individualist vs. socialist" is unhelpful given the preponderance of economically right-wing groups with very un-individualistic values. As a left-libertarian, I would take umbrage with it for other reasons, but that's splitting hairs.

The political test made by the Centre for a Stateless Society (anarcho-capitalists, but that test's not bad) has a pretty solid index of measures: Capitalistic/socialistic economic values, social liberalism/conservatism, civil libertarianism/authoritarianism, the various shades of statism/minarchism, and militaristic/pacifistic leanings.

That's...not really true outside the United States. The antonym of "conservative" is not "liberal", it's "progressive". "Liberal" generally means small-goverment and laissez-faire outside the USA.

Well, here liberal and progressive are synonyms: in the US, liberal usually refers to people who are big-government and Keynesian model.

So I guess liberal in the US is the opposite of what it is Europe. :/

Not quite the opposite. Only in the economic sense, maybe. Liberals in Europe are more like American libertarians, not conservatives.

Well, I suppose.

Still interesting.

So is right-wing-left-wing mostly a matter of economics? Because if that's the case, I might describe myself as more to the left of the spectrum. Socially, it's a lot more complicated.

edited 4th Jul '14 2:01:44 AM by Robotnik