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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Balmung Since: Oct, 2011
#180026: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:26:55 AM

@justhelping: Well, I'm not sure why you'd want to vote for them (even pre-insanity conservatism is a rather unhelpful ideology with a tendency to delay dealing with serious problems until it's too late), but you might find a few scattered across Europe.

And the GOP is bad, but they're hardly the only completely insane right-wing party out there. I mean, there are actual Neo-Nazi parties out there (the GOP is "merely" heavily infiltrated by them) and parties that skirt even closer to the fascist line than the GOP like the Front Nationale and UKIP and Alternative for Germany (AfD) and whatever the hell Geert Wilders ran on. And then there are the authoritarian ruling parties in Poland, Hungary, and Turkey.

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#180027: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:34:55 AM

An actual conservative party can be a good thing though. It's kind of like with research. The temptation to just keep rushing ahead, exploring new ideas and concepts, inventing new things, is strong, but you've got to hold back and just sit on what you've learned for a while before pushing ahead. I guess a good Centrist party would be sufficient for that, but having a party to offset the Progressives is hardly a bad thing.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#180028: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:37:51 AM

We have plenty of perfectly decent policy-making conservatives in the USA...in the Democratic Party.

I'm only half-joking.

edited 29th Mar '17 8:38:14 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#180029: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:44:30 AM

[up]I actually agree with you there. As sick to death as people are of discussing our Overton Window, it really is very far to the right.

justhelping Since: Dec, 2016
#180030: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:48:49 AM

How is it far to the right? What leftist ideas or issues are there that people won't entertain or discuss?

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#180031: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:50:12 AM

[up][up][up]Not even half. At least according to the traditional definition, a lot of conservatives have now moved into centrist, moderate or even center-left (where they typically form a rightish faction) parties. Because they realized they didn't belong in/got kicked out of/couldn't stomach the reactionary hell hole their party became. And this is all over the place.

edited 29th Mar '17 8:50:49 AM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
justhelping Since: Dec, 2016
#180032: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:52:16 AM

The left and the right can be reactionary hell-holes about their respective ideologies, though. No party is faultless.

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#180033: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:53:49 AM

[up][up][up]It's not so much how willing people are to entertain or discuss an idea as it is how willing the government is to turn that idea into policy. While people are perfectly fine with discussing the pros and cons of single payer healthcare, not even the democrats are going to try to bring it up, much less try to propose a bill for it.

[up]In the current case, the left is not reactionary by definition, because they're desperately pushing for reform and more liberal policies.

edited 29th Mar '17 8:55:26 AM by danime91

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#180034: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:54:48 AM

[up][up]True, But the reactionary left in the US doesn't exist because there is nothing to react to.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#180035: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:55:30 AM

Honestly, we need a reasonable conservative party because there needs to be a bad guy to unite progressives against without being the harbinger of apocalyptic reaction whenever they do come to power. I'm not going to pretend that I'm desirous of any form of conservatism, and I would never vote for a conservative party.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
justhelping Since: Dec, 2016
#180036: Mar 29th 2017 at 8:58:58 AM

[up][up][up] Did I say reactionary? I just meant hell-holes.

[up] Bad guy?

edited 29th Mar '17 8:59:27 AM by justhelping

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#180037: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:02:02 AM

Just to get out of what looks like the ol' "our left is to the right of everyone else's left" business

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/freedom-caucus-obamacare-repeal-whats-next-236584

House Freedom Caucus conservatives who brought down the GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill are divided over whether they should try to force a floor vote on a repeal-only bill with a procedural tool that could put their GOP colleagues in a bind.

Several of the group’s most rock-ribbed conservatives are already setting in motion plans to file a so-called discharge petition. The legislative mechanism forces the chamber to vote on legislation — in this case, one of the group member’s Obamacare repeal bills — after it garners more than 216 lawmakers' signatures.

“We will show to the American people who actually wants to repeal Obamacare and who does not,” said caucus member Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who filed a full repeal of the 2010 health law on Friday but says he must wait 30 days until he begins collecting signatures for a discharge petition.

Any thoughts on whether this has any chance of going anywhere?

I've figured by now outright repeal is impossible because too many people benefit from it on a personal level that there'd by widespread backlash if they tried.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:03:03 AM by sgamer82

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#180038: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:03:00 AM

[up][up]In that regard we are in full agreement. TYT and rabid BernieBros are an example of leftist hellholes.

[up][up][up]A proper conservative party would serve an actual purpose, not just as "bad guys", despite writers often using them as the villain in a lot of works (David Weber, I'm looking at you). I shudder to think of a country run by an unrestricted far left party.

[up]Impossible. 216 signatures? The Freedom Caucus members are the only idiots who'd be willing to sign the thing. Everyone else at least pretends to listen to what their constituents want.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:05:15 AM by danime91

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#180039: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:05:40 AM

@Fighteer it is meaningless to you but when someone asks I want to know who are the people in the government staff who don't like me or my party and the way those laws are moving every ISP and telecom company will have a list ready to give them based on their mobile and web browsing data.

Those laws aren't limited to mobiles only and those laws combined with the lack of data control, can result in the prospect of the protections of the ACA being undermined also means that some insurance companies can deny people health care because someone browsed do I have this hereditary disease?.

Or some housing credit company simply charging higher interest rates, because Verizon sold them the data saying the person was looking to sell the house and buy another somewhere else, or some thing related to the data showing the owner was eager to move and thus easier to exploit.

Imagine having your credit rating screwed because of your browsing history in one moment or another had 10 creative ways to increase your credit rating or a company being able to fire employees or deny future applications because they browsed websites and visited places with political views we don't like such as an worker's union website.

Inter arma enim silent leges
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#180040: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:14:00 AM

[up][up]I don't think I could ever an entirely far-left government either, seeing as I value technocratic leadership over charisma and demagoguery, which the far-left trades in, and prefer it that the dregs of society kindly limit their political contributions to the vote, and then promptly disappear from public life so that elites can assume their proper place at the helm of society. My only stipulation is that they are of the left.

I dispute, however, the need for an actual conservative voice in government. Fuck the unregulated market, fuck politicized religion, fuck jingoism, and fuck xenophobia. We need none of those things to be a functional government.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:15:42 AM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#180041: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:21:11 AM

[up]But see, those things are not actual constructive conservative values. Those are the values of the League of Doom that passes for a conservative party in the US. Well, unregulated market is, but somebody's got to stick up for the corporations once in a while.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:21:53 AM by danime91

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#180042: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:22:05 AM

The mistake I think is thinking that the GOP is still a conservative party. It's more of a reactionary party than anything else.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Krieger22 Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018 from Malaysia Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: I'm in love with my car
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
#180043: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:23:07 AM

There's always fiscal conservatism, I suppose.

Although I think that someone is trying to pull a Golden Mean Fallacy on the left and right again.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
justhelping Since: Dec, 2016
#180044: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:23:15 AM

[up][up]Erm. "the dregs of society?" Can we keep the elitism to a minimum? Also, yes, while jingoism and xenophobia are not exactly admirable qualities, those against expanding foreign immigration or relaxing our border control are not racists, jingoists, or xenophobes.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:23:55 AM by justhelping

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#180045: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:25:18 AM

[up] He was being sarcastic. But actually, yes, those in favor of limiting immigration are indeed racists, jingoists, xenophobes, or at the very least ignorant dupes of their propaganda. Immigration is almost universally a net positive for any advanced nation.

edited 29th Mar '17 9:25:52 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
justhelping Since: Dec, 2016
#180046: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:31:48 AM

[up]A couple minutes of research found a 2016 journal published with the statement that a higher concentration of lower-skill immigrants creates more income inequality in the native population: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532440015603814

Krieger22 Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018 from Malaysia Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: I'm in love with my car
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
#180047: Mar 29th 2017 at 9:40:33 AM

[up]That's because the Big Capitalists (TM) will always go for the cheapest source of labor wherever they come from. And when comparing between the local grads who are considering jobs they can make careers in and the foreigner who was willing to cross the border and work for you for much less than the former, who would you pick when you have shareholders breathing down your neck?

At least if it was opening a factory overseas you could pass it off as foreign direct investment.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Balmung Since: Oct, 2011
#180048: Mar 29th 2017 at 10:15:12 AM

A lot of those unpleasant and undesirable "conservative" values that often get dismissed via No True Scotsman seem pretty consistent with what I've gathered of mainstream conservative parties in France and the UK (to be clear, this means the ones that aren't the UKIP or FN).

justhelping Since: Dec, 2016
#180049: Mar 29th 2017 at 10:22:56 AM

[up][up] So you agree that unrestricted immigration cheapens labor and screws over the native population, especially working-class people.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#180050: Mar 29th 2017 at 10:23:55 AM

Was anyone even arguing in favor of unrestricted immigration?


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