Why do American conservatives think everything is liberal? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#13847053
I have talked to a lot of (American) conservatives in my day and it seems one thing I have noticed is that conservatives seem to think that anything that is not ultra-conservative is automatically liberal. For instance, I call myself a centrist and when I describe such views to my liberal friends they give it to me that I am a centrist and not "one of them" but if I describe my views to conservatives they usually say I am liberal.

For instance, I support an individual right to own guns but reasonable restrictions like background checks and registration requirements. Liberals grant this to be centrist but conservatives say it is ultra liberal.

I oppose government run health care, instead I favor a national health insurance policy with private delivery, something along the lines of France, as opposed to the Beveridge system of England with public hospitals and what not. Liberals grant this to be centrist, whereas to conservatives it is "socialist."

I oppose gay marriage and favor civil unions. Liberals grant this to be centrist. Conservatives think it is liberal.

I oppose socialism and free market capitalism, favoring capitalism with reasonable regulations. Liberals grant this to be centrist but conservatives always say it is liberal if described in any greater detail beyond the surface.

I just don't get it, here I am as a pro-life moderate who opposes affirmative action and accepts the necessity of restricting immigration yet time and time again conservatives are always calling me liberal even though I am not, whereas liberals give credit to my views for what they actually are. Liberals do not see me as one of them, but conservatives always seem to see me as a liberal. Why? Why is everything that isn't ultra-conservative automatically far left? :knife:

Additionally, why is it that conservatives in America always think they are the victims? America is the most right-wing country in the industrialized world yet conservatives act like unless it is totally their way, we are living in a dystopian socialist society. I don't get it. Additionally the whole media hates conservatives (even though only MSNBC seems to display a liberal bias, and its bias is not as strong as FOX's) and all professors are immediately biased against conservative students (even though I went to a public university back when I was a libertarian conservative fully expecting my views to be ripped apart by radical socialist aging hippie professors and found no such thing). Basically anybody who is not out preaching ultra-conservatism is a socialist, there is absolutely no middle ground. Why? Why? WHY???
#13847067
There's actually a term for what you are experiencing from them, it's called epistemic closure. Also there is decontextualisation going on as well.

I'll just quickly establish what those are:

  • Epistemic closure: If while knowing p, person S believes q because p entails q, then S knows q. Turn that into nonsense blind group identification and advance to the next bullet point.

  • Decontextualisation: This is where they eventually forget what they are even aiming for and start using identikits. This is why they will end up pushing points that are actually pure nonsense in practice, and then when you force them to acknowledge that they don't do what is intended, they will still defend those points to the ends of the earth.

    This is because for them, the ends don't justify the means. If I say, 'I support x because it facilitates y', those people don't like that. They actually support z just because... because. That is similar to the logic of neo-fundamentalism. "Why do you wash your hands?" "I don't know, but if we don't, the monsters of slight uncertainty will come out from under the bed!"

Being called a 'liberal' by them then simply means that you are something that is not them and they can't be bothered to find out exactly what that might be, so you would be called 'liberal' even if you were a Fascist or a Socialist. Ironically, the American so-called 'conservatives' are actually the liberals themselves.

If it were a religion, then its high priests would be financial capitalists, and this is why their support of z, whatever z is in a given scenario, will almost always be something that undermines political-economy and serves as an apologia for finance capital, to serve the interests of finance capital.

If you are stuck in front of an audience with those people, the fastest way to deal with them is to outflank them on the right in the domain of outcomes, while exposing the interests that their talking points are geared to serve and highlighting their contradictions.

The contradictions are actually easy to catch because they will usually make the error of paying lipservice to outcomes that their own policy choices cannot ever possibly come near facilitating ever (eg, the contradiction between spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric while simultaneously placing immigration-loving capitalists in charge of society), and then you can completely unwind them from there since their contradictions run extremely deep to the point where they are fundamental contradictions.

They will be furious with you, but they'll deserve it for being gigantic incurious cocks.
#13847124
If you are stuck in front of an audience with those people, the fastest way to deal with them is to outflank them on the right in the domain of outcomes, while exposing the interests that their talking points are geared to serve and highlighting their contradictions.


The thing of it is I outflank them on the right in terms of protectionism, immigration, and foreign policy, at least in that I advocate what was once considered to be the "conservative" position. Now protectionism is seen as an attack on free markets, as is a restrictive immigration policy, and even though the so-called "conservatives" today advocate a Wilsonian internationalist foreign policy based around hawkish utopian liberalism they still take my views on foreign policy to be liberal, all while spouting off what they think "history" taught them.
#13849234
Well, firstly Rei makes a good point regarding the "epistemic closure". As the Neo-Con David Frum pointed out, Conservatives used to be bilingual; that is, they could speak the language of liberals & conservatives. Now, however, as our society has become increasingly heterogeneous we've balkanized not only along ethnic & religious lines but on media lines as well. We've specialized media for Jew Conservatives & Jew Liberals, Gays, Women, etc.

Now, the reason why this is less of an issue for Liberals is because Liberals are a diverse lot. Take a look at blacks; the single most religious race in the USA with correspondingly traditional views on homosexuality & abortion, yet they also strongly trend for Liberal politicians. As do gays & the pro-choice crowd.

Contrast this with Conservatives, whom are largely homogenous. The major differences within American Conservatism are not based on identity politics but ideological.

The thing of it is I outflank them on the right in terms of protectionism, immigration, and foreign policy, at least in that I advocate what was once considered to be the "conservative" position. Now protectionism is seen as an attack on free markets, as is a restrictive immigration policy, and even though the so-called "conservatives" today advocate a Wilsonian internationalist foreign policy based around hawkish utopian liberalism they still take my views on foreign policy to be liberal, all while spouting off what they think "history" taught them.


What's more important, getting your ideas implemented or being recognized as a "true" Conservative? Let the NeoCons dig their own grave; I fail to see what's wrong when The American Conservative & Takimag are seen as moderate in comparison to Fox.
#13849238
What's more important, getting your ideas implemented or being recognized as a "true" Conservative? Let the NeoCons dig their own grave; I fail to see what's wrong when The American Conservative & Takimag are seen as moderate in comparison to Fox.


Maybe you're right. I had myself a debate with a very conservative relative this thanksgiving and I realized that the so-called "conservatives" who are merely hyper-partisan Republicans who think conservatism means whatever the Not-so-Grand Old Party Platform says at the current moment are simply too stupid, too closed minded, and too tribal to be reasoned with. They are like drooling dogs doing the bidding of their masters. Meanwhile they don't understand, as Rei mentioned, that what is called "conservatism" in America is actually liberalism and "liberalism" as they define it is basically anything and everything that doesn't agree with them, even if I am about a million miles from liberalism. I have decided there is no reasoning with these people and except for on this forum I will simply not debate with them. In my personal life I used to talk politics a lot now I go out of my way to avoid it. I began deliberately doing this before this debate but now I am getting more selective. For me there just came a point during the 2011 debt fight that people are living more in echo chambers and few are willing to step out of them. Anybody I used to meet I used to talk politics with, most people I have come to know in recent years that I did not know before have no idea I have any interest in politics. When the subject turned to politics in the break room at work recently and somebody (clearly based on what was said one of the closed minded conservatives similar to my relative) asked me my opinion, I replied that I didn't have any interest in politics. This is patently untrue but I simply have no interest arguing with these people anymore. They can't take views that disagree with theirs without getting all dramatic. I will talk politics on this forum because I figure if you are here you are here for a reason and I will say what I need to say and if you are offended that is tough. I say things on this forum I would never say publicly. I think we all know I have been one of the hardest on libertarians of anybody here and I do not apologize for it, but if they were my relatives, coworkers or what not I would not give them the time of day. I can't name a single pragmatic American conservative/libertarian on this forum. Note I say American because among the Britons and Canadians there are plenty, but every American conservative/libertarian seems to be a total basket case and I am getting sick of it. I am sick and tired of this extremism that is taking over my country! I just wish they would leave us normal people alone, let us have our Social Security and Medicare and go start a utopian Glenn Beck colony somewhere.
#13899093
nucklepunche wrote:I have talked to a lot of (American) conservatives in my day and it seems one thing I have noticed is that conservatives seem to think that anything that is not ultra-conservative is automatically liberal. For instance, I call myself a centrist and when I describe such views to my liberal friends they give it to me that I am a centrist and not "one of them" but if I describe my views to conservatives they usually say I am liberal...


There are two sides to conservatism - a legal side and a graceful side. The legal side codifies good and bad behavior, and the graceful side rewards people for following the code. This codification is necessary because there are emotionally judgmental people in the world who just don't listen to reason. They're too passionate, so they need to be physically impressed by mystery in order to calm down. Likewise, there are people who aren't passionate enough, and they need to be physically impressed by security in order to warm up.

What's happened is the graceful side of religion did not uphold its side of the bargain. Religious legalism took over. In history, we can see this with the Protestant Reformation, something even Marx admitted coincided with the rise of the industrial revolution:

Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1, chapter 1, section 4, Penguin edition, p. 172 wrote:The natural form of labour, its specific kind - and not, as in a society of commodity production, its universality - is here its immediate social form. The corvee can be measured by time in just the same way as the labour which produces commodities, but every serf knows that what he expends in the service of his lord is a specific quantity of his own personal labour-power. The tithe owed to the priest is more clearly apparent than his blessing. Whatever we may think, then, of the different character masks with which people confront each other in such a society, the social relations between individuals in the performance of their labour appear at all events as their own personal relations, and are not disguised as social relations between things, between the products of labour. (...) For a society of commodity producers - whose general social relation of production consists in the fact that they treat their products as commodities, hence as values, and in this business-like form bring their individual, private labours into relation with each other as homogenous human labour - Christianity with its religious cult of man in the abstract, more particularly in its bourgeois development, i.e. in Protestantism, Deism, etc., is the most fitting form of religion.


In America, this Protestantism later followed up with something called the Social Gospel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel

In short, the Social Gospel was the root of big business progressive industrial capitalism. What it did was encourage people to work to prove their dignity while liquidating their sense of time. The working class no longer appreciated the social assimilation of appreciating craftsmanship. Instead, it migrated to cities, and got caught up in hypercompetition just to produce without thinking.

Finally, when the counterculture movement hit, this was further reinforced with Rockefeller Republicanism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republican

This was the last straw of conservative intellectual tolerance because by this point, it appeared no intellectuals were willing to actually care about organic community any longer. Instead, conservatism had been completely exploited by professionals who wanted to remain socially distant. Profiteering might be blamed, but social hierarchy would remain.

Today's (northern) conservatives are lost people. They don't understand how to relate with each other, surrendering their souls to industrial institutions. They've grown paranoid and are willing to behave like animals for social hierarchy because they've lost their grace.

...Additionally, why is it that conservatives in America always think they are the victims? America is the most right-wing country in the industrialized world yet conservatives act like unless it is totally their way, we are living in a dystopian socialist society. I don't get it. Additionally the whole media hates conservatives (even though only MSNBC seems to display a liberal bias, and its bias is not as strong as FOX's) and all professors are immediately biased against conservative students (even though I went to a public university back when I was a libertarian conservative fully expecting my views to be ripped apart by radical socialist aging hippie professors and found no such thing). Basically anybody who is not out preaching ultra-conservatism is a socialist, there is absolutely no middle ground. Why? Why? WHY???


Due process cannot be compromised.

It's that simple. You don't flirt with the rule of law. Flirting leads to drama, drama leads to problems.
#13900317
nucklepunche wrote:Whereas conservatism was once a respectable political philosophy, in America it has become little more than window dressing to justify unrestrained greed.


Not greed, nuckle. Workaholism.

C'mon, engage what I said.
#13901104
There is no question in my mind why American Conservatives view opposing views as being Liberal. But, Liberalism in America is far more radical than Liberalism in other countries. To take the classical definition of Liberalism, you won't be able to find an American Liberal that shares those views of what a Classic Liberal held. But there is a bigger difference.

The Constitution of the United States is not like the Constitutions of other countries and it created a type of government that is not the same as other countries. In the historical text, 1787, which was the year the Constitutional Conventions were constructed by the various states in the United States, had something that was fresh in their minds. That was the American Revolutionary War. There are literally dozens of principles that were involved, but the single most important was the protection of the individual's property and the individual's liberty.

The term republican (not-capitalized) does not have the same meaning as the term Republican (capitalized). A republican can be a democrat, but not a member of the Democratic Party.

To make this much shorter, Conservatives in America may not wish to preserve the same thing that Conservatives in another country. Republican, using the capital letter "R" does not mean republican in the classical sense of the word. Federalists were republicans, but there was not a Republican Party until the year 1852 or 1853. Being a member of the Republican Party does not mean being a republican in the sense of being a federalist. However, a Republic is a form of democracy, but is not direct democracy. It is a representative democracy, and democrat, with the small letter "d", is a person that supports democracy.

Not all members of the Republican Party (with a capital R) are Conservatives and not all members of the Democratic Party (with a capital D) are not modern liberals. I hope this helps. Just remember, republican is not the same as Republican and democrat is not the same as Democrat. Their denotative meanings are differentiated by using either the capital R or D, or the lowercase r or d.
#13902362
I see what Dak is saying. I grew up in a mostly Protestant community and attended a school originally founded by Dutch Reformed ministers. The work ethic is very emphasized in Protestantism. This is why conservatives constantly emphasize work and bash liberals for being "lazy" or at the very least favoring policies which promote laziness. Thus as part of this Protestant ethic it is often reasoned that hard work is serving God and thus whoever is rich has been more moral and whoever is not is immoral. This is why the right in America (a largely Protestant nation) sees no contradiction in emphasizing a thorough Christianity while at the same time holding a harsh attitude toward poor people. The Protestant theology of work ethic (in order to demonstrate grace) does not teach this but it can implicitly lead to this. It makes sense that nations which were historically more Catholic or Orthodox tended not to have as strong of an emphasis on work ethic. Still it is interesting you mention the social gospel. The social gospel is the other direction this protestantism will go. In spite of being multi-religious movements both American liberalism and American conservatism have deeply protestant roots. Conservatism in austere Puritanism, with American conservatism's intense focus on capitalism. Finally American liberalism does not have socialist roots (in spite of what some will say) but social gospel roots. In the end the Puritanism has become the dominant tendency in America however if you look at Scandinavia the Protestant social gospel tendency (or the equivalent thereof) sort of dominated. Thus these nations have strong work ethics and a cultural focus on efficiency yet also strong welfare states. Yes they are mostly secular but have Protestant roots. Now of course we go back to my comment about window dressing. Dak said conservatism is exploited by businessmen. I get that. The philosophy was already there but businessmen saw it as good window dressing for their agenda so they adopted it.
#13903626
nucklepunche wrote:I oppose government run health care, instead I favor a national health insurance policy with private delivery, something along the lines of France, as opposed to the Beveridge system of England with public hospitals and what not. Liberals grant this to be centrist, whereas to conservatives it is "socialist."

It's rather odd that your liberal friends would call that centrist. Most liberals I know favor either the French model you're describing or Canadian-style single-payer. Almost none of them support the British model.

I oppose socialism and free market capitalism, favoring capitalism with reasonable regulations. Liberals grant this to be centrist but conservatives always say it is liberal if described in any greater detail beyond the surface.

Again, this sounds like liberalism. Liberals are not socialists. They're reform-minded capitalists.

I grant that your social views are centrist, but on economic issues, you sound pretty much like a standard liberal. Of course, for those of us on the left, liberalism itself is centrist.
#14317241
Isn’t using the tern term “Liberal “in this context erroneous if not misleading?
Since the current left i.e. newly self identified "liberals" are actually progressives and the complete opposite to the original Locke liberals who crafted a constitution with the aim to protect the citizens from an overzealous Government.
At best they are neo liberals but even that still falsely implies “liberty” (as in individual liberty, freedom) when in reality their doctrine is to empower the heavy hand of the State to bring about the collective progressive utopia they desire by force.
There is nothing liberal about that imho.
#14317244
Rei wrote:I'll just quickly establish what those are:

Epistemic closure: If while knowing p, person S believes q because p entails q, then S knows q. Turn that into nonsense blind group identification and advance to the next bullet point.

Decontextualisation: This is where they eventually forget what they are even aiming for and start using identikits. This is why they will end up pushing points that are actually pure nonsense in practice, and then when you force them to acknowledge that they don't do what is intended, they will still defend those points to the ends of the earth.

This is because for them, the ends don't justify the means. If I say, 'I support x because it facilitates y', those people don't like that. They actually support z just because... because. That is similar to the logic of neo-fundamentalism. "Why do you wash your hands?" "I don't know, but if we don't, the monsters of slight uncertainty will come out from under the bed!"


That is amazing.

You just described almost every conversation that you and I have ever engaged in, regarding the ME. I tell you why I think something, then you tell me what I really mean is "p" and reword it to fit your "q". You then have used your identikit on me, changing me into a comfortable argument where you can defend "z".

Where as, the reality is, I was supporting x because it facilitated y.


So then, that being the case. It becomes obvious that even when one is doing the above AND they know that it is a common occurrence, they may be so blinded by "Z" that they themselves can not see that they are engaging in the same type of self serving circle.

I suppose that one would just need to be aware of warning signs and be vigilant.

So, if you keep placing someone, or even everyone in a similar box and keep changing a persons words and their meaning to suit your own agenda, no matter that the other person is telling you, that is not the case and you never believe that they are telling the truth and you think that only you can be right... will then, one might want to rethink their whole personal agenda at that point.

(Just as we see Rik & others do often)

Got it.

Thanks for clearing that up Rei.
#14317867
I don't know what that means. However, I've always regarded you as being in epistemic closure, because your posts are structured in that way. For example, you've decided that majority rule is 'the best'.

But if the majority happens to be with say, Al-Qaeda, then you don't change position, because what you believe has become completely independent from the actual outcomes on the ground. It's interesting that you chose to dig up this thread, since what I described in the earlier post in this topic about 'how to deal with them' is exactly the strategy I am using to deal with you.

Rei Murasame wrote:If you are stuck in front of an audience with those people, the fastest way to deal with them is to outflank them on the right in the domain of outcomes, while exposing the interests that their talking points are geared to serve and highlighting their contradictions.

The contradictions are actually easy to catch because they will usually make the error of paying lipservice to outcomes that their own policy choices cannot ever possibly come near facilitating ever (eg, the contradiction between spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric while simultaneously placing immigration-loving capitalists in charge of society), and then you can completely unwind them from there since their contradictions run extremely deep to the point where they are fundamental contradictions.

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