[Rei Murasame]

If you don't like owning your own position, that's not really my problem, is it? I'm not the first person to have observed this.

Also, if my response begins with, "what that really means is...", or "but what actually would happen in practice is...", that is a valid form of debate. It shows that I am actually thinking about what people say, and I am not just uncritically accepting the rhetoric that comes from you.

[U184]

Ok, what you really mean is, you have no clue what your talking about and you just like talking to hear yourself talk. Got it, thanks.

[Rei Murasame]

You'll probably have some difficulty supporting that interpretation.

[blackjack21]

A War That Might Happen
Jonah Goldberg usually writes with a comic twist, but the foregoing article is serious in nature and I think he's closer to the mark than the OP or Rei.

But the more important distinctions aren't philosophical. Whereas the old game of attacking even very conservative Republicans as sellouts was something of a direct-mail fundraising racket, the new cause is more like a real movement.

And that's why this time the infighting might lead to real war. For starters, the populists are much better funded and organized. Despite liberal doomsaying that Citizens United would give corporations a stranglehold over politics, we've seen the influence of big business decline in the GOP as new populist PACs have declared war on what they believe is the K Street wing of the party.

Also, public sentiment is much more on their side than you might guess from media coverage of the Tea Party. As political scientist Larry Bartels recently observed, the public is “more conservative than at any time since 1952.” That new progressive era liberals promised in 2008? It never happened. The public has grown more conservative during the Obama presidency. The catch: It’s grown less Republican, too.

In The Roots of Modern Conservatism, historian Michael Bowen argues that the familiar creation story of the modern Right that focuses on Barry Goldwater’s failed 1964 presidential bid skips the all-important chapters of the 1940s and 1950s. This was when the original “Me Too” Republican, Thomas Dewey, battled the legendary “Mr. Republican,” Robert Taft. (“Me Too” GOPers claimed they liked the New Deal, but that it was just run poorly.)

According to Bowen, the fight between Dewey and Taft had less to do with ideology and more with internal GOP politics. Desperate to gain control of the party, the two factions invoked — and often invented — ideological differences to justify their claims and grievances. Eventually, the ideological arguments became self-justifying, in the same way the Sunni–Shiite Muslim split started as a fight over the prophet Mohammed’s successor and was only retroactively imbued with profound theological significance.

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.

They would suspect that you are a Thomas Dewey Republican. I supported George W. Bush. I voted for him. I maxed out contributions for him. I raised money for him. However, I did not agree with virtually everything he did. The political left called me everything in the book for my support of his presidency--most notably the Iraq War. I left the Republican party in 2006 over the Kennedy-McCain bill, because the Republicans started calling anyone who didn't agree with amnesty for illegal aliens "racist." People like me are why the Republicans lost the house in 2006. People like me are why they regained it in 2010. People like me are why we supported Ted Cruz defunding ObamaCare. People like me don't care that the liberal spin is that the shutdown hurt the Republican party. Why don't we care? We're not really Republicans anymore. We're conservatives. If we have to destroy the Republican party, who gives a shit? They have no problem screwing us, so why should we care about them?

For instance, I support an individual right to own guns but reasonable restrictions like background checks and registration requirements.

Ok, so what you actually support is not a right to own guns, but a privilege to own guns--a privilege which is subject to restrictions and registration. A right to keep and bear arms is antecedent to the authority of the state. It is absolute. It's purpose is to defend freedom from all enemies, both foreign AND domestic. As Rei pointed out in another thread, the overstatement by Americans with respect to gun control is that the Nazis came for the guns first. Actually, the Nazis supported a policy very much like your point of view. However, their restrictions were that Jews could not own guns, and everyone else had to register. So a movement conservative does not see your position as "reasonable." Me personally? If I hear an alliterative phrase, my scepticism is immediately piqued. "Reasonable restrictions" sounds very pleasantly unreasonable. It sounds like Republicans who talk of "repeal and replace" with respect to ObamaCare. To us, that sounds like, "What you like? Me fuck you hard and fast? Me fuck you long time? Which one you like?" To me, it sounds like you want to fuck me. No thanks.

Liberals grant this to be centrist but conservatives say it is ultra liberal.

Actually, sans the anti-Jewish regulations, it's identical to Nazi Party policy. So naturally this would offend the sensibilities of conservatives, who are small l liberals.

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."

Actually, it's national socialist. That's why Rei likes you. You are actually a national socialist. That's not broadly accepted in the United States, and it is not politically correct to state that you are a national socialist, because that gets immediately conflated with Nazism and anti-Semitism.

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

Gay marriage is a different issue. That suggests you are just soft in the head. Liberals present you with a series of choices, and you pick what you like. Movement conservatives aren't united on this issue, because some defend traditional marriage for its own sake. For me, it's Octavian Caesar's law. It's Lex Julii, and liberal divorce laws and non-punishment for extra-marital sex already rendered it unfit for its intended purpose. So to add homosexuality to the mix as though equality had anything to do with it at all, and continuing to restrict the cardinality of the agreement suggests that you basically let others do your thinking for you. Do you want international socialism, or national socialism? You choose national socialism. I would too, but I'd prefer smaller government in general. So I don't accept the choices presented. That makes me a radical extremist outside the mainstream of American society.

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.

If you've never read Mein Kampf, you should. Hitler is absolutely vilified in the press. He is not treated fairly at all. I'm sure Rei might agree. If you listen to many American politicians, they really don't sound--on a policy basis--much different from Adolf Hitler. "Bush = Hitler" was often thrown at me when I supported Bush. The Iraq War was never going to result in some traditional colonialism as critics often suggested. Rather, it was to preserve American hegemony (oil priced in dollars, government neutral too or friendly with the US, control of weapons, and to preempt a hostile force, etc.). Yet, some of his domestic policies like prescription drugs for Medicare are very much FDR-style Democrat policies. A politician who does that sort of thing creates aggregate demand for rich producers while buying the votes of the poor. It's not the same as wealth redistribution, because you more or less get a voucher that can only be spent on prescription drugs. National socialism is an alliance between rich industrialists and the working classes.

Liberals do not see me as one of them, but conservatives always seem to see me as a liberal. Why?

It's actually much like the last line I quoted from Jonah Goldberg:

Eventually, the ideological arguments became self-justifying, in the same way the Sunni–Shiite Muslim split started as a fight over the prophet Mohammed’s successor and was only retroactively imbued with profound theological significance.

Conservatives see the split between national socialism and international socialism the same way. It's still socialism. Muslim fundamentalists don't say, "Hey, those Unitarians are cool, but the Catholics and the fundamentalist Christians are not my bag." They see Christians. You aren't really a conservative. You are actually a fascist, but it's impolitic to say so in the United States since we defeated a fascist alliance during the second world war. Yet, liberals are okay with that, because they are socialist too. You aren't one of them, but they aren't as afraid of you as they are of me.

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.

When they talk about "fairness," "wealth redistribution," "helping the poor," "taxing the rich" and so on, they are basically talking about fucking our lights out.

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.

I understand that you and I don't agree philosophically, but I take your opening tone as a bit of a put down. It's more of the "conservatives are stupid" meme. Nucklepunch is a fascist at heart, but that term is considered an insult in the United States. You can hold that view in the United States, but you just can't call it fascist. That's political correctness for you. I do think with some significant distance from the Hitler years, it is very helpful to deconstruct America's non-stop anti-Hitler propaganda. Hitler was a very interesting leader. Just like the American Civil War produced a lot of "firsts," so did the Nazis. They were the first to establish the link between smoking and cancer. They were the first with guided missiles. They were the first to put jets into production. The problem with American Jews is that they cannot give any credit to Hitler's major accomplishments, because of his pogroms against the Jews--which were very real and very brutal. Yet, the autobahn systems we see around the world today? Hitler inspired that. The Volkswagen Beetle the hippies loved so much? Hitler commissioned that.

There are some dumb conservatives, just as there are in any faction. However, I don't think it's fair to merely say that we're epistemically blind. Nucklepunch is a fascist, but it's forbidden to say so in America. If I said, "Nucklepunch, you are a fascist." He's likely to take offense. If I call you a fascist, you say "Thank you." Even you have to call it "neo-corporatist" though because of liberalism's non-stop libel of Hitler. So given that even I can see that, do you at least have some appreciation why I can't stand the political left in the United States?

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.

Would it be fair to suggest that most of their contradictions compromise liberal capitalism for fascism though? I think that's the bigger question here, because almost everything Nucklepunch has said is fascist.

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.

Protectionism is probably more mercantilist than fascist, but labor unions support that sort of thing too. Most conservatives oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, but are more liberal when it comes to legal immigration when it serves the national interest (economic mostly). Conservatives are hardly Wilsonian. Maybe lured by neoconservatives. I certainly fit that bill for a time. I definitely do not like the UN and that sort of thing, which is all Wilsonian.

I can't name a single pragmatic American conservative/libertarian on this forum.

As an ideology, the pragmatism happens in the market, not in the political policies.

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.

Well, it was our country. Social Security and Medicare are fascist policies. Again, please, please, please read Mein Kampf. Just understand national socialism so you can proudly say who you are and what you believe. I don't disagree with everything Hitler did either, but I think his military strategy was a disaster. You are going to have to address the demographic bomb though. Now that ObamaCare is law, it's coming sooner rather than later.

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.

They have also sold out to Nucklepunch's "reasonable regulations." We have a graduated earned income tax with exemptions at the low end of the income curve. Notice that we don't have that for non-earned income? Savings? Capital gains? It's become a self-serving system. Poor people cannot accumulate capital, enjoy compound interest without taxation, or receive probate and tax free inheritances up to a point. We can get back to that, but the nucklepunches of the world want someone else to give it to them. It makes them feel loved or something. It's not even complex math. Why not a $20k a year unearned income tax credit, or earned AND unearned? See what I mean? People would have leisure time again. That's a HUGE threat to Wall Street.

Let me give you a humorous anecdotal example on why a lot of "progress" is just unnecessary business. I was watching Pawn Stars (conservatives watch television shows where people are working when we're not working). Rick Harrison appears in a commercial touting safety razors, and completely bashes all the double, triple, etc. disposables. He shaves his head--I have a very full head of hair, but a heavy beard--so he has some cred. I go onto Amazon and look around. The cookies track, and everywhere I'm seeing things like razor clubs with the double-bladed style disposables that would defeat my objective. I finally find and buy myself a single-blade double-edged safety razor along the lines of King Gillette's from 1901. I've used it for the last two days. Brilliant! Great clean, close shave, no cuts. Miss a few days shaving? No trouble with the stubble. It's brilliant. 100 year old technology works better than the two-to-five blade razors that cost so much money. I've been fooled by all this bullshit for years. I haven't seen the ad since. Probably Gillette came in, bought the company and paid a lot of good will for non-disclosure. That's like the Browning M2. 100 year old .50 cal design is absolutely the most incredible gun. Why fuck it up?

The issue is that someone like me going for a much cheaper, and much more effective single-blade safety razor ultimately introduces deflation. The banking cartel cannot survive if we are satisfied. They need a high velocity of money.

This is why conservatives constantly emphasize work and bash liberals for being "lazy" or at the very least favoring policies which promote laziness.

We bash them for laziness, because they want us to pay their way. Liberal politicians in the United States do nothing more than bribe people to vote for them. RINOs don't like us, because they can't do anything for us. We don't want to be bought. We want the government out of our lives.

Finally American liberalism does not have socialist roots (in spite of what some will say) but social gospel roots.

That was true until the New Deal. It actually became rather nefarious with the Great Society--creating inter-generational welfare dependents who MUST vote for the welfare party. Mitt Romney was actually criticized for pointing this out in his 47% remark. The New Deal worked for many European immigrants, but it made many others simply dependent on the state.

[keso]

I am about as close to being a liberal as you can be without actually being one, or at the very least maybe I just don't want to admit it. I do not see myself as philosophically rooted in liberalism though.

You don't see yourself as a liberal because you don't define yourself by labels and then blindly adhere to all the other garbage that goes along with that label, much like the Republicans that you rail against.

You think, in other words...

You don't blindly adhere to ideology.

[Rich]

National socialism is an alliance between rich industrialists and the working classes.

That completely untrue. Support amongst the working classes for the Nazis was low. Support amongst industrialists was under-represented as well. The Nazis bases of support were the Middle Class and rural areas

[keso]

I forgot and would like to add, the Republican party in the USA has slid more and more to the right, and continually dominates the framing of the discourse. Given that you are not, "sliding to the left," but not, "sliding to the right," as you say, you are viewed as a, "liberal," as, "the other," and as, "the enemy," especially since, "If you're not with us, you're against us."

I think that the fact that you say, "I am about as close to being a liberal as you can be without actually being one, or at the very least maybe I just don't want to admit it," and view this as some sort of admission, rather than a pride in your stances, is a bit of an example of how light is shed on the framing of this argument. Somehow, "Liberal," (Which Eisenhauer would be today) has become an epithet, and you seek to shy away from that epithet. Subconsciously, perhaps, you're buying into their compartmentalization.

[blackjack21]

That completely untrue. Support amongst the working classes for the Nazis was low. Support amongst industrialists was under-represented as well. The Nazis bases of support were the Middle Class and rural areas

Point taken. By "working class" I was broadly covering those who work for a living. By contrast, communism is an alliance between the ruling class and the poor. Industrialists loved Hitler initially, because of his suppression of the communist party. After he established a dictatorship, some had second thoughts. Fritz Thyssen was supportive, and went along with Hitler but was opposed to the extremely violent anti-Semitism and the repression of Catholics. IG Farben was probably the largest chemical company in the world, consisting of AGFA, BASF, Bayer, Hoescht and others after the merger. They were certainly collaborating with the Nazis, and held the patent on Zyklon B. They were the ones who discovered Sarin as well.

Somehow, "Liberal," (Which Eisenhauer would be today) has become an epithet, and you seek to shy away from that epithet.

Eisenhower was not a leftist by any stretch of the imagination. He would be friendlier to big business than some in the Tea Party. Remember, it was Eisenhower who toppled Mossadeq in his first year in office. Do you think a liberal today would do that? He threatened to use nuclear weapons in order to bring the Korean War to its present ceasefire. Eisenhower shrank the conventional military to reduce deficits as it was the largest part of the budget at the time--not so anymore. However, he increased spending on nuclear weapons and threatened to nuke our enemies. In 1958, he sent troops to Lebanon. My grandfather was living there at the time while working as part of the US delegation to the British-led Central Treaty Organization. Liberals may think that his coining of the phrase "military-industrial" complex was left wing. It wasn't. It was actually cautionary to fascism. Eisenhower also warned against a scientific-technological elite that would try to make policy (global warming, American Medical Association anyone?). He was warning against fascism itself, as the US had adopted a lot of fascist policies to fight communism. Eisenhower created the interstate highway system (a Hitler-inspired idea), NASA (in response to Sputnik), and DARPA (U2, SR-71, the internet all spawned from it). A lot of people think it was Kennedy who sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas. That's just liberal white washing to take credit for the Civil Rights Act and call Republicans racist. It was Eisenhower who sent federal troops to Little Rock. Even anti-communist Democrats like Kennedy didn't have the balls for that sort of thing. Get real.

[Reason10]

Let's go down that list and see:

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.

Check with the founding documents of the United States. There is a chapter called the Second Amendment. It doesn't mention background checks and registration requirements. Also, the FIRST Amendment (which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion) likewise doesn't require background checks and registration requirements before you can either speak your mind or go to church. I'm afraid you're in the liberal camp on this issue.

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.

"
Sorry. Involving the government to solve a problem THE GOVERNMENT CREATED is as liberal as Nazi Pelosi. Pick up your Occupy Wall Street and peace symbol button on the way out.

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

No conservative has a problem with civil unions. Contrary to popular myth, conservatives believe in live and let live. But we DON'T believe in using marriage to try to justify a practice that most Americans (and most of the world) find abhorrent. You get a pass on that one.

I oppose socialism and free market capitalism, favoring capitalism with reasonable regulations

.
There is nothing centrist about that. Trusting GOVERNMENT to be reasonable in the free market? That makes you a Hillary Clinton liberal.

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

.
Do you honestly believe that you can keep score in this way? Most of your beliefs are liberal. You have one or two that are centrist and somehow that makes you a centrist? I've got more gun owning liberal friends than I can shake a stick at. They will show me their AK-40 collections and proudly admit they voted for Barak Ebola.

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?

Your problem (other than mis-characterising conservatism in general) is that you need to be "one of them." Conservatives are the most independent thinkers on the planet. But we have certain core values and we realize that you cannot compromise with the left. You cannot compromise with a leviathan central government to regulate your life, when governments do such a poor job at regulating themselves.

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.

You have assimilated too much liberal propaganda to believe that bullshit. The left is STILL in troll mode, where they actually think they can win arguments by LYING about the opposition.

Basically anybody who is not out preaching ultra-conservatism is a socialist, there is absolutely no middle ground. Why? Why? WHY???

Nobody is suggesting that at all. But here's a clue. NOTHING was ever accomplished in the world by a centrist, except raising the cost of elections. Centrists didn't fight the Revolutionary War and create the greatest country on the planet. Centrists would have just let the South become the Confederate States of America, rip the country apart and maintain slavery. Centrists would have allowed 9-11 to go unavenged. Centrism is nothing to be proud of. It's nothing to brag about. It basically tells the world that you stand for nothing and can be easily swayed.

[Raez]

Well if You go classical definition of liberal then American conservatives fill the bill.
Well Both sides tend to be using conservative and liberal as insulting term.

[Dawaldo]

Well if You go classical definition of liberal then American conservatives fill the bill.
Well Both sides tend to be using conservative and liberal as insulting term.

The problem is that Democrats and Republicans are both "big tent" parties and the definitions for "liberal" and "conservative" are so wide as to fit various trends. If you call someone a Marxist there's an unchanging frame of reference (the writings of Marx and Engels) that ensures every single Marxist from 1848 on in every country is going to have basically the same underlying views and, in some sense, consistency.

"Liberal" and "conservative" don't have an equivalent. A Pashtun tribal chief and Ted Cruz are both conservative, but this doesn't mean said chief is going to establish the Afghan GOP or Cruz if elected President is going to siphon state funds to his extended family in Canada so that they may gain influence over neighboring families. Gorbachev in power was seen as liberal compared to what were termed his conservative opponents such as Ligachev and the August coup plotters, but Ligachev hardly belongs anywhere near Rand Paul in the political spectrum.

So it all depends on context. Many British and American conservatives would probably point to Edmund Burke as an important philosophical influence, but I doubt that's the case with French, German or Russian conservatives unless they are actually basing their own conception on that of British and/or American conservatism.

[UnusuallyUsual]

Conservativism isn't even a defined ideology at all. Liberalism, however, is.

Conservativism is just what we agree to call opposition to plans and policies laid out by the, broadly speaking, Left.

It has zero coherence and no actual belief structure of its own, it is just defined by opposing other ideologies.

[Dawaldo]

Conservativism isn't even a defined ideology at all. Liberalism, however, is.

Conservativism is just what we agree to call opposition to plans and policies laid out by the, broadly speaking, Left.

It has zero coherence and no actual belief structure of its own, it is just defined by opposing other ideologies.

That's not really true. A French liberal in 1850, a Chinese liberal in 1910, and an American liberal in 2000 are significantly different, and a conservative in the US today would probably not disapprove much of what a French or Chinese liberal advocated for their countries at those periods in time even though a French or Chinese conservative back then certainly would.

[Dagoth Ur]

American conservative are just the furthest right liberals. So called "left" liberals are center right themselves. Liberalism is a very broad ideology because it has to be to be an effective social umbrella and maintain its cultural hegemony. But make no mistake there is no such thing as a "left" liberal.

[anna]

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.

My take on it, as a recovering conservative:

Conservatives see everything in black and white, there are no shades of gray. Everyone who is not one of them, is a liberal.

Every idea that is not one of theirs is wrong. Compromise is evil, synthesis is capitulation.

God is with the conservatives, the devil is with the liberals. And it's a rare day when someone wakes up and realizes that Rush was wrong... but it happens occasionally.

[Ignatyev]

Because of the American "If you are not with us you are against us" mentality and because they have only two major parties, each of which tries to be all things to all men.
The building blocks of the respective ideologies and their electorates were somewhat fluid, but then LBJ and Nixon happened.
The American New Left and a large portion of the US student population fell in love with LBJ's massive, inefficient and badly thought out social programs but they hated that he sent hundreds of thousands of US draftees to Vietnam, furthermore LBJ was never prosecuted or even openly denounced for his corruption, vote buying and misuse of government resources for personal enrichment, but then along came RN and Watergate.

The Jewish lobby disliked him because of his attempts at D'etante with the USSR, which at the time was limiting Jewish emigration to Israel.However, after he helped save Israel they radically changed their positions.

The anti-War movement hated him because he wanted "Peace with honor" in Vietnam, which mean a more gradual pullout of US forces, more aid and training for South Vietnam, and logistical support.

He wanted more states' rights and a reform of the Federal bureaucracy because he saw it as bloated.

He thought that improvement in race relations was necessary, but wanted a more gradual approach, because he knew that just passing laws would not solve anything, he also lost a golden chance to ingratiate himself with Martin Luther King when the latter was in prison and Bobby Kennedy managed to get him released.The sad part is that Nixon and King were on friendly terms and Nixon did have a good record on civil rights, in fact some analysts have called it the best record of any member of congress in the 50s.

The dismantling o the Great Society was likewise necessary as it was not producing results and the cost was enormous, it also helped drive black families apart because of various provisions that made two parent families ineligible for various types of aid.

Nixon ran on a law and order platform because racial tensions had escalated and the public wanted stability, which meant less permissiveness and a tougher stance on crime.

Nixon's other policy ideas, like universal healthcare and government subsisted student loans were waved away as populism and attempts to deflect attention away from Watergate, although Nixon was probably sincere about those, as his student life was quite bad and his family was in a very poor economic condition because of his brother's illness, that illness cost RN his place at Harvard in fact.

Nixon managed to gain a lot of respect among the US armed forces and working class because he called the draftees sent to Vietnam heroes and those that dodged the draft slackers I believe, most of the draftees were working class, while most of the slackers were middle class college kids.
he also managed o repatriate a lot of POWs and to scale down and end US involvement while trying to save something from the whole mess.

There was also a massive circus because of modifications on some Nixon properties paid for by the GSA, peanuts compared to LBJ of course.

All of these events helped break the "American consensus" and drew lines between the two parties, the Democrats began viewing the Republicans as greedy, uncaring, judgmental racist warmongers.

Republicans on he other hand view Democrats as cowardly, lazy, unpatriotic, permissive and pro-big government . and see most Democratic social programs as more inefficient government interference that is supposed to make the liberals feel good while acing as payment for the votes of lazy unemployed people.

[aakash]

A 'us vs them' tribalistic view that conservatives have. Plain and Simple

[Ummon]

they are old and about to die?

[Iron Ant]

If conservatives are so bad, then why do we have phrases like "it's all right" or "I'll be right with you?".



The pertinent question is actually this:

Why are liberals so completely obsessed and neurotic about conservatives?

They all act the same way.


They all demand and expect every single person on the face of this planet to obey and conform to their ideals, and if people don't then they think it's okay to hurt people.

And there are lot's of contradictions to that.

Liberals will say it's okay for homosexuals to do what they want, but damned if they aren't going to bash a conservative's religion for being ultra reidiculous.

that is not tolerance, nor is it acceptance.

True tolerance is letting people be themselves, and not trying to force them to change to fir your ideology. If you don't like them, just leave them alone and stay away from them, and live your own life.

You're only making people, including yourselves, miserable when all y0u do is yell, scream and hurt people because you're just oh so concerned about people being different than yourselves.

[so_crates]

Whereas conservatism was once a respectable political philosophy, in America it has become little more than window dressing to justify unrestrained greed.

There's nothing wrong with greed per se. As Charles Emerson Winchester once said on M*A*S*H, "Love may make the world go 'round, but greed is the axis it revolves on."

In the end, we're all greedy. Greed is the engine of capitalism. Who doesn't want nice things and a good salary. The problem comes when that greed becomes irrational, when your ready to climb over corpses to get what you want.

As to your statement about moderates being called liberal. I've experienced the same thing from liberals. Being a libertarian, I've often found liberals calling me a winger or accused me of being Republican.