What is Conservatism?

[TheReal_ND]

Will look into... pic related is in the mail though heh

[GloryofGreece]

Intellectually, you might want to start with Edmund Burke. He was the intellectual "founder", I guess, of conservatism. His book on the French Revolution was interesting.

He recognized that the "Left" is a kind of social cancer. But I don't think he realized his own part in it. Step one is realizing what the left actually is. Step two is going back to the Enlightenment and realizing what that was too. So-called conservatives are the radicals and the "left" is the consequence of their ideology.

I realize that the alt-right and others are trying to recapture the term "Right", but I also think adopting that entire paradigm is a mistake.

Edmund Burke was for the American Independence, correct? He was basically for free trade, right? So that was a mistake in your opinion and part of the problem...Are individual liberties, wrong and/or make you something "liberal" and therefore not conservative or traditional or feudalistic so that's part of the problem?

[Speaker to Animals]

Intellectually, you might want to start with Edmund Burke. He was the intellectual "founder", I guess, of conservatism. His book on the French Revolution was interesting.

He recognized that the "Left" is a kind of social cancer. But I don't think he realized his own part in it. Step one is realizing what the left actually is. Step two is going back to the Enlightenment and realizing what that was too. So-called conservatives are the radicals and the "left" is the consequence of their ideology.

I realize that the alt-right and others are trying to recapture the term "Right", but I also think adopting that entire paradigm is a mistake.

Edmund Burke was for the American Independence, correct? He was basically for free trade, right? So that was a mistake in your opinion and part of the problem...Are individual liberties, wrong and/or make you something "liberal" and therefore not conservative or traditional or feudalistic so that's part of the problem?

You are still focusing on the marketing of the Enlightenment and not really what it is was actually about.

The idea of the Enlightenment is that governments exist to facilitate the production of as much goods and services as possible. It equates happiness with consumption, and liberty with license. You have to understand the departure from how secular powers were conceived until that point. Before, a secular government existed to maximize the good of the people, where the good entails a teleological sense that is wholly absent post-Enlightenment.

It simultaneously lays the groundwork for the mammon worshiping that we see on the "right" and the degeneracy we see on the "left". These are two sides of the same coin. Or, perhaps more accurately, the goal was the high production/high consumption society in which individual license is maximized, but the unintended consequence (from day one I might add) was the degeneracy and organized violence of the "left".

Pre-Enlightenment was about keeping people good, with a mind towards a "utopia" in the afterlife. Post-Enlightenment was about the abandonment of teleology altogether and the focus upon making more stuff, which they assumed would make a "utopia" here on Earth.

The arguments about rights, property, etc., are not inherent to the Enlightenment. I don't have a problem with that material. I am talking about what was actually going on.

[clubgop]

Better yet, let's just call it something else. Something like, "things nobody will vote for but I swear to g-d I'm not a racist I'm losing on principle with dignity."

What are you on about?

[TheReal_ND]

I don't feel like conservatism as we know it has much of a future. Furthermore, I'm not exactly sure what they are even on about if they are fixated on pan-economic issues all the time.

I would submit, conservatives only "win" when the left becomes bat shit insane. Also, most of the tenants of "conservatism" are insignificant to people that are voting for people like Trump. If you think the push back against the libs was because of conservatism I think you are wrong. Perhaps fundamentally so. Trump did not run on a conservative platform as an underdog. Why did he win?

[SuburbanFarmer]

I don't feel like conservatism as we know it has much of a future. Furthermore, I'm not exactly sure what they are even on about if they are fixated on pan-economic issues all the time.

I would submit, conservatives only "win" when the left becomes bat shit insane. Also, most of the tenants of "conservatism" are insignificant to people that are voting for people like Trump. If you think the push back against the libs was because of conservatism I think you are wrong. Perhaps fundamentally so. Trump did not run on a conservative platform as an underdog. Why did he win?

He won because people are pissed off, and threw a collective tantrum. Also, Hillary was a pathetic excuse for a candidate, and blatantly corrupt.

Now that Pence is the alternative, he'll be out on his ass shortly.

[TheReal_ND]

Posts like these remind me how stupid TV watchers are.

[clubgop]

Posts like these remind me how stupid TV watchers are.

I would submit, conservatives only "win" when the left becomes bat shit insane.

It's their default setting.

He won because people are pissed off, and threw a collective tantrum. Also, Hillary was a pathetic excuse for a candidate, and blatantly corrupt.

Now that Pence is the alternative, he'll be out on his ass shortly.

They conserve sanity, there is your answer.

[TheReal_ND]

Huh. Useful post tbh. Thanks

[clubgop]

To expand on the previous point also look up O'Sullivan 1st Law.