Why does the world hate American conservatives?

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Oh wow.... we could grab Youtube videos all day long on this one, and a few pages later I think I'd be in too much pain to go search for more examples.

Since I finally just gave a halfway serious comment in this thread I'll chip in my honest two cents on the topic.

Predominant national dialogues shape how a citizenry tends to see the world, that dialog becomes a rather well established bubble where most things outside of it on reflex feel wrong. I'm sure enough of why American conservatives are hated is international assertiveness (or aggression as I'm sure it's probably read) but also, particularly on conservative domestic thinking, most of shock and disgust in other countries comes from the first dynamic I mentioned.

I think someone earlier brought up that a lot of these critics come from countries with a significantly higher mix of socialization in their economic structure. It's what they're used to, it's what they're used to thinking is right, it's what's grown on them. They'd have a difficult time relating to American ideals and perhaps it's difficult to communicate accurately unless they were over here for a few months to a year to see how the difference in impact works out. Their mental modeling or attempts to imagine the situation in the US will most often start with them imagining where they live and everything perceived as wrong over here will be like 'Where I live but worse', largely because they can't get a qualitative or quantitative sense of what trade-offs are already made in their own environment that might not be made here. Nothing wrong with people thinking the US has a crap system IMHO, just that knowing how people tend to think there's most likely loads of inaccuracy in how they have it sized up.

I will say I can't stand our corporatism. We have a way of crushing small and midsized business and so many companies who are innovating and doing reasonably well get drawn up by these holding companies which eventually end up getting scraped off the road by venture capitalists when they financially wipe out. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, Uncle Sam steals from both poor and rich alike and gives to General Electric. It makes no sense unless I suppose you're a lobbyist.

When I was an undergraduate in college, 40 years ago, I would hear the semiannual diatribe from my academic advisor about the dumbing down of American citizens. I'm more than amazed now how spot on he was. He was a miserable SOB to begin with, but now, 40 years later, he had good reason to be miserable. When most American's can't even put 2+2 together and get 4 without going through the machinations as required by Common Core, let alone find their hometown on a map, let alone understand what the Battle of Bunker Hill, let alone Gettysburg was all about, then all hope is lost.

Liberals are offensive, because they paint everyone as imbeciles.

Then argue, because you're all imbeciles, you need government to manage your lives.

Well, it's just a fact. Look at how people behave!






Gotta love anarchists(to which anti-"big government" libertarians are a subspecies). I get sick and tired of idealistic imbeciles who believe that people are basically good and deserve unrestricted freedom when the evidence is very clear what people will do when they have the chance.

You do realize that government bureaucrats are people?

If people aren't qualified to run their own lives, they sure aren't qualified to run the lives of others. Or do you contend that everybody who wins an election is some kind of Philosopher-King, immune to the flaws and foibles which plague us mere mortals?

Which is why with time we had created "check and balance". If the government disappear or become too weak to keep control then other powers take over; powers which won't be kept in check and balance to become tyranny and reverse centuries of fight for more freedom.

Conservatives freely admit that they are flawed human beings poorly suited to pass judgment on others by stressing personal responsibility. Liberals conversely, present themselves as the paragons of virtue, whose inherently superior judgment is necessary to rule the clueless rabble.

Don't forget, that includes the people in charge who write the laws. They aren't infallible.

As liberals gave this country civil rights laws, labor laws, environmental protection, women's rights, LGBT rights, and everything else that's good, I'd say that makes a good argument for liberal virtue. As conservatives have wanted to turn back the clock on those things mentioned, I think a case can be made for their cluelessness.

Yes I'm aware of that. And certain people are better at making qualified decisions about how to run things than others. What I am hopeful is that government bureaucrats will soon be replaced with machines; which may not be perfect but definitely immune to the flaws and foibles that plague us biological entities.

In the meantime, I do not favor philosopher-kings to rule us by scientists and engineers who demonstrate mastery of both binary and fuzzy logic.

American Republicans are not conservative, not in the tradition of the old right like Jefferson, Madison, Able Upsher, William Rawle. They are neo conservative. A great book to read is Forgotten Conservatives in American History by historian Brion McClanahan and Clyde Wilson. The more government we have the less freedom we have. Peter Schiff and economist Bob Murphy and Thomas Dilorenzo are also good.

The old right? The founding fathers represented the radical left of their day. The monarchists were that day's conservatives.

The radical left of that day and today are very opposite. In terms of how they see government. Yeah conservative in Europe meant government. The Whig party in England was for small government the Tories were for more government.

I remember learning about the French Revolution in social studies and its connection to the American Revolution, and becoming infatuated with the philosophy of the people behind these revolutions. I even identified as a "classical liberal" for a while.

Conservatives have traditionally seen the past as some sort of idyllic golden age, such as how American conservatives see the 1950's as the country's heyday, or as Reagan saw that golden age as the 1920's, or as the tea baggers apparently think America was best in the days under the Articles of Confederation. Liberals tend to look for better days in the future, and that future sometimes needs the power of the federal government to combat the forces of reaction, especially in regards to civil rights for all Americans.