Kraichgauer
Veteran
Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,547
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
05 Nov 2014, 11:54 am
Lukecash12 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Lukecash12 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Lukecash12 wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Gun rights - "The right to bear massive amounts of field artillery shall not be abridged."
Desire for lower taxes ... for Big Business only.
Desire for less government ... especially in social programs, environmental protection (EPA), education, et cetera.
Freedom from government intrusion ... unless you happen to say or publish something uncomplimentary to the Conservative Cause.
Traditional values - Women shall be wives, teachers, secretaries, nurses, waitresses, and prostitutes only. Poor people shall be kept poor so as to provide a cheap labor force, and minority children shall have limited educational opportunities so as to keep them poor. The government shall be of, by, and for wealthy, white, land-owning, business-owning, church-going, Christian* MEN.
(* And by 'Christian', they do not mean Roman Catholic.)
Desire for lower taxes ... for Big Business only.
Desire for less government ... especially in social programs, environmental protection (EPA), education, et cetera.
Freedom from government intrusion ... unless you happen to say or publish something uncomplimentary to the Conservative Cause.
Traditional values - Women shall be wives, teachers, secretaries, nurses, waitresses, and prostitutes only. Poor people shall be kept poor so as to provide a cheap labor force, and minority children shall have limited educational opportunities so as to keep them poor. The government shall be of, by, and for wealthy, white, land-owning, business-owning, church-going, Christian* MEN.
(* And by 'Christian', they do not mean Roman Catholic.)
1.
2. And where did they feed you that? Have you ever read the tax code? Read more than a bill or two a year? I'm sorry but that's just nonsense and this is coming from someone who has been working in taxes for decades, someone who worked for the IRS for three years.
3. This kind of hypocrisy isn't attractive on either side.
4. Sounds like another straw man being vomited out. Have you ever actually read the proposed agenda and policies of a conservative party? Seen their mission statement? Once again have you ever read a bill? The proceedings of congress are also publicly available on television.
5. Then why is O'Reilly Catholic? Or Hannity? There are also Mormons, Jews, and even some Hindus that are public supporters of the conservative viewpoint.
Answering the OP:
A conservative is someone who wishes to conserve older American values in politics. The term is largely relative and like others have said, a supposed conservative today looks a lot more like Franklin Roosevelt or even Clinton, than Calvin Coolidge, Truman, Nixon, or Reagan. As a libertarian I find the term amusing because from our perspective Republicans are very liberal fiscally, by no means laissez faire.
While there are of course Catholic and Non-Christian conservatives, there is still a powerful evangelical segment in the ranks of the right, especially strong in the Bible Belt, who not only reject Catholics, Mormons, Jews, etc, but also mainline Protestants.
You do realize that the bible belt is made up of states that are not as densely populated as coastal states, right? People in the US really need to expand their idea of "American Christianity" and religion amongst conservatives. Our views are not such an oxy-moron that you have to be some straw man of a religious kook to believe in them. Seriously, we will have made a lot of progress if we can get past "well your group is just dumb and they all look and think like this".
Sure, there are evangelicals in coastal states; they practice the kind of religion that comes out of the Bible Belt, and tends to question the legitimacy of the kind of mainline church I belong to.
"There are evangelicals in coastal states" doesn't equal "American Christians are for the most part evangelical or fundamental". Plus I don't see what isn't mainline about baptists. But the moral of the story here really is that it is uncalled for when people like yourself make such generalizations about a group. I don't see why we as humans have to hammer the same point in on ourselves with every different subject, as if we're surprised to learn that there is variety and you can't chalk everything up to one or a few observations.
But I guess it's more comforting just to tell yourself every day "well look at these people, what morons, do they even realize how dumb they sound". Seriously, it gets pretty dull every time I'm in a discussion like this and it just devolves into identity politics again.
As a matter of fact, I'm speaking from experience as a Lutheran. Many evangelicals don't regard us Lutherans as real Christians as we aren't "born again" Christians, reject experience for doctrine, have confessional statements as opposed to so called soul liberty, practice infant baptism, reject human participation in conversion and salvation, and see the book of Revelations as a recounting of things that have already occurred rather than as prophecy of things to come. Yet, as much as we disagree with evangelicals, we accept them as our brothers and sisters in Christ. It would be nice if evangelicals returned the favor.
06 Nov 2014, 3:21 am
Kraichgauer wrote:
Lukecash12 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Lukecash12 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Lukecash12 wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Gun rights - "The right to bear massive amounts of field artillery shall not be abridged."
Desire for lower taxes ... for Big Business only.
Desire for less government ... especially in social programs, environmental protection (EPA), education, et cetera.
Freedom from government intrusion ... unless you happen to say or publish something uncomplimentary to the Conservative Cause.
Traditional values - Women shall be wives, teachers, secretaries, nurses, waitresses, and prostitutes only. Poor people shall be kept poor so as to provide a cheap labor force, and minority children shall have limited educational opportunities so as to keep them poor. The government shall be of, by, and for wealthy, white, land-owning, business-owning, church-going, Christian* MEN.
(* And by 'Christian', they do not mean Roman Catholic.)
Desire for lower taxes ... for Big Business only.
Desire for less government ... especially in social programs, environmental protection (EPA), education, et cetera.
Freedom from government intrusion ... unless you happen to say or publish something uncomplimentary to the Conservative Cause.
Traditional values - Women shall be wives, teachers, secretaries, nurses, waitresses, and prostitutes only. Poor people shall be kept poor so as to provide a cheap labor force, and minority children shall have limited educational opportunities so as to keep them poor. The government shall be of, by, and for wealthy, white, land-owning, business-owning, church-going, Christian* MEN.
(* And by 'Christian', they do not mean Roman Catholic.)
1.
2. And where did they feed you that? Have you ever read the tax code? Read more than a bill or two a year? I'm sorry but that's just nonsense and this is coming from someone who has been working in taxes for decades, someone who worked for the IRS for three years.
3. This kind of hypocrisy isn't attractive on either side.
4. Sounds like another straw man being vomited out. Have you ever actually read the proposed agenda and policies of a conservative party? Seen their mission statement? Once again have you ever read a bill? The proceedings of congress are also publicly available on television.
5. Then why is O'Reilly Catholic? Or Hannity? There are also Mormons, Jews, and even some Hindus that are public supporters of the conservative viewpoint.
Answering the OP:
A conservative is someone who wishes to conserve older American values in politics. The term is largely relative and like others have said, a supposed conservative today looks a lot more like Franklin Roosevelt or even Clinton, than Calvin Coolidge, Truman, Nixon, or Reagan. As a libertarian I find the term amusing because from our perspective Republicans are very liberal fiscally, by no means laissez faire.
While there are of course Catholic and Non-Christian conservatives, there is still a powerful evangelical segment in the ranks of the right, especially strong in the Bible Belt, who not only reject Catholics, Mormons, Jews, etc, but also mainline Protestants.
You do realize that the bible belt is made up of states that are not as densely populated as coastal states, right? People in the US really need to expand their idea of "American Christianity" and religion amongst conservatives. Our views are not such an oxy-moron that you have to be some straw man of a religious kook to believe in them. Seriously, we will have made a lot of progress if we can get past "well your group is just dumb and they all look and think like this".
Sure, there are evangelicals in coastal states; they practice the kind of religion that comes out of the Bible Belt, and tends to question the legitimacy of the kind of mainline church I belong to.
"There are evangelicals in coastal states" doesn't equal "American Christians are for the most part evangelical or fundamental". Plus I don't see what isn't mainline about baptists. But the moral of the story here really is that it is uncalled for when people like yourself make such generalizations about a group. I don't see why we as humans have to hammer the same point in on ourselves with every different subject, as if we're surprised to learn that there is variety and you can't chalk everything up to one or a few observations.
But I guess it's more comforting just to tell yourself every day "well look at these people, what morons, do they even realize how dumb they sound". Seriously, it gets pretty dull every time I'm in a discussion like this and it just devolves into identity politics again.
As a matter of fact, I'm speaking from experience as a Lutheran. Many evangelicals don't regard us Lutherans as real Christians as we aren't "born again" Christians, reject experience for doctrine, have confessional statements as opposed to so called soul liberty, practice infant baptism, reject human participation in conversion and salvation, and see the book of Revelations as a recounting of things that have already occurred rather than as prophecy of things to come. Yet, as much as we disagree with evangelicals, we accept them as our brothers and sisters in Christ. It would be nice if evangelicals returned the favor.
Look, I'm not so far from you theologically as you would think, when it comes to my sympathies and personal standpoints. I'm a preterist myself (re: revelation refers more to the fall of the second temple than anything else). The trouble here is that you aren't using a fair demographic of American Christians, and more relevantly you seem to think that conservatives can only exist within this religious framework or that, as if their ideas are so repugnant and dumb that they can't exist outside of such social pressures.
Once you and I can finally break past this crap of identity politics there is a world of things we could discuss.
Kraichgauer
Veteran
Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,547
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
06 Nov 2014, 5:19 am
09 Nov 2014, 11:06 am
