1578
Like surely you must have acquired a clue by now.
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
1578 points (94.7% liked)
Microblog Memes
5787 readers
988 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
i'm 24 and a proud conservative: i want to replace all highways with railways and interurban tramways, return to having small dense cities surrounded by lively rurality, dissolve large corporations and replace them with small local businesses, and bring back that thing where we went "hey the slightly insane guy who never works is living in a shack that barely qualifies as shelter, let's build him a new cottage so he has a proper place to live, because everyone has a fundamental right to housing no matter what."
I don't understand how those world views can identify and (you didn't say this, so hopefully not) vote conservative in US these days
He's making light of how twisted the US understanding of the word "conservative" has become.
If conservatives actually governed the way they should they’d be easier to vote for. Small government, cutting spending, actually legislating to support rural Americans with things like good education and affordable health care…etc.
But they’re pretty much the opposite of all that.
That's the point. The Republican party isn't conservative at all, but radical. They've abandoned most conservative political positions, including orthodox fiscal management, and exchanged conservative values for a constructed collection of 'traditional values', which are derived less from tradition than from the endless grievances that have replaced policy as their political program
Is there evidence that conservatism was ever that anywhere though? Because those are the things that current conservatives SAY but never what they DO. Is there any evidence of conservatives actually doing those things because as far as I have seen it has always been lip service, sleight of hand. I'm open to examples to change my mind.
Afaik someone can correct me if I'm wrong but the Democratic party used to be the fiscal conservative party in the 1800s
You're correct. Teddy Roosevelt, one of the most progressive Presidents in history, was on the Republican ticket against Taft in 1912. I cannot fathom having had the ability to vote for Teddy, and voting for either Taft or Wilson.
Western conservative parties were mostly fiscally responsible until the 80s, and outside the USA they've tended to come around on many civil liberties. Women's suffrage was passed with cross-aisle support in many European countries, for instance, as was same-sex marriage. Even today, the conservative parties in Northern Europe mostly stand for fiscal responsibility. In general, conservative parties in systems with Proportional representation seem to be much less exposed to capture by the far right.
I'll almost certainly never vote conservative, but given how many do, I'm thankful to be living in a country where that means budget cuts and reduced income tax for the upper middle, and not the stripping away of rights and liberties and deficit-funded tax cuts for the rich.
Conservatism protects power where it exists now. You fundamentally can't do that and be honest about it and maintain some form legitimacy in an ostensibly democratic system.
If you say "we love billionaires because they give us fat cheques, also we're cutting your services because the billionaires don't like taxes" you don't get votes. So you have to drop one of those three things, and of course "be honest about it" is the easiest one to go without.