Do You Agree?

Nan Politics, , ,

confused

In case there are others like me who sometimes get confused as to what a “Conservative Republican” actually supports/believes (primarily because actions and words don’t always match), this article lays it out quite well.

What Is A Conservative Republican

As the article points out, part of the reason it can be confusing is this: A person might not be conservative on all issues, but is still considered a conservative republican based on his or her beliefs and practices in one certain area.

In my opinion, the same is true for those who categorize Democrats. There are variations and qualifications among them as well. 

Yet the tendency to assign certain principles and beliefs to the opposing party is commonplace — and often wrong simply due to the many variances of beliefs and practices. 

Nevertheless –as is seen (and heard) time and again– none of this stops people from “identifying” the opposing political party with unflattering metaphors and tropes that are, in many (most?) cases, based on nothing but personal biases. 

60 thoughts on “Do You Agree?”

  1. In today’s political environment I do not think the GOP and it’s followers have been misidentified at all. Over the past four years they have clearly by action identified themselves as racists, militants , liars and thieves.

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    • Overall, I tend to agree with you. But at the same time, most of us base our judgements on the ones making the most noise and creating the most ruckus. Not EVERY person who claims to be a Republican is this way. And many do NOT support these “loud-mouths.”

      IOW, as one who tends to support Democratic leadership, I sure don’t fit the many derogative descriptions thrown my way.

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      • I haven’t had any derogatory comments coming my way. But I’ve become so disgusted by the new GOP that we know as Trumpism that I can’t stand the sight of my friends who defend the hard right, and truth is I haven’t met any Republican’s in four years that aren’t forgiving of the militia, the racists, the Trump flag wavers, and who deep inside wish the election had been overturned though they lost, it doesn’t matter, they will wear their Stop the Steal t-shirts and hope the next assault on our capital is successful.

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  2. Here is personal bias for you: Republicans all want to stifle change in human areas. They care more about themselves and loved ones than the unknowable others around them. Religion, politics, culture the want those things to be static, or even regressive. Forward thinking is verboten.

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  3. Nan, labelling and name calling in attempt to paint an opposing side with fearsome attributes, has long been with us. As long as there have been politics these tactics have been used. With social media and a narrow focus on information (or its evil sisters misinformation and disinformation), too many believe this BS. This is why it saddens me to see so-called news sources pass along inaccurate information. I knew the former president would lie about the election, I just am disappointed so many sycophants in so-called news went along with his lies.

    Most people are varying degrees of conservative and progressive on various issues. And, many are more moderate in those views. So, to paint people with a broad brush is just inaccurate. But, narrow-minded politicians and spin doctors do exactly that to get elected. As I have noted before, I do not mind people being more conservative or progressive than me, but we have to gravitate toward facts. And, we have to call out politicians when they fudge them, especially intentionally as the former president has a wont to do.

    Keith

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    • Keith, I really like your even-handed approach to this issue. I agree that too many are too quick to paint their foes with that broad brush you mention.

      Certainly we see the ugliness that comes out of politics, but to lump every individual that is on the “opposing side” as the “enemy” is, IMO, doing an injustice to the many who are much more moderate in their political views.

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      • I do like this moderation, Nan and Keith. As much as I despise Trump and those who enabled him, at the level of daily life there are people I STILL call friends who are Trump voters. Some are really kind people who help others in their daily lives. Despite their politics or, in one case in particular, their ownership of MULTIPLE guns. I just can’t write them out of my life, particularly as I see him every day at work.

        It helps that he is not 100% serious in his attitude towards or demeanor towards politics. Now…his BOSS is a rather severe man verging on humorless who told me during one conversation that it was the duty of every American to own automatic weapons to defend us from invasion! I will not try humor on this man again, have to say.

        I have to also admit I hold some verboten views on…certain…issues, and having a right wing friend to joke with is enjoyable. The standard 100% woke don’t like some of my comments. 😦

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  4. After reading the article Nan, I asked myself Do identifying “Conservative Republicans” even know or understand this much about the spectrums of political persuasions or tendencies as the article breaks down?” No. For that matter, do the majority of Democrats? No.

    All this is why I eventually settled on being an Independent over 25-yrs ago. Best decision of my life! Endless diversity is a very beautiful thing in this life! 😉 😁

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      • 😄 Snide? Moi?

        Eh, that’s fair. I have been known to toss a few darts here and there Nan. 😉

        More seriously, however, I can infrequently get perturbed at the abuse of oversimplifying or pigeon-holing someone(s), in this case here, stereotyping. When it is done merely out of laziness and impatience by the assertor. That really gets under my skin.

        Newsflash Nan, 😛 I am a stickler for detail, context, depth, factually empirical, do the DAYUM homework/legwork, etc, all of which support the conceptual in every way. THAT takes more time and effort than the average Anecdotal Joe/Jane has the desire to invest and are a dime-a-dozen in this now hyper-polarized USA landscape. Surprise surprise Nan, right?

        This is NOT to say that we Earthly Homo sapiens are all essentially cousins with general similarities of good-bad behavior and attitudes. HAH!!! 😁

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  5. Prepare for cynicism: I have come to believe more and more that “big government” is nothing more than a lot of BS as the one big fundamental belief of conservatives. Remember Reagan’s “I’m with the government and I’m here to help” as the battle cry of GOP/conservatives in the 80’s? That was complete nonsense also. Reagan and his conservative allies painted the government as inept, incompetent. More and more government operations should be handled by the private sector. That was a way to introduce and normalize or standardize their true and PRIMARY motivation: to divert tax revenues from the treasury to the private sector, and they have done a masterful job of it! Consider that we used private “contractors” now in our military exploits, paid to independent companies, literally trillions of dollars, instead of our own military. Eric Prince formerly of Blackwater argued to the Pentagon to outsource the war in Afghanistan to his company (and he did it with a straight face.) As if even the military can’t be managed properly by the government.

    Add to this the fact that conservatives don’t want to pay taxes or a fair share of taxes either. When was the last time this country did something great like the federal highway system or the Hoover Dam or some such beneficial public project? They fight against environmental protection, public services such as medical aid, child care, and even consumer protection! All to keep their taxes low. We don’t have a single inch of high-speed rail when China has 13,000 miles!! All to keep their taxes low while nursing on the government treasury tit. They want to sell their products and services here but don’t want to pay intro our society. Their so-called “politics” are a sham, as phony as Trumps tan and his successful business acumen.

    Conservative don’t hate big government, that’s how they enrich themselves. What they hate is democracy.

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    • “As if even the military can’t be managed properly by the government.”

      I actually agree with this. The United States has not clearly won a war on its own since 1945 (except Grenada). Peruse some of the stories about the F35 program over at stderr for a mouth gaping view of defense department idiocy. All, of course, to funnel more money to defense contractors. (Who, because of the pernicious reality of financialization and funny money vampire squid nonsense are increasingly incapable and incoherent themselves. Do you trust Bain Capital to be able to build a jet fighter?

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      • I’m not so sure. We marched in and out of Iraq in the 1st Iraq war after they invaded Kuwait in weeks. The 2nd Iraq war had nothing to do with military strategy per Se, but more with Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al raising the price if oil which is exactly what they accomplished. They generated an unspeakable amount of wealth bombing the oil fields, etc.

        Yes, the defense industry is a sham but do you think it would be made any better allowing private industry to run it. No, I would NOT trust Bain Capital to run a Bingo game. Remember, government officials funneling money to contractors is a GOP conservative objective run amok and without legal constraints. They can and should be reconciled.

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        • I think I am actually MORE cynical than you, RaPaR. I agree 100% with your first paragraph, of course.

          How could the United States NOT roll over a fourth rate power like Iraq? We spend more than the rest of the world combined. But did we really WIN the peace? Afghanistan has been going on for twenty years and the Taliban will be in power within a couple of years. There are limits to military power.

          But seriously, finanicialization means we may not have the ability anymore to win a REAL war. Turning over the entire economy, even “defense” to spreadsheet diddlers and speculators has resulted in fewer and more incompetent defense industry capacity.

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          • To ‘win’ the war and establish peace means dismantling the old institutions (once upon a time it was called ‘conquering’) and installing new institutions (once called ‘state building’). No Western government these past 7 decades can do this on foreign territory without complete and utter vilification at home for being ‘colonial’ and ‘warmongers’. So this means whenever public support calls for military intervention for whatever flavour of the month reasons there may be (‘humanitarian reasons are the most often cited), we virtually guarantee our ‘failure’ to accomplish the task of establishing lasting peace.

            Of course, ‘good’ democrats at home (meaning those who think democracy is the way to go) want it both ways: they want to be the champions who come to the aid of victimized others and use their military power to stop the Bad Guys from doing whatever Bad Guys do, but then will not have the courage or fortitude to carry this intervention to where it needs to go to be effective and lasting. That’s why every ‘war’ the West gets involved with evolves into a long term ‘occupation’ – only for later and ignoble withdrawal when the home population tires of maintaining the ongoing cost – and of course the ‘warmongers’ are blamed for making money meeting the demand.

            The West can and has won real wars if and only if the civilian population are willing. And as long as the civilian population is unwilling to support doing what it takes (like conquering and building new states) then these same democrats make our Western countries vulnerable to becoming third world players on the international scene and militarily vulnerable to anti-democratic totalitarian regimes like China. Generally, Westerners have forgotten that the liberal waters we live and swim in everyday require active and ongoing defense over and above ANY other reasons to subvert them. And that’s a domestic battle currently being lost.

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          • I remain very, very skeptical that this has been done successfully except in a few special cases. At the core, your complaint is we do not kill enough people and destroy enough institutional structures to succeed. This seems to be madness to me…and supreme arrogance that we even have the ability to do what you want,

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          • Yes, it is the worst possible approach… except for all the others. And history demonstrates this to be the only one that seems to work. If a population is going to go to war, then winning it unconditionally is both the goal and the price. Imagine if this were the Western way: foreign policy would be fully diplomatic because armed conflict as an alternative means destruction. Brutal, I know, but it has carved out Western liberal secular democracy that has created more peace, order, wealth, and good government for the populations under its banner than from any other time in human history. Rebuilding nations to equal status in the family of Western liberal secular democratic nations really does work. But the liberal foundations have to be laid and so – as unfortunate as it may be – all other institutions that are not liberal, not secular, not democratic must be destroyed for this to work. Without that last part, all the rest is for naught.

            I mention this only in vein that many people on the Left don’t realize their quest for peace by appeasement and tolerance and power brokerage doesn’t work. It’s temporary at best. And history – like you have already mentioned (since Grenada, you say) – certainly shows us this to be the case. So it’s not the Right that is the only party that seems to cause long term armed conflict that enriches the few but costs so much to so many; the lack of willingness to do what it takes to win – not least of which is the unwillingness to support the values of Western liberal secular democracies abroad when it surfaces – comes very much from the Left. I think this tendency is at best equally responsible for long term armed conflict and never-ending violent instability.

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          • It is silly to blame the Liberals for not winning wars abroad. Wars are not won only by force. Simply by asserting power no lasting peace has ever been established out of massacering an entire nation into oblivion. The US has not won many wars because of the Capitalist (and his ideology) who profeteers on war even before it even begun.

            For example, the Vietnam war was not lost by a bunch of hippies protesting agaist it, altough they may have had their part in it. The US military struggled with incompetent leadership, ridiculous extremely expensive experimental weaponry (like assault rifles that malfunctioned constantly and helicopters flown too close to the enemy) and did not get the job done in over a decade of war. The main reason however was, that ultimately the US chose the wrong side, by supporting an utterly corrupt Government. The main body of Vietnamese population had nothing to gain by supporting that government, while the enemy offered free healthcare, free education and social equality. In reality the North Vietnamese were better equipped and better lead, with a clear goal to their efforts.

            In Iraq the US forces hardly met any resistance from the Iraqi military. They did not go to a desperate fight to death for their corrupt leaders. Most engagements were meeting battles, where neither side had actually anticipated to meet the other army and often enough the western forces were lost in the desert, and the Iraqis had already abandoned their positions.

            The early success in Afghanishtan was based on intelligence provided by the Iranians on their enemy the Taliban. The war there was fought really badly by the US, who – at first – decided to go to war practically without artillery, relying merely on air support. That did not work. The Taliban reverted to guerilla tactics and are now being rewarded for their efforts.

            The US has been heavily involved in “nation building” both in Iraq and Afghanishtan. It was simply done really badly. They sent dudes who did not even know Arabic to run the provisionary government of Iraq and who tried to give orders like US soldiers should shoot at civillians to stop the looting. First there were some insurrections, then there was the ISIS and ultimately Iraq was handed on a platter for Iran to take it. If that was a victory, then I do not want to know what it is like when the US actually loses something.

            The current Capitalist system for weapons industry in the US is a sham to steal the money of the people. The American weapons systems are ridiculously complicated to use and as a result immensely expensive. That is the goal of the weapons manufacturer – they want to sell as expensive as they possibly can. Not as good as they could make, but the opposite as poor quality as possible to make the most profit. Most US military equipment is so expensive, that for any country with less military budget, they would be unusable, because such an economic hit as loosing one attack helicopter would be impossible to sustain. The prize tag does not equal quality.

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          • What I’m saying is a version of an old poker maxim: in poker, if you can’t afford to loser, you can’t afford to play; in war, if you are unwilling to win, you should not ask the military to intervene. Winning a state war
            – a hot war – means the unconditional surrender of the other state. I’m referring to the tendency coming very much from the Left a willingness to use the military when it feels good to intervene but an unwillingness to commit over time to gaining that unconditional surrender and then rebuilding the nation from the ground up. It is this unwillingness I am referencing that plays its part keeping regional conflicts going and going and going…

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          • My point being (in short), that misguided patriotism – as in buying shit that does not work, or going on to war without clear goals (like removing weapons of mass destruction, that did not even exist) – is much more likely to cause wars to be lost, than protesting against war or war crimes. Committing atrocities usually ensures no victories.

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  6. Conservatives are selfish. That’s their primary motivation. They don’t want to help anyone else. They want to keep all their money to themselves, pay no taxes, share not one part of their property with anyone, share nothing at all in fact. I have always thought “conservative” was a stupid name for them … they are interested in conserving nothing at all, except what they own & that’s for their own selves.

    Every single problem we have now with government … say, like if you call the DMV here in NY & have to be on hold for over an hour because there’s not enough people to man the phones … has been caused by conservatives who insisted on cutting taxes. When I complained to my GOP sister about this, she said there was “no money” to pay more people & when I said, “Tax the rich”, she said “the rich already pay too much” … RIGHT! It’s their mantra. They pay too much already. Like Cuomo saying that if he taxed billionaires, they would leave NY. Get real! Nobody’s going to leave.

    GOP or Dem, conservatives are the curse of this nation.

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    • Not sure I agree with this. Human beings are always somewhat…selfish. Even raging lefties are looking for validation if not outright money or power.

      There are loony ideas on the left as well, and I am not averse to having careful, conservative voices questioning these ideas. Nor do I agree that “fiscal conservatism” is automatically bad in all cases*. Not every call for change is warranted, not every old school idea is automatically suspect.

      Now…one can argue that the MODERN Republican Party, since about 1968 and certainly since 2016, is not the party to bring forth reasonable conservatism into the debate. And I share your disdain for the hypocrisy of a Republican Party that is so profligate in its spending on silly things (like the F35).

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      • This is all true as well basenjibrian, at least generally speaking. In fact, many a sociological, psychological, pediatric study over the last decade or more have shown that when young children (5-10 yrs old?) are put into a (controlled) room with, then later alone, with video-audio hidden surveillance cameras, when asked to wait and share with other kids the cookies, candy, cake, etc, by not touching the goodies until the others return… MOST kids always steal a few first then several/many lie about what they’ve done while alone. 😄 This type of self-centered behavior further develops thru their teen-years into adulthood AND becomes much more sophisticated. Every single person on this planet has done this and continues to do it in various ways. This certainly includes myself. 🙂

        Source — National Geographic Magazine, June 2017

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  7. Well, as a cannibalistic, socialist, pizza-parlor dwelling Democrat who traffics in sex slaves along with Tom Hanks, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, I can tell you the GOP has us pegged!!! Man, do they ever!! Of course, they’ve done absolutely nothing to stop Mr. Hanks and myself from feasting on human flesh every day in these pizza-parlor basements, but perhaps this is because of the Jewish space lasers we have aimed at their heads from orbit. Perhaps. Yeah. Perhaps.

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    • Is somnolent stagnation a definition of “success” for a conservative?

      Seriously, though. One could argue that the Democratic Party is currently the “conservative” party dedicated to conserving and expanding the post Depression consensus. The modern Republican Party is the party of radical, revolutionary REACTION. It is NOT conservative in the modern context to call for a return to 1898…or 1850. That is REACTION.

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      • Well, seriously, such stagnation stopped all progress – exept in military techonoly, in wich the Soviets exelled over all others during the Breznev administration. Is that not very, if not exeptionally conservative? Conserving the society as he inherited it, so much so, that it became unable to face any new challenges…

        Conservatism is ultimately a lost cause, because we can conserve many things (and some we even should as long as possible), but the world will change. It sounds a good basic idea, that you should not fix something that ain’t broke. However, it is not a very usefull ideology to think that something is good just because it is not broken. However functional it may be, it may yet have something to improve upon and ultimately it will become obsolete at some point.

        Does not signing to conservatism as a value, kind of reveal, that any actual method of evaluating what is good or bad has not been fully grasped and conservatism works as a subsidiary to that?

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  9. I often feel like I should maybe give some R’s the benefit of doubt. Maybe they aren’t all so bad. Then I see them, proudly going maskless, with the orange idiot 2020 Make the Libs Cry Again thing on their vehicles, flying Gadsden flags, open carrying, tossing their beer cans out of the car, burning tires at their riverside parties, still even now they have orange idiot signs in their yards, and I usually wind up just saying ‘eff em.

    I’d like to meet them in the middle somewhere, but they have all gone so far into nutjob territory I don’t have the time of day for these people. They are victims of the industrialized, for profit, professional lie machine. Lost to good sense, until they they can see their way back somehow.

    I often wonder, is there such a huge lie, or conspiracy theory, that would finally convince them they have been deluded with BS? I am, consequently, often disappointed.

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  10. As someone (moi) who often glazes over at talk of the US political system, I believe that Biden is about to / has recently ordered at least one Aircraft Carrier into the South China Sea. ”War Talk” may soon overshadow all other political considerations.
    Just saying ….

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    • You could be right. However, more likely, it will simply end up being a louder and more pronounced blame game. Even a potential “war” seems to have little to no effect on those who enjoy blaming the “other side” for whatever action/decision that’s made against their personal political stance.

      Naturally, one hopes it will all end up being nothing more than a show of bluster and bravado, but …

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      • Trump practically trumped all the allies of the US, so now Biden has to be “reactionary” to all the chaos created before him and salvage what needs to be salvaged. China and Russia certainly have used the inexperience of the Trump administration to expand and assert their power. Altough I think China has for long been the leading military might on the globe, the US still packs a punch enough (even with conventional armament) to be reconed with even by China, not to end up in a death match. War is not a likely option for empires (like the US, China or even Russia), that can expand their influence without it. Streching muscles is the purogative of all military empires, because they need to excuse the expensive spending to their general public.

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        • It’s interesting how after an economic slump (Covid?) the option of war seems to pop up as a remedy – ra, ra, ra, rally behind the flag etc etc ad nauseum.
          According to an article I breezed over, recently at some sort of Aussie Trade Union thing, all representatives were unanimous that preparations for possible confrontation with China need to be considered and all ”gaps” in the supply chains currently occupied by Chinese products need to be filled. ( I presume from other sources?)

          It all boils down to money, of course. How many billions in trade are we talking about between Taiwan – one of the major producers of superconductors – and China? Hmmm!

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  11. I remember listening to an Ontario Supreme Court justice talk about the challenge of remembering that a crime does not describe the totality of the person who committed it when explaining why his rulings over a 40 year period resulted in a recidivism rate less than half of the norm. This struck a chord with me. During sentencing, he always made it a central feature of explaining exactly this to the guilty defendant, and he thought this understanding coming from a very high source of authority taking it into important consideration before sentencing perhaps made an unusual impact.

    I think it is very difficult, when bombarded by this message that it’s only right and proper to do so, to not clump tens of millions of citizens who vote for one of two parties into two distinct group cohorts with negative characteristics belonging to the other one. Doing so withdraws the cooperative bridge that exists between real people in real life and creates a guardian or defender mentality that then defines – to use the Judge’s analogy – the ‘criminal’ with the ‘crime’ and reduces the totality of the person from the other camp to a cardboard cutout. Where is the solution to internal division of a national population using this method of thinking… other than force and imposed obedience on those other people?

    Can anyone from either camp who so easily categorizes tens of millions of citizens into a single group with negative characteristics call a country resulting from this kind of electoral battle ‘free’ and ‘independent’? Can we have any law under such a divisive popular opinion that actually respects ‘individual’ rights? Can we have a state that reflects the majority’s agreement to use force and imposition on those ‘other’ people and still argue that its central virtue to do so lies in respecting diversity, inclusion, and equity? In other words, how can we see a person rather than a criminal when we have allowed ourselves to define that person by criminality alone?

    This is why I continue to argue that about 70% of the population has no political party to call ‘home’ but still have only a binary choice that does not truly reflect their shared values.

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    • Part of the reason for this is NOT the binary per se. It is the reality that there is ONE party, the party of War and Wall Street. The “Conservatives” only use culture war nonsense to hide their goals, while the “Liberals” spend their time assembling fragile coalitions of the “Culture of Therapy” groups.

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    • 100 years ago here in Finland we had a short, but bloody civil war. The treshold for war was crossed only when the famine caused by WWI reached Finland. Profeteering with victuals had become an actual problem for the working population. The aftermath of the war was terrible with concentration camps in wich thousands and thousands of people were destroyed, killed, maimed and starved. It was a revenge for the losing side who had dared to shake the foundation of the security & wellfare (and profits) of the winning side. However, the winning side had fought on the pretext and agenda of democracy and rule of law. As a result they had democratic elections where the losing side of the war actually won to become part of the government. The losing side of the war had fought on the agenda of social justice and when they won the elections, they strived for a more egalitarian society, than the one for wich the winners of the war had fought for. This resulted in much political violence, attacks on parliamentary representatives, murders and even an attempt at a military coup, but a generation later Finland stood as one against the onslaught of the Soviet Russia. Why? Because the country now had something to offer, fight and die for everyone – not just the winners of civil war, or elections.

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  12. Wow. I’ve been referred to as a liberal Democrat by people who see that term as redundant.

    I enjoy saying that I’m a yellow dog Democrat, but that’s not really true. I refer to myself as a left-leaning Moderate Democrat, but that lean is pretty hard. I am also old, white, male, career defense, pro-family, atheistic, snarkastic, pro-George Carlin, antifascist, and anti-Republican Party. I would be proud to called an environmentalist and I have claimed to be a feminist.

    I live in Texas, just north of a Austin, a blue dot. Whatever Ted Cruz says or does always disgusts me. John Cornyn’s tweet-critique of Prez Joe was without doubt, Galactically Stupid. So yes, I have strong low opinions of anyone who voted for those two.

    I once heard a lady say she was an environmentalist and a Republican. I asked her if she was familiar with the word enigma. 🙂

    I’m also not sure I understand your question. So I think, no; but maybe yes. I don’t know.

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