this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Commentary: Longtime former Republican on Patrick Deneen and the demise of the conservative intellectual

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Name one conservative policy that has furthered mankind. Prohibition, voting rights, sexuality, drug war, terrorism; time after time they’ve been wrong. Even fiscally they run up the deficit. Their only role is to preserve hierarchy and maintain power

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Intellectualism is not an inherently moral thing. One can be an amoral, selfish, narcissistic, intellectual.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn’t mean to give the impression that it is a moral issue. I consider it from a populist societal perspective. The majority (liberalism)wanting to do one thing, and the minority (conservatives) preventing progress. If conservatives had it their way, we’d still have feudalism… oh wait.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, that's also taking an "us vs them" mentality that isn't helpful either. The middle ground is where the vast majority of people sit, and often swing to one side or another based on the situation surrounding them. Taking a "If you're not with me, you're against me" stance, just puts those people off. Either they just refuse to engage (which is a big factor in lack of participation in voting in the US) or they move towards the people who are willing to pander them. More often than not the conservatives.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Apparently I suffer from what is called naive realism. I’m working on it. I just wished conservatives would too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Problem is human rights have become the giant center of it all, and it IS if you're not with me you're against me. There's no fence from where I stand because stripping rights to play games can't be an option. All these bills being passed with no legs just to keep fires alive. I say this from a safe state, I'm white, born straight, all the simple stuff. I try not to be off-putting - but "I'm a fiscal conservative and a social democrat" is a cop-out these days

I almost deleted all this lol but I may as well post. I find all that you've written thoughtful. I've stayed out of politics for the past few months because it's was all just been too much these past 6 or 7 years...and it's about to get awful again. I think I'm glad I'm off Reddit for politics season. There were good discussions there, but I think there will be more to get out of it here

Anyway, thanks for your replies

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those sound like the exact kinds of people who shouldn't have any influence over our politics

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Those are core conservative "intellectuals'.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Name one conservative policy that has furthered mankind.

Richard Nixon was at the helm when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded. I believe he also was responsible for protecting national parks, but I didn't bother fact-checking that one.

https://www.epa.gov/history#:~:text=EPA%20was%20created%20on%20December,human%20health%20and%20the%20environment.

Now, granted, modern conservative politics are garbage-culture war bullshit, but we need to be cautious of forgetting history. Rewriting history is their game.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Progressive policies implemented during a conservative presidency don’t seem like conservative policies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you can just hijack any and all "good" policies as inherently progressive then you're just a self-fuelling fire who wants to hate conservatives no matter what.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I wouldn’t be crediting them with enacting good policy if it wasn’t progressive.

If you can show an example of opposing progress that is good I’m all in on that conservative policy.

The ESA was not good because it maintained the status quo. It was good because it was progressive. The fact that it was implemented during a conservative presidency is irrelevant.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

May I also just add, that for his example he had to go, 60 years into the past....

My entire lifetime, the GOP has simply don't nothing that has helped the average Joe. It's always hate based culture wars, tax cuts and protect guns. That's it.

They provide zero solutions for anything. And if you do try to provide a solution, which inevitably will have painful parts to it because fixing things is hard, they blast propaganda how you're anti American. They are just not interesting in governing.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're buying in too much to the branding of big-P Progressive. The EPA, and environmental protections, are inherently little-c conservative positions.

Not everything that is good is Progressive, and not everything Progressives want is good, or even intelligent. Rent control, as one very basic example, doesn't work, and yet Progressives across America push it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What doesn't work about it? (I honestly know nothing about it, but I know there are things that sound great on paper and propaganda but in practice it's bull)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rent control disincentives building new apartments, because there is little financial incentive in doing so in an area choked by supply shortages, thus it exacerbates supply shortages over time.

See here: https://www.nmhc.org/news/articles/the-high-cost-of-rent-control/

Note that this is not theoretical - we've seen rent control attempted to poor effect worldwide

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You made me think about this. Thanks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

George W Bush massively expanded US Free Trade agreements. We went from 3 to 16 under his admin. That's good for the entire world.

Pretty much the only thing I don't like about Biden is his protectionist stance.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (32 children)

I’m gonna assume you think Capitalist expansion and colonialism is a good thing.

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