Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Defense of the GOP

one way or another we get raped. the choice is not whether we want that. imo there remains a difference between date rape and gang rape.

does the ussc make a difference? is there a difference between justices thomas and scalia vs ginsberg and sotomayor? it seems facile to say we get raped either way

I may appropriate that for a tag line...

When I was younger (chronologically) I thought there were some Republicans who had these attributes. I have not observed it since Reagan took office. I do, like our logical friend, think of them more as bullies and sharps than genuinely interested in the interests of the nation.

I think a better title would have been Death of Rational Conservatism

i can not defend ignorance no matter where it is found

I used to think that such a thing existed - rational conservatism - but I have been dissuaded by centuries of shoddy thinking.

I would try to argue what you have seen in the past two decades does not imply rational conservatism never existed or died long ago. I believe only in modern times has the philosophy of people like Burke, Adams, Santayana, et al been discarded in favor of the anti-intellectualism we now see.

I think you can provide for yourself all the arguments necessary to describe the deleterious nature of this perversion of conservatism to America. I suspect this is directly related to sociological compression.

As optimistic as I am personally, I am very pessimistic of the future.

Without going off into the weeds, I used to be a "conservative" - insofar as I supported the preservation of cultural and traditional institutions - and, in many respects, I still am. (Hell, I spent 30 years in uniform, and there's plenty of "tradition" in the Army!) Adding the term "rational" to "conservative", though, I have come to believe is an oxymoron - except insofar as it is recognized that "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself." (Quintin Hogg, the chairman of the British Conservative Party in 1959), per Wikipedia.)

To me conservatism is not so much a considered way of thinking, but an emotional reaction against change. The problem with "conservatism" as a political philosophy is that it is so malleable as to be meaningless. (Consider the different meanings of "conservative" in The United States, United Kingdom, Russia or France (Wikipedia). There is not much continuity. Most Americans who describe themselves as "conservative" are not: they are, rather, reactionaries, and seek to go backward - although in reality backward to a history that never was.

I still consider myself "conservative" in that I fully support the institutions of the United States and its Constitution, and most especially the Bill of Rights and the civil liberties it enshrined. My problem is the adulteration and perversion of those principles at the altar of "conservative" jurists and politicians (who, recently, are the same cabal). There is nothing "rational" about their approach, except naked power grabbing.

Perhaps a better label needs to be applied. "Neocon" is one, but preserves the term "conservative" in its name. RWR? (Right-Wing Reactionary). I will even allow that there are still some "old school conservatives" in the Republican party, who are genuinely interested in preserving the United States and have the best interests of the people in their hearts (perverted as their thought processes may be), but they are not asserting those interests in their actions, and they are not driving their policies. No, the GOP has leaned so far to the right that it fell over decades ago. There is no longer any "political philosophy" that governs its behavior. It is truly merely a gaggle of rabble-rousers and lobbyists. Their only unifying theme is "anti-democratic."

Dude, I've been using it here for years - NonCon.

conservatism has its roots in reactionism to liberal over reach
as such it has reined in exuberant excesses of over optimistic imagining of the possibilities social engineering. ie the central planning of communism etc.

there can be excesses of any ideal liberal or conservative and a balance needs to be struck

the problem today is that conservatism has been coopted by ideologues and special interests. this has obscured the important critiques that conservatism could offer

imo

Why bother? Let the wheels of the backwards thinking clown car fall off into oblivion.

I believe the answer was given in November. Maybe in 2016 the Democrats can get a few more low information types (try this site) that want "free stuff" to make a comeback. Gruber tells me all I want to about the liberal mind set. LOL!