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Hm. In 1985 we were in the middle of the Reagan Revolution. I think you are taking the natural Conservative instinct to conduct change wisely and assuming that it is only the drag on the Progressive sail. This would be a categorical error. Conservatism is it's own ideological set of positions, not simply a more cautious version of your own.


May I say that I enjoy the irony of you posting this in the very thread where another poster has been so insistent on the inherent evil and wickedness of conservatives?

Sadly, this is part of modern political life, not particular to one party or the other. More than 40% of Americans think the other side isn't just Wrong, but EVIL. Americans who demonstrate intellectual insularity (who live in bubbles) are the most likely to be proponents of wicked caricatures of the Other, to the point that 20% think the other side "lacks the qualities to be fully human."

It is extremely worrisome. Usually, tribal violence is preceded by a dehumanization campaign. In this case, we are providing that campaign ourselves, and paying our own tribal media to do it to us, for us. The more that we hate and loathe and look down on Americans who don't think the same things we do, the easier it is to justify abuse ("and, really, you know, our side isn't nearly as abusive as those awful Other Siders, anyway") which, in turn, becomes part of their narrative justifying worse abuse (And really, I mean, you have to, you know, after all - those Other Siders only understand one thing), and round and round and round we go.

Elites start to pick up on the fact that they can not only get away with it, but be lauded for it and rewarded by ever more loyal ever more strident political support bases and....

and... well, the short story is, this is pretty much how the Roman Republic self destructed.

Not a happy trend


Actually since I've been politically aware, (and yup, about High School), I've been surrounded by good liberals, bad liberals, good conservatives, bad conservatives. My father is a left leaning fellow, and is probably the best and wisest man I know. An extremely influential pair of teachers who invested in me in High School and who have shaped much of my adult life were conservatives, and were the kind of men who willingly spent hours upon hours helping kids. A college professor who I greatly respected and who wrote me a note once that is framed on my bookshelf was not only a leftist, but an actual political appointee from the Clinton Administration. I've been out serving others with liberals and conservatives alike. I have both liberals and conservatives in my church, though probably more of the latter.

I've also seen members of both sects go ugly. I've seen both fall to bigoted and stupid caricatures of the Other. I've seen both choose to isolate themselves in self-reinforcement bubbles that only push their tribal groupthink to extremes, resulting in opinions like the survey cited above. For every fellow insisting that conservatives are a bunch of stupid racists there is a right-winger out there yelling about the libtards and how much they hate America. Neither is impressive.



Naturally.