Elections 2012: BFP Watch Party

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Martina

There will always be conservatives among us. It's a personality type, IMO. There's been a lot of social psychology on the subject. But it will look different forever more in this country. It will not be the race-baiting, woman-hating, queer-fearing conservatism we know so well.

Those people are still with us. But they can't win a national election again. Now, if you live in Alabama, . . . .

Let me say one or two things in defense of conservatives. Some (not all) of the social psychology on conservatives has really been on either right-wing reactionaries or right-wing authoritarian reactionaries. Neither of which I would call conservative. To me, conservatism is about caution, stability and a respect for evolved social solutions. So, for example, a conservative approach to dealing with Social Security and Medicare would be to tweak the retirement age, recognizing that when SS was created living to 65 was rare and living to 85 was rarer still. So with new demographic realities can come new realities of retirement age so start pushing the retirement age up, so if you're 45 now (as I am) I work until 70 or 75. If you are 30 you're working until 75 or 80. Turn the dial, don't flip the switch would be a conservative way of putting it. Real conservatism is in favor of both marriage equality and gays serving in the military because the former represents social stability and the latter represents a form of patriotism. Real conservatives recognize that just as government power can be concentrated and abused, so can corporate power and so corporate power must be checked not because corporations are evil but because we must protect the republic from plutocrats who will always seek to tilt the playing field more in their direction.

Does this sound like a political party you know? Yes, that's right, if you are a Democrat guess what *you* are now what conservatism looks like in America. In favor of preserving Social Security and Medicare? You're a conservative. In favor of repealing DADT and marriage equality in all 50 states (perhaps soon to be 51?)? Then you're a conservative. That doesn't mean you are a *Republican* just a *conservative*. That doesn't mean that you aren't a liberal, either, just that American liberalism has *become* a form of conservatism.

The insanity that has passed for conservative most of our adult lives is really right-wing reactionary politics that wraps itself in the mantle of conservatism to look respectable. Libertarian philosophy is too radical and too Utopian to be truly conservative. Ayn Rand acolytes are far too radical and Utopian. The Christian theocrats are so Utopian that they can't be considered conservative by any reasonable definition.

Cheers
Aj