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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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United States | News & Politics
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So conservatives are... what? Not a group of people? Or in your view, are conservatives just fascists already?
Conservative liberals have the same ideology as liberals, just the pace is different. American politics have fucked too many people's brains.
Yeah, I don't buy that. Liberalism and Conservatism have different ideological foundations, philosophical traditions, and political histories.
If you don't know the difference, that's on you.
I have to make a lot of leaps to guess what you mean by "conservative liberal". Do you mean a modern "social liberal economic conservative"? Aka a neoliberal?
Cuz yeah US Dems and Repubs are almost all economically neoliberal, sure. Is that what you mean?
There are no conservatives from conservatism in the US, and there never has been. There might be a few in the future, depending on how far towards monarchism the south goes when the US balkanizes, but certainly none now.
Both Republicans and Dems are neoliberals, yes, before that they were just liberals. One being for the rapid advancement of society, one being for a conservative advancement of society.
If you don't know that, that's on you.
But you are the perfect example of a brain fucked American that believes your politics fit anywhere else in the world, or can compare to anyone else's political movements.
Hey there. So I'm doing some reading trying to see if I'm just wrong here. I might be?
Just for context about where I learned about Conservatism, its roots, and how it functions in America now, this is really good distillation of what I've been learning: The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 3: The Origins of Conservatism.
There's a few bits in there that I find particularly salient for this discussion. First, that early Conservatism was trying to figure out how the aristocracy could maintain its position in society post-monarchy, and they eventually settled on "the market". Second, that Conservatism has an everpresent undercurrent of "the wealthy deserve what they get, the poors are just freeloaders." And third, that conservatives in the US say they care about measured steps and slow steady progress, but then all of a sudden they're about swift, decisive action (usually by invading somewhere).
That final point is a big reason I tend to balk when people say that conservatism is about slow and steady progress vs revolutionary action. That's something I grew up believing in the US, but it just never seemed accurate to how any conservatives in the US actually behaved. Virtually nothing conservatives say or do here make sense through the lens of "slow and steady" but make a lot more sense if you view it through a lens of preserving hierarchies and ensuring the people at the top stay there and those at the bottom grovel harder.
So I see these throughlines, and I have a hard time imagining that Conservatism (of the old European variety) simply had no strains here in the US. Yet, a lot of what I'm reading suggests that American conservatism is, as you said, a bit different. I haven't looked deeply enough yet, but my initial thought is because the USA itself was instituted against monarchy, the pro-monarchy bits may not have fit, but the strict traditional hierarchy preservation certainly did.
I dunno. You have any idea how hard it is to unfuck your brain? It's harder than you think!
Then please, enlighten me.
Surely I'm not so "brain fucked" that I can't learn? Help a brother out.
Edit: I love how for a supposedly leftist community, a guy asking for a lesson is down voted. The leftist infighting is real. You think I wouldn't read what you sent?
You said "enlighten" which reminds me of something. This is a copy/paste of a comment i've posted before:
"How did we overthrow Kings again? Something about us becoming ahem “Enlightened” during some sort of era or period? What can we learn from the successes and failures? Where did Europeans get ideas of freedom, autonomy, equality, and question of authority from when all they knew about was Kings and Divine Right? Did they perhaps go to some kind of ahem New World with a matchcoat and musket to live and trade amongst the natives for 200 years?! Perhaps there was some sort of ahem Indiginous Critique on European Culture that sorta blew the minds of the French, English, and Dutch alike? Perhaps they wrote some plays about this! That they could disobey or :gasps: impeach their leaders? That pursuasion and reason might be more important? Perhaps over some coffee and pipe tobacco? Oh right, next thing you’d think i’d say is they didn’t trade or so much as look at silver? How they MUST have had a “Market” how else could goods or heirlooms possibly trade hands? Certainly not gifts, quests, or gambling! Jeez, I wonder if we still have something to learn from these ideas that were just too darn complicated for Ben Franklin and Jean Jacque Rousseau!"
If you would like to learn more teachings from a culture that inspired the LITERAL FUCKING ENLIGHTENMENT PERIOD, allow me to "enlighten" you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondiaronk#Oratory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzWj9ZORv8E - Immortal Technique (2001)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/russell-means-for-america-to-live-europe-must-die - Speech dictated by the american indian Russel Means.
https://environicsindia.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/socialism.pdf - Albert Einstein (bonus reading)
This was all interesting, and I'm thankful you've shared. On reading, I'm not seeing any connection to the discussion at hand, that of Conservatism and whether or not it has or hasn't existed in the US.
But to comment anyhow - I find it difficult to understand what the transcribed speech is saying. Mostly because I don't think I understand what the speaker means by "spiritual". As a term, I have found "spirit" and its derivatives to be nebulous and unhelpful at best, and pernicious at worst. But my experience with the word is primarily through American Christianity, from which I'm an apostate. So I must decline to ascribe to the speaker there what my own brain interjects. But that leaves the speech largely unintelligible to me. That's nothing against the speaker, but rather an admission of my own ignorance.
The Dawn of Everything seems interesting though. Seems to have gotten good reception from historians. I'll add it to the list.