tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6560984080058224881.post8619828722831774344..comments2010-12-25T14:30:18.419-08:00Comments on The View from Across the Lake: The Prime Minister’s Secrets. But First, What is a Conservative?Philip Regalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00262150234253131210noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6560984080058224881.post-42270899054272941302010-10-13T10:42:28.900-07:002010-10-13T10:42:28.900-07:00Thanks Yogi. Sad, sad that we do not get to define...Thanks Yogi. Sad, sad that we do not get to define ourselves!! Moreover the powers that be can manipulate the labels. Positively Orwellian. When I was young Earl Warren was a solid California Republican Governor. Then as a Justice on the Supreme Court it was hardly a surprise that the Court went in the direction of individual freedoms. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater seemed to have reasonable American principles but I would say was quite impractical. Since then the "conservative" label has been so corrupted as you describe that sadly, people would no longer understand if I called myself a conservative. Yet I don't want to use "their" labels because I happen to think this way or that about particular issues. Good comments. Thanks.Philip Regalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00262150234253131210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6560984080058224881.post-29975472311185938922010-10-01T02:57:31.109-07:002010-10-01T02:57:31.109-07:00Here in the USA you are definitely a liberal.
All...Here in the USA you are definitely a liberal.<br /><br />All conservatism in the USA has become what you are calling "ideological conservatism", and everyone you would call a "traditional conservative" has been kicked out of the club for being ideologically compromised.<br /><br />The way you talk about believing in the US Constitution, it's rights and individual citizen protections are under constant attack by US conservatives as being "liberal biases". <br /><br />The way you talk about health care puts you way, way to the left of President Obama, who very early on in his "health care reform" jettisoned the idea of any public option in health insurtance, at a time when polling showed a majority of Americans wanted a public insurance option.<br /><br />Conservatism has been hi-jacked by huge corporations in the USA, and they have mounted a campaign to twist conservative social agendas into pro-corporate, anti-citizen legislation. They do this by financing conservative movements like the Tea Party (think of the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch), and casting pro-corporate agendas as "conservative" and de-riding pro-citizen agendas as "socialist".<br /><br />In America today ANYTHING which seeks to assert the rights of individual citizens in the face of huge corporate profit-grabbing, has been demonized as "socialism", and the ideological conservatives marched in lockstep to defeat any assertion of individual liberties, even when such is voting against their own self-interest.<br /><br />This is the travesty that "conservatism" has become in the USA, largely thanks to a takeover of the mass media by the ideological conservatives. They have launched a propaganda front that would make Hitler and even Chairman Mao envious of the way they manipulate the public debate on every nature of issue, with the public largely unaware of their machinations.<br /><br />Also, your respect for science marks you as a liberal. It is a requirement for US conservatives to be anti-science, in particular to eschew the scientific method (google up "The Republican War on Science.") To be a conservative you must be in denial about global warming and climate change (another propaganda coup brought to you by Big Corporate through financing of propaganda outlets such as the Cato Institute), and you must be a Biblical Creationist who is strictly opposed to the theory of evolution. We call these people "flat-earthers", and the denialist/flat-earther viewpoint is the only one accepted by conservatives in the USA.<br /><br />So, whether you like the label or not, by todays terms, you are most definitely a liberal.<br /><br />Of course, you may protest with claims of being a "traditional conservative" . But understand that in America today "traditional conservative" = "liberal". In todays polarized political world, there is no third position, no in-between.<br /><br />Also, a hallmark of conservatism today is pure ignorance. I was reading an article today about Obama, and in the comments, a self-proclaimed 'conservative' piped up and said "Obama is a Muslim. As such he has no God, he's an atheist". This is the intellectual level that conservatism functions at in the USA, and if you are appalled by that, well then you are not a conservative.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07235860630966767104noreply@blogger.com