Sane conservatives

Eric

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Great topic, would love to see more talking about where we can agree on both sides. IMO there are still a lot of sane Republicans out there, many who would likely never have voted for Biden anyway and just accepted Trump as the default, even though many of us have a hard time understanding it. In either case we're all in this together and I don't think pitting one against the other does anyone any good, we should all be looking to areas we can move forward together on and accepts those we don't.

Personally, I'm looking forward to debate about actual policy and substance like the good old days. I don't mind being hit for being fiscally or socially liberal and to that end I do see some of the points raised by the right as well, always happy to have discussions around these things but it's just so toxic right now that I think we all just need a period of coming down from the insanity of the last four years before we're able to take it up again.
 

Huntn

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This post by @Scepticalscribe made me think for a bit



I do consider myself a conservative, but I also consider myself quite sane and logical. In the context of US politics my views would be seen as dangerously left liberal. I am all for fiscal responsibility, but at the same time I do understand the impacts of completely ignoring the importance of "social ideas and safety nets" both from a humanitarian and economic points of view. You will often hear people whining about foreign aid, without realising the humanitarian and the economic impacts of not providing aid to third world countries. Is that being a conservative, or just myopic?

I agree that high quality social health care is a must. I believe that it is a woman's right to decide whether she wants to have a child, or not, and "men" have no business in sticking their noses into it, as neither do religious groups. I have no issues with LBGT rights. People should do what they want to do and be able to marry whoever they want, as long as they are not harming others. When it comes to religion, people should be free to worship whatever deity they wish, but they should also be free to not worship any deity and should be free to not be told how to live by some religion's standards.

I believe in lower taxes for individuals, but higher taxes for corporations. I appreciate the fact that "free markets will regulate themselves" is an ignorant fallacy at best. Regulations are necessary to ensure that companies behave themselves and do not take advantage of consumers, or smaller competitors. Without competition the free market dies and the consumer is the victim, e.g. US broadband market. Then there is price fixing / collusion and do not compete agreements, which, in my view, is capitalism gone mad.

I believe that social safety nets such as unemployment benefits are important, however it is also important how they are implemented. There were recent suggestions in the UK press that the government may give £600 to people testing positive for Covid to "help them to self-isolate". I would not be surprised if we see spikes of the infection rates in some economically deprived areas, if such a plan was to come to fruition. I completely agree that people need help during these exceptional times, but how that help is implemented is also important.

I also have a concern about benefit systems that effectively reward people for having children that they cannot afford. I am not saying though that because it's not a perfect system we should scrap the whole thing, but improvements need to be made. I am not a psychologist, but I do wonder about the long term effects to children who grow up in houses where the parents have never worked. Is it a completely alien concept for them to study hard and get a good education to get a good job when they see their parents living ok on benefits and are able to provide them with the electronic gadgets and clothes that they want? I have no good answer to that, which is based on facts, rather than economic prejudice / profiling.

Am I a sane conservative? I don't know. Seems like I am not even a conservative and the sane bit is debatable too.
Unfortunately as you stated, how you view yourself is completely separate from where modern US Conservatism resides in the United States. Whatever soul Conservatism had in the 1960s has vanished, now mostly focused on wedge issues, and includes a racist element. My guess is that the latest member of Congress Marjorie Greene is far from the cream of the crop, a conspiracy theorist nut and a closet racist, yet she was deemed as the best from her District. This is where you can question the wisdom of average citizens in 24 States where Republicans control State legislatures.

I too want to see fiscal responsibility, because as our National debt skyrockets up, we are scheduling ourselves for a long and painful period, possibly an upheaval when our debt reaches a tipping point. It requires a complete rethinking about our society functions. And I don’t see the proponents of Capitalism as up for the challenge.

To pay for our bills, to create an affordable health care system along with safety nets and real efforts to reduce hunger/poverty, wealth will have to be corralled. And the real problem I see is that Americans have the wrong mindset about wealth, too much ME>WE and not vice a versa.

I would suggest radical changes, such as caps on wealth, and plow the excess back into society, but the issue is lack of popular support, too much Koolaid drinking and the mental control of weak minded, selfish, in many cases racist citizens by savvy con men, an entire gang of mini-Trumps spread throughout the GOP, and irrational fear of socialism, even though we have been moving towards socialism for the last 100 years.
 
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Chew Toy McCoy

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I also have a concern about benefit systems that effectively reward people for having children that they cannot afford. I am not saying though that because it's not a perfect system we should scrap the whole thing, but improvements need to be made. I am not a psychologist, but I do wonder about the long term effects to children who grow up in houses where the parents have never worked. Is it a completely alien concept for them to study hard and get a good education to get a good job when they see their parents living ok on benefits and are able to provide them with the electronic gadgets and clothes that they want? I have no good answer to that, which is based on facts, rather than economic prejudice / profiling.

This might seem a little harsh, but I don’t care. I think everybody should be sterilized at birth which can be reversed but only after they prove by some standard they are capable of providing for a child and raising them. Is that punitive against the poor? Probably, but a lot more humane than creating even more poor people, and if we’re going to be honest it seems poor people are way outpacing more financially secure people on the making more people front. Pick any metric you want and I almost guarantee all of them will conclude we don’t need more people on this planet.
 

Eraserhead

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This might seem a little harsh, but I don’t care. I think everybody should be sterilized at birth which can be reversed but only after they prove by some standard they are capable of providing for a child and raising them. Is that punitive against the poor? Probably, but a lot more humane than creating even more poor people, and if we’re going to be honest it seems poor people are way outpacing more financially secure people on the making more people front. Pick any metric you want and I almost guarantee all of them will conclude we don’t need more people on this planet.
Globally there were 1 billion in absolute poverty in 1950 which is (roughly) still the number in absolute poverty now with 6.5 billion being richer.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Globally there were 1 billion in absolute poverty in 1950 which is (roughly) still the number in absolute poverty now with 6.5 billion being richer.

But does that number take expanded social safety net programs into consideration? Meaning what percentage of those people are no longer considered in absolute poverty because governments or even charity kicked in a bit more?

I read an article a while back talking about high profile democrat (not sure if that is important) philanthropists and capitalists patting themselves on the back for supposedly lifting so many people globally out of poverty. What they don't talk about is how ridiculously low the bar is, like just being able to consume enough calories a day to not starve to death is considered being lifted out of poverty. So your life and living conditions are mostly shit but you didn't die from starvation. Go you!
 

SuperMatt

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This might seem a little harsh, but I don’t care. I think everybody should be sterilized at birth which can be reversed but only after they prove by some standard they are capable of providing for a child and raising them. Is that punitive against the poor? Probably, but a lot more humane than creating even more poor people, and if we’re going to be honest it seems poor people are way outpacing more financially secure people on the making more people front. Pick any metric you want and I almost guarantee all of them will conclude we don’t need more people on this planet.
Only the rich are allowed to reproduce? This should work great in a system that already funnels all the wealth to the top 0.1%. They can continue their oligarchy and prevent the serfs from having kids. I’d say this is a terrible idea, but that would be cruel to the word terrible.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Only the rich are allowed to reproduce? This should work great in a system that already funnels all the wealth to the top 0.1%. They can continue their oligarchy and prevent the serfs from having kids. I’d say this is a terrible idea, but that would be cruel to the word terrible.

I didn’t say only the rich can have kids. There’s a HUGE area between being rich and “We fucked and oops”.
 

Scepticalscribe

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I'll just add to this discussion that in every country where women (invariably, after a depressingly lengthy struggle) have been given access to:

1: Education,

2: and, as a consequence of education, have or enjoy Economic Independence or Economic Autonomy,

and 3: Also have (untrammelled) Access to Safe, Reliable, and Affordable Birth Control,

Birth rates fall.
 

Yoused

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I would suggest radical changes, such as caps on wealth, and plow the excess back into society, but the issue is lack of popular support, too much Koolaid drinking and the mental control of weak minded, selfish, in many cases racist citizens by savvy con men …

That requires some sort of change in the realm of the news media. If anyone listens to the radio, the music stations are all run from a studio just outside Dayton Ohio, employing a dozen on-air personalities that read from scripts tailored to local areas across the country. The massively-concentrated control of news and entertainment media is a non-small problem in this country. I am not entirely sure how to fix it, but these infotainment mammoths need to be shattered into manageable pieces. It will not entirely solve the problem, but I believe it would be a step forward.
 

Huntn

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This might seem a little harsh, but I don’t care. I think everybody should be sterilized at birth which can be reversed but only after they prove by some standard they are capable of providing for a child and raising them. Is that punitive against the poor? Probably, but a lot more humane than creating even more poor people, and if we’re going to be honest it seems poor people are way outpacing more financially secure people on the making more people front. Pick any metric you want and I almost guarantee all of them will conclude we don’t need more people on this planet.
My understanding was that at some point in Europe (forget the country) to get a marriage license, you had to be fiscally able to support a family.
 

Eric

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Just going to throw this out there, a bill that would make stealing packages three times a felony and something most of us would probably get behind, it's also written by a Republican. If we look we can find common ground.

 

Chew Toy McCoy

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What is the income limit? Who decides who is “fit“ to reproduce?

Why does it just come down to income level for you? And even if it does, (going extreme here so don't think I am saying it's the norm) if 2 drug addicted homeless people fucked and produced an offspring you think that's a good thing? and if so, why?
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Just going to throw this out there, a bill that would make stealing packages three times a felony and something most of us would probably get behind, it's also written by a Republican. If we look we can find common ground.


My coworker has porch cam footage of a regular package stealing homeless person taking her packages. The police have basically been "Yeah, we know. That's what she does."

Again, what is this country doing about mental illness other than blaming it for everything and then walking away.
 

SuperMatt

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Why does it just come down to income level for you? And even if it does, (going extreme here so don't think I am saying it's the norm) if 2 drug addicted homeless people fucked and produced an offspring you think that's a good thing? and if so, why?
What are the criteria for who is allowed to reproduce in your proposed system?
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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What are the criteria for who is allowed to reproduce in your proposed system?

I don't have a full list or idea of legislature that should be passed, but at minimum an interest and dedication to being a contributing member of society. A knowledge of history and challenges and an idea of how to overcome them when appropriate. On what you might rally against (and I don't understand why) the typical current financial burdens you will have to be responsible for. Again, you don't have to be ultra rich to handle this.

What do you think are the advantages of a system that just allows any 2 people that are attracted to each other to fuck and produce more people is?
 

SuperMatt

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I don't have a full list or idea of legislature that should be passed, but at minimum an interest and dedication to being a contributing member of society. A knowledge of history and challenges and an idea of how to overcome them when appropriate. On what you might rally against (and I don't understand why) the typical current financial burdens you will have to be responsible for. Again, you don't have to be ultra rich to handle this.

What do you think are the advantages of a system that just allows any 2 people that are attracted to each other to fuck and produce more people is?
You mean the right that every single other species on earth has? Making reproduction illegal is just as bad as making it mandatory by banning abortion. It’s unethical and immoral to impose such a decision on others.

Some people think that illegal immigrants don’t want to be contributing members of society.


I guess you support this? I mean, their idea of what is a “productive member of society” might be different than yours, but it’s the same thing. Just minor details....
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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You mean the right that every single other species on earth has? Making reproduction illegal is just as bad as making it mandatory by banning abortion. It’s unethical and immoral to impose such a decision on others.

Some people think that illegal immigrants don’t want to be contributing members of society.


I guess you support this? I mean, their idea of what is a “productive member of society” might be different than yours, but it’s the same thing. Just minor details....

I see it more as we as a species are a cancer on the planet with finite resources. Sure cancer cells have the right to reproduce but should we let that happen? We don’t even know how many species we’ve made extinct through our deforestation because we killed them off before they were even discovered. That’s just one of many examples of our destruction that gets worse as we grow in population.

As far as other species reproducing there is also a balance in nature (which we’re constantly fucking with) that keeps the population under control. Humans have no such balance and in fact are working hard to increase our lifespan in defiance of nature.
 
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