Progressive v. Conservative ideologies, not the candidates, are the real drivers in this election

Bookwormroom.com ^ | 10-11-2016 | Bookworm

[servo1969]

A Progressive friend is relentlessly pushing “Trump is awful” stories on me. I, a conservative, invariably counter by pointing out that Hillary’s list of sins and failures is infinitely worse.

I realized yesterday that my arguments are irrelevant. My friend will never vote for someone who is not 100% pro-abortion, pro-socialized medicine, or pro-open borders.  Given a choice between a rotting dead body that is pro-Abortion and a genuine angel from Heaven that is pro-Choice, he’d vote for the rotting body every time.

Even as we endlessly talk down the other side’s candidates (because few people are really comfortable talking their own candidate up in this bizarre election year), what really matters is the ideological divide underlying this election. The following list might help you decide on which side of that divide you live. Once you decide, do remember that you will never get people to accept your candidate, no matter how flawed their own candidate, until you get them to accept your ideology.

National security

• Conservatives believe that America and her allies are safest when America projects military strength that acts as a deterrent to predatory actors around the world.
• Progressives believe that America is itself a predatory actor and that it and, indeed, the rest of the world are safest when it is passive and weak.

Guns

• Conservatives believe that guns’ defensive benefits far outweigh their ability to kill.
• Progressives believe that guns have no utility other than killing and that only police should be allowed to carry them.

Police

• Conservatives acknowledge that, among America’s approximately 1.5 million state and federal police, there are individual bad actors, including racists, but strongly believe that the vast majority are decent men and women who routinely put their lives at risk to keep the American public safe.
• Progressives believe that America’s police are inherently racist and corrupt and that they must be kept on the shortest leash possible, especially when dealing with the inner city black community (but that they and private bodyguards to celebrities should still be the only people allowed to have guns).

Race

• Conservatives try to heed Martin Luther King’s dictum to look past the color of people’s skin in order to judge them by the content of their character.
• Progressives believe that race is of paramount importance in that it determines both how people act and how others act towards them.

Crime

• Conservatives acknowledge that some people are born sociopaths or psychopaths, but they also believe that people are rational actors and that a society that refuses to hold criminals accountable for their actions and refuses to impose strong deterrents (e.g., armed, law-abiding citizens) against crime, incentivizes crime.
• Progressives believe that all criminal acts that blacks commit are because of racism, while all criminal acts that white Americans commit are because white Americans, especially poor white Americans, are weak, inbred, and stupid (and usually racist).

Welfare

• Conservatives believe that a moral society must take care of those unable to care for themselves, but that it’s also immoral to create a system that gives incentives to able-bodied people to shape their lives so as to conform to welfare requirements, allowing them to avoid work (and I know of many such people).
• Progressives believe that, while middle-class Progressives routinely conform their lives to the education-marriage-job-children metric that prevents poverty, it’s racist and classist to expect that of minorities and poor (and stupid) whites.

Immigration

• Conservatives believe that America’s strength comes from a constant infusion of immigrants but they also believe that, as a sovereign nation, America gets to decide (for better or worse) which immigrants it wants at any given time and how many.
• Progressives believe that borders are racist and that they allow America to hog resources; therefore, they support an open border that allows the unchecked, unvetted, free flow into America of people from the entire world, all of whom are entitled to full benefits upon their arrival.

Abortion

• Conservatives believe that life begins somewhere on the continuum between conception and viability.
• Progressives believe that life begins at some indeterminate time after birth.

Euthanasia

• Conservatives believe that your family loves you and will willingly take on debt to save your life.
• Progressives believe that the state loves you and will willingly allocate funds to save your life.

Socialized medicine

• Conservatives believe that a free market and an educated public are the best way to drive down medical and insurance costs, something regularly proven in the real world.
• Progressives believe that the government is the best way to drive down medical costs and increase access to care, something that has never been proven in the real world (including in Europe, which is seeing its health care system collapse now that American Cold War dollars are almost gone).

Judeo-Christian ideology

• Conservatives believe that the Judeo-Christian ideology that has governed America for more than two centuries, while sometimes imperfectly practiced (e.g.,slavery), is still the best ideology for creating a safe and prosperous world, one peopled by decent, generous and moral citizens.
• Progressives believe that the Judeo-Christian ideology is racist, misogynist, and homophobic, and that the world would be best served if it could be wiped out.

Radical Islam

• Conservatives believe that, while the majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the Koran contains within it an incitement to cruelly-effected world domination, and that Western nations must fight against that mindset both on the battlefield and in the world of the mind.
• Progressives believe that Islam is a “Religion of Peace” and that anyone who engages in the type of violent activity called for under the Koran is not actually Muslim.

Israel

• Conservatives believe that Israel is as decent a country as one will find, one that has managed to maintain its commitment to individual liberties for all citizens, regardless of race, religion, country of national origin, sex, or sexual orientation, despite being under extraordinary genocidal pressures from the Muslims surrounding it, all of whom get moral and material support from Europe (and, sadly, from the Obama administration too).
• Progressives think that Israel is a colonial oppressor that deserves to be destroyed, whether quickly through all-out warfare or slowly through the demographic pressure of a two-state solution augmented by the “right of return” (a unique refugee benefit limited solely to Palestinians).

Big Government

• Conservatives believe that big government is dangerous, because those who work within it, once they obtain power, are capable of doing anything to maintain that power.
• Progressives believe that, no matter the question, big government is the answer, and are certain that their navel-gazing makes them sufficiently righteous to avoid the sins of an all-powerful government seen in places such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, Nazi Germany, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, ISIS territory, etc.

The Constitution

• Conservatives believe that the Constitution is the most brilliant political document ever created, with timeless rules that ensure that the government is always subordinate to individual liberty.
• Progressives believe that the Constitution is the outdated product of racist, misogynistic, homophobic white men and should be removed from its centrality in American life.

The Supreme Court

• Conservatives believe that all Supreme Court decisions most draw their principles from the Constitution as written.
• Progressives believe that all Supreme Court decisions must draw their principles from whatever they can find that justifies a Progressive outcome.

Free Speech

• Conservatives believe that actions count more than words and that free speech, even ugly speech, is the cornerstone of a free society.
• Progressives believe that conservative words hurt, that Progressives are entitled to take violent action to censor conservative words, and that free speech has the potential to be mean and should therefore be limited only to Progressives.

Religious Liberty

• Conservatives believe that people should be allowed to look to their religious values to govern their conduct, provided that their conduct does not stray beyond the agreed-upon parameters of modern Judeo-Christian morality (no virgin sacrifices, no ritual murder, no slavery, etc.).
• Progressives believe that, because the Judeo-Christian doctrine is inherently flawed, people should not be able to act on their religious beliefs on pain of financial penalties and imprisonment.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Conservatives believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and are worried that, with the Supreme Court having looked far beyond the Constitution (and into tawdry gay romance novels) to assert that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, the state will interfere with their religious liberty and insist that civil marriages aren’t enough — all churches and synagogues (but not mosques, of course) will have to perform same-sex marriages.
• Progressives believe that marriage is a dated concept, but nevertheless want it to apply to any and all combinations of humans (same sex, multiple sexes) as well as to human-adroid match-ups and human-animal match-ups, and they want the state to destroy anyone who refuses to be a party to these new-style marriages.

Climate Change

• Conservatives believe that the climate is changing because it has always changed, mostly in response to changes in the sun, and like to point out that actual facts support this hypothesis.
• Progressive believe that the climate is changing because of the West’s abusive, carbon-generating activities, and insist that the science bears this out, even though the past twenty years have proven that the most extreme predictions were wrong, the less extremely predictions were mostly wrong, and that any scientific statements about climate change that appear to be correct manage to appear that way only because of data manipulation.

Environmentalism

• Conservatives believe that mankind is the earth’s steward (whether because God said so or because humans what to preserve the earth for their progeny), which requires us to do what we can to limit man’s negative interaction with nature but that, when there is conflict between man and nature, humans should have the edge.
• Progressives believe that mankind is a parasite on earth and that, not only should we limit man’s negative interaction with nature, we should ensure that, in any conflict (whether with spotted owls, Delta smelts, little lizards, etc.) man must always yield.

Sex

• Conservatives believe that there are two sexes — male and female — which are determined at the genetic level and that mistakes in this coding are rare.
• Progressives, despite their claim to be the science-based community, believe that gender is a construct, that XX and XY chromosomes are meaningless, and that people are whatever sex they say they are at whatever hour or minute they feel that way.

Feminism

• Conservatives, like the French of old, celebrate la difference, although they strongly believe that all people should receive equal treatment under the law, equal pay for equal work, and equal access to education, jobs, housing, etc.
• Progressives believe that men are dangerous and inferior and the corollary that women are wonderful and superior — except when it comes to Hillary Clinton, who is simultaneously incredibly superior and so fragile that she cannot handle it when Trump talks to her, interrupts her, or stands near her.

College education

• Conservatives believe that people who graduate from modern American colleges are indoctrinated.
• Progressives believe that people who graduate from modern American colleges are educated.

Trump is the candidate who openly stands for the conservative ideology; Hillary is the candidate who openly stands for the Progressive ideology. If you cannot get someone to buy into your particular ideology, you will not be able to get them to buy into your candidate — and that’s irrespective of the actual candidates’ sins and virtues.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Progressive republicans & democrats vs the conservatives.

[reasonisfaith]

Let’s not overlook the “people vs establishment” dynamic.

[reasonisfaith]

Pushing “liberal vs conservative” too much is not the whole picture.

And it’s not the best strategy for encouraging all 20-30 million anti-Hillary voting democrats to vote for Trump.

[Ransomed]

That’s why it is depressing if the 10% of voters who are swing voters are actually the ones who decide all national elections. They don’t have any guiding political philosophy, so all campaign ads, the debates, media talking head endorsements/condemnations are just kabuki theatre to hopefully attract a majority of the dumbest 10% of voters who are actually swayable.

Freegards

[Lisbon1940]

Conservatives don’t go there college, or if they do they come out liberal.

[ChessExpert]

Agreed, it is the issues that count.

The article examines issues from the progressive and conservative perspectives. I think there is a progressive, also a conservative viewpoint. After a quick scan, I’d say the author seems to line up and present the viewpoints well and fairly. Actual people may be mixed/confused on topics. I think I’ve been moving conservative over the years.

To me it is obvious that the Republican party is much more conservative than the Democratic party. I think you see it over and over again in roll call votes. Unfortunately, while the roll call is always there (available at Thomas.gov renamed Congress.gov), it is seldom presented.

Granted, some Republicans defect to the Democratic side, sometimes with huge consequences. But these are defections. The conservative side pretty much always gets 90% of its support from Republicans.

The issues are the standard. For some people, I think Trump is the standard. As long as he is for lower taxes, so are they. If he is for higher taxes, so are they.

Juan Peron had a huge following. After his death, right-wing Peronistas clashed in the streets with left-wing Peronistas. I remember thinking at the time that the Peronistas were foolish people, rallying about a man and not about principles. When he was gone, they had no common oritentation. Its like they didn’t know what to think anymore. Well, that was Argentina - crazy latins - it will never be that way in the United States. As they say, never say never.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

I don’t know what a conservative is anymore. But, I do know what a progressive is: John McNuts, Lindsey Grahamnesty, Paul Ryan to name a few. The list is long and should be feared.

[x]

That’s one person’s take on things. The people who are going to decide the election don’t fit into your writer’s progressive or conservative categories, though, and would might with some of the way the writer characterizes those positions.

[mrsmith]

If by ‘progressive’ one means ‘giving more money and power from the people to the government’ then,yes.

The establishment whores love them some progressiveness.

[JediJones]

That’s the most brilliant and amusing article defining the differences in ideologies I’ve seen in a long time. Very good quality writing for a random blog! As usual, conservative ideology is what you’d expect it to be, but liberal ideology is constantly getting wackier, crazier, more far-out and more extreme as the idle hands in their “think tanks” on college campuses are played with by the devil.

[JediJones]

Now you know why they want latin immigration. The latin cultures are much more emotion-driven and can be easily swayed by a 30-second attack ad on those wascally Wepublicans. Any one who looks at history and the facts will see conservative policies get better results. The Dims need voters who will not vote based on facts, but on fleeting emotions they can stir up and blanket the airwaves with.

[JediJones]

Yes, it is the best way to convince people to vote for Trump. One argument that is not being used at all is to point out how much more leftist the Democrat party has become since the days of JFK...on taxes, the military, marriage, etc. Pointing that out would be a great way to convince old-time Dems to abandon their party. People are voting Democrat because their daddy was for Team D and their grandpappy was for Team D, etc. Convince them the ideology behind the party has deteriorated into something completely different and they might switch to Team R.

[JediJones]

I haven’t seen anyone characterize the positions more perfectly and accurately than this writer does in a long, long time.

[servo1969]

Conservatives believe there is no situation so bad it can’t be made worse by adding more government.
Progressives believe there is no situation so good it can’t be improved by adding more government.

[reasonisfaith]

There’s a tsunami currently underway, known as the people vs the establishment.

This is what gave us both Trump and Bernie, and it’s what the Hillary team fears most.

[ChessExpert]

Well I hope there is a difference between Bernie and Trump!

[reasonisfaith]

Ever heard the phrase “Supreme Court nominations?”

[ChessExpert]

Ever string some sentences together to make an argument?

[dfwgator]

Stop everything...
I think I hear the President
The pied piper of the TV screen
Is gonna make it simple
And he’s got it all mapped out
And illustrated with cartoons
Too hard for clever folks to understand
Yeah, they’re more used to words like:
Ideology...
But they say it’s not the issue
Ideology...
They’re not talkin’ ‘bout right or left
They’re talkin’ ‘bout...

Right and wrong - do you know the difference
Right and wrong - do you know the difference
‘Tween the right and the left and the East and the West
What you know and the things that you’ll never see

So what ya think-
You like the Yankees or the Mets this year?
And what about this latest war of words,
And what about the Commies?
You know, I saw the news last night
All illustrated with cartoons
So when they come with that opinion poll
Yeah, they better not use words like:
Ideology...
Or try to tell me ‘bout the issues
Ideology...
Whose side are you on
‘Cause we’re talkin’ ‘bout...

Where are we?

-Joe Jackson (Right and Wrong)