Conservatives are afraid.

dr.fuzzenstein

There is a bit of fear involved.
To my mind conservatives are all about money and control. You want to protect what's yours, keep up the status quo and make sure that your gated community stays white or at least affluent. Since you can't discriminate against color these days, you can discriminate with money to keep the riff-raff out of your area as well as your restaurants and bars. It means to set yourself apart from the masses, to send a signal that says loud and clear "I am so much richer and better than you!". (said in a Harry Enfield voice)
The idea is to keep the gravy train rolling and to have a cosy little clique between politics and big business and influence the law so that the judiciary is on your side. Once you have that, the police and army are pretty much in your pocket.
For that it is very important to keep the smelly masses in check and keep them just poor enough that just about all they have will be spent on rent, food, transport, bills, taxes, healthcare, childcare and after they've worked and paid taxes for over 40 years, care for the elderly.
For that you need to keep costs high, wages low and cut back on any social benefits. To the rich it makes no difference if they have care paid for by the state or if they pay a few thousand bucks a month, but to a lower to middle class family having a family member in specialised care for up to 10 years, it can wipe out the entire savings and property that family has. So they stay put where they belong and have to spend decades building it all up again.
There are of course many low-rent conservatives who subscribe to these ideals because they are hoping that a few scraps of the table will fall their way, very Renfield-esque.
You say that a liberal is a liberal until he gets mugged. A conservative is a conservative until he gets fired.

Liberals aren't monsters. They're people who said wouldn't it be nice if we could share the wealth more equally, pay the poor shmocks a bit more and have the moneybags earn a tiny bit less? Do banks and stockmarkets really need to make and pocket trillions for doing, well, nothing? Other than exploiting the producer of course and make sure he gets the least amount possible, just about keeping him above the water? After all they are useless parasites who produce absolutely nothing except more money for themselves and nothing else. Ticks and tapeworms.
There are endless trillions flowing through the world and from what I can see that money is used for absolutely nothing positive. All that does is make numbers appear on a balance sheet. Whoopdee-fcuking-dooda.
It is as useful as tits on a fish. Sometimes it does get used for bombing poor people in poor countries.

Of course there is a war going on on social media. We have Renfield Conservatives against Snowflake Libtards, both of them spewing hateful bile and ignorant comments at each other. And each year each side gets more and more entrenched and extreme in their views.
It is divide and conquer in action. With the advent of bot armies that you can hire to boost your won ignorant point of view (and make Trump appear popular) it has become absolutely pointless to try and make a reasoned argument on social media, it just gets drowned in the sh*t storm.
The end-result is billionaires sitting in their lounge-chairs sipping cocktails in a villa that costs the trade deficit of a small African nation or a club where a meal and a few cocktails cost more than my car.
These people don't watch TV or post on social media, they make the content and then relax while we fight. And then watch us monkeys dance for them.
It's the next step to the American dream where anyone can achieve anything and if they don't, it's because they are stupid and/or lazy.
Does a single person really need to own several billion? What good does it do anyone if the top 1% in the US control nearly 40% of the money?

sbsquarepants

Pepefrogok wrote: »

Won't be long until your challenged on it friend! The liberal set are already trying to guilt people who don't want relations of a pokey pokey nature with gentleladys who had done previously been a fellow!

Eh, there'll be separate bathrooms for these "people" I hope?

I'm not quite sure why, but it must be important to separate our bodily waste on strict gender grounds, it just must be! Says so in the bible (probably:D)

Its make no difference to the very wealthy who have the money to insulate themselves for reality.

If it began to affect the middle class in any significant way then there would be a real push against it not a twitter storm.

For example some journalists were being interviewed for a current affairs program all were quintessential middle class not one of them seem to be aware of the irony of it, now imagine if the program was required to have producers and presenters of a more balanced background that would mean one of the middle class presenters would have to go in favour of someone from a working class background and or different ethnicity. The middle classes slice of the cake would diminish in favour of others in society.

dr.fuzzenstein

mariaalice wrote: »

Its make no difference to the very wealthy who have the money to insulate themselves for reality.

If it began to affect the middle class in any significant way then there would be a real push against it not a twitter storm.

For example some journalists were being interviewed for a current affairs program all were quintessential middle class not one of them seem to be aware of the irony of it, now imagine if the program was required to have producers and presenter of a more balanced background that would mean one of the middle class presenters would have to go in favour of someone from a working class background and or different ethnicity. The middle classes slice of the cake would diminish in favour of others in society.

That is the perception. The real problem is that the very rich will get more and more by paing less and less.
Pay less to the producer, the worker, charge more for the endproduct, pay less taxes (Trump's tax cut a classic example), cut out safety or environmental regulations and reduce the quality/quantity of te product.
Not for any other reason than "profit maximisation".
It used to be that you sold a product and calculated a margin for it.
Nowadays you sell a profit and see how much you can squeeze everyone except for yourself, so the margin is not set, but will be the absolute maximum the market will bear.
Then give the impression that times are tough and watch them all run around like ants fighting over the crumbs while you just made another few million.

sheesh

this thread is bulshirt without defining what you mean by liberal and conservative.

A lot of people seem to be talking about the US version of being Conservative which is quiet broad (Financial conservative -> loony religious conservative),

Liberal in a US context is also quiet broad.

conservative and liberal also mean something different in Europe.

edit: Sorry someone beat me to this comment

animaal

Sand wrote: »

If the thread demonstrates anything, its that conservative and liberal are meaningless as political terms. Particularly outside the US where the terms are used to refer to fairly specific groups.

Yes!

"Conservative" and "Liberal" are now just labels that have little connection to the actual meanings of those words. All the more so when people throw concepts like left-wing/right-wing under the same conservative/liberal umbrellas.

Gay marriage is now established in this country. Some people would like it to remain so. Others would like the law changed. Which are the conservatives?

Can a person be conservative and liberal at the same time? I may want a change to the law, but executed in a slow and cautious manner - keeping an eye on the outcomes. I'm taking a conservative approach to the change in the law.

When terms like conservative and liberal are thrown around, it's usually done with a large serving of smugness and shows a one-dimensional view of the world.

dr.fuzzenstein

animaal wrote: »

Yes!

"Conservative" and "Liberal" are now just labels that have little connection to the actual meanings of those words. All the more so when people throw concepts like left-wing/right-wing under the same conservative/liberal umbrellas.

Gay marriage is now established in this country. Some people would like it to remain so. Others would like the law changed. Which are the conservatives?

Can a person be conservative and liberal at the same time? I may want a change to the law, but executed in a slow and cautious manner - keeping an eye on the outcomes. I'm taking a conservative approach to the change in the law.

When terms like conservative and liberal are thrown around, it's usually done with a large serving of smugness and shows a one-dimensional view of the world.

Yes, liberals are notoriously homophobic.

animaal

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Yes, liberals are notoriously homophobic.

Apologies, my point may have been too subtle. Or maybe I'm missing yours.

If being conservative means having a reluctance to change, then wouldn't that mean that those in favour of gay marriage are now the conservatives with regard to that question?

In reality, terms like "liberal" and "conservative" are being used to identify similar-minded folk, and can be assigned a random collection of values. It's a slightly more up-to-date way of differentiating "them" from "us". Our tribe versus their tribe. The good people in this parish versus the awful neighbouring parish.

dr.fuzzenstein

animaal wrote: »

Apologies, my point may have been too subtle. Or maybe I'm missing yours.

If being conservative means having a reluctance to change, then wouldn't that mean that those in favour of gay marriage are now the conservatives with regard to that question?

In reality, terms like "liberal" and "conservative" are being used to identify similar-minded folk, and can be assigned a random collection of values. It's a slightly more up-to-date way of differentiating "them" from "us". Our tribe versus their tribe. The good people in this parish versus the awful neighbouring parish.

Would not see it that way.
A conservative (to me at least) is someone who believes in family, work and church. Family being a man, a woman and children. Man works, woman preferably stays at home, children go to school. The family being a strong unit and there's nothing wrong with that. Usually Republican (in the US anyway), active in his community and church, what you would call a pillar of society.
This type of person might view anything that doesn't fit in with this with suspicion. So single people (after a certain age), single mothers (The Horror!), gays, man stays at home, wife works, unmarried couples and anyone who isn't the short-back and sides type.
Seriously? Who are the conservatives? No, it's not a random collection of values.
A liberal might be almost indistinguishable from the above, but is someone who might have slightly more open views on foreigners, gays, women's rights, abortion, contraception, lead a lifestyle outside the nuclear family and be more of a mindset that wealth should be spread out more equally.
I do agree that this is not black and white. There are more shades of grey than anything else. Maybe it's becoming less meaningful, but they still exist though.
You will find more people who describe themselves as liberal on the side of pro-choice, equal rights, living wages for workers, free trade, environemtal protectionism and you will find more conservatives on the side of pro-life, traditional gender roles and against minimum wage, not fond of unions and pretty much against any kind of environmentalism or trade restrictions unless we're talking about import duties to favour domestic businesses.

I think you may approach this from an Irish point of view. Whilst I would view Ireland as a conservative country (i.e. having MAJOR hangups on church, sex, drugs, alcohol and anything that is a bit too wild and colorful), there isn't that political divide you find in other countries.
In Germany you have CDU (conservative) and SPD (more worker's party), you know about Tories and Labor and of course Republicans and Democrats.
You will find this divide in almost any western country.
There just isn't that same divide in Ireland, which is divided between FF and FG and after 25 years I cannot for the life of me figure out the difference.

PopePalpatine

animaal wrote: »

Apologies, my point may have been too subtle. Or maybe I'm missing yours.

If being conservative means having a reluctance to change, then wouldn't that mean that those in favour of gay marriage are now the conservatives with regard to that question?

In reality, terms like "liberal" and "conservative" are being used to identify similar-minded folk, and can be assigned a random collection of values. It's a slightly more up-to-date way of differentiating "them" from "us". Our tribe versus their tribe. The good people in this parish versus the awful neighbouring parish.

Agreed, the "liberal/conservative" dichotomy wouldn't suit in states where marriage equality has been enacted. "Reactionary" would be a more suitable term to describe those who want to revoke that...but it's not exactly a conducive term to winning people over.