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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThat Awkward Moment When You Realize YOU are Now the "Conservative."
Last edited Sat Apr 8, 2017, 08:39 PM - Edit history (1)
Here's the basic definition via Merriam Webster, excluding the ones about being a member of the British Conservative Party or being a Conservative Jew:
a : tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : traditional conservative policies
b : marked by moderation or caution a conservative estimate
c : marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners a conservative suit a conservative architectural style
I sat staring at that, and my world, my identity went fluid, morphing, disorienting me profoundly.
I want to conserve the institutions of a representative democratic government-- the right of a President, for example, to appoint a Supreme Court justice, even in the final year of their term.
And the established institution of an independent Civil Service that functions, not at the whim of patronage or loyalty to a party, but based on competence, skill, and dedication to impartial service under established Federal laws and regulations.
I want to conserve the institutional rights of workers to organize, the official rights of LGBTQ individuals to marry, the established rights of women to make decisions over their own bodies and access safe and legal abortion as needed.
I want to conserve the institution of municipalities that may declare themselves sanctuaries for immigrants and refuguees, the institution of states' rights to refuse to permit fracking, the institution of school districts providing meals to hungry children and in-school health clinics to their students.
I want to conserve the reputation of America as a nation that strives after equity as well as justice, that is willing to learn from our mistakes, and that respects international law and the efforts of nations to settle differences through negotiation rather than warfare.
I want to conserve the institution of law and justice administered not by private for-profit contractors but by dedicated independent civil service employees under the scrutiny of elected officials and an independent judiciary.
I want to conserve the institutions long-established to promote citizens' health and well-being through public investment in environmental protection and public health.
I want to conserve the established role of government in regulating trade, markets, and currency in order to prevent catastrophic economic disruption.
I want to conserve the expectation that those elected to the highest offices and gravest, most consequential duties of governance will accept the responsibility to enact those offices and duties with restraint, equity, gravitas, and respect even for those whose opinions and ideologies differ from theirs.
I have not abandoned the mission of progressive change. I still want universal health care, and an economy built on ensuring the broadest possible distribution of both benefits and opportunities. I still value the greatest possible access to quality education, and I'm still committed to the government's role in ensuring a livable planet for our grandchildren. I still believe in all of those progressive doctrines that look to a better future.
And I know that some of those things can't necessarily be accomplished only by "building on" what is already established. Some changes will be, must be, more profound.
But I also know that in the face of an existential threat to our Republic and its people, change that is to endure and provide long-term benefits must be achieved by people working with a sense of possibility, building on hope, from a positive conviction of shared good. Not, as we are seeing now, by the heedless, smash-it-all-up iconoclasm of DickBro nihilistic greed.
And so it becomes imperative to focus on conserving the bedrock institutions we've already fought to establish over America's long march of history and justice. It becomes imperative to conserve the wisdom that has come with making the most hideous and costly errors, and learning from them. It becomes imperative to focus on conserving the core values of equity and justice, and meeting threats not with fear and hate, but with courage, love, and humility.
Guess that makes me the real conservative.
Who ever would have imagined?
introspectively,
Bright
irisblue
(32,969 posts)TygrBright
(20,759 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)loyal, committed mainstream Democrat: Because of the need to protect and conserve our governments and what they have have been doing right from attacks from a number of directions.
And Democrats are the protectors.
I was born and will die a strong liberal, but for nearly 40 years my main reason for registering Democrat was to be able to vote in the primaries, second empowerment through alliance. Need to rally to save democracy itself and what it means to be American? Not on the list.
The increasing extremism developing on both left and right also means I'm now newly appreciative of and fighting for the degree of the moderation and centrism that is critical to the functioning of democracies. A place I never needed to be before.
murielm99
(30,736 posts)I know where I stand on the issues. I have taken the test on politicalcompass.org, and found myself, predictably, pretty far to the left.
But the attacks on the Democrats who have spent years fighting the good fight, the splinter groups seeking to divide our party, the purity tests I am seeing applied, wrongly, to the big tent that our party has always been, have moved me to the center. They have moved me to the center only in that I would like to support what we have already.
The Democrats are our protectors, as you state. And we need to protect those we have elected to protect us.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)regrouping to protect the core of democracy.
And as more on both left and right come to realize, to their shock, that the America they themselves grew up in and thought would always be there is in danger of being lost...
elleng
(130,881 posts)it's my nature. The so-called political 'conservatives' are nothing of the sort; they are radicals, and have been for years.
Mr.Bill
(24,284 posts)are closer to being Anarchists than conservatives.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)embracing liberal ideas is not a bad thing. I do so.
Cognitive_Resonance
(1,546 posts)elleng
(130,881 posts)marybourg
(12,624 posts)keeps calling them "conservatives".
For some reason they are able to name things and have the names stick - witness "Obamacare" - but we are not
GWC58
(2,678 posts)Fascists!
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)elleng
(130,881 posts)That's what repugs have done for years, eviscerated public education in the U.S.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)roamer65
(36,745 posts)lambchopp59
(2,809 posts)I believe a strong swing of the political landscape pendulum is way overdue. Trump, completely impotent at delivery of his deplorable campaign proposals, having a strong likelihood to tromp the country into another recession unless he takes democratic socialist steps towards recovery, is in the lose/lose position with a major number of his supporters.
That is, if he doesn't get us nuked into dust, polluted beyond the reversable bell curve potential of climate change or wreck the economy enriching himself and his "conservative" ilk...
But honestly, I really thought Republicans had bought their last election with RayGun.
Then, here came the sly "Fox Noise".
malaise
(268,966 posts)Rec
lastlib
(23,222 posts)...just what it was that those GOPee so-called "conservatives" wanted to conserve, and one day I finally realized what it was:
--Wealth for the wealthy, power for the powerful, and strength for the strong. FUCK everyone else.
That's what conservatism is all about, Charlie Brown.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)being "conservative" and being a citizen of Dumbfuckistan! Proud to be a Conservative Progressive!
rurallib
(62,411 posts)Those deplorables are the most radical bent on revolution group I have ever seen.
There is no group in this country that is more hell bent on destroying our form of government and society and replacing it with some form of oligarchic dictator.
Conservative as you note means wanting to maintain what is there. I have been wrestling with what to call those right wing revolutionaries for many years. Me? I am truly conservative like you - which makes me a wild eyed liberal in today's twisted world.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)Their BS about not wanting activists judges is just more
projection. The RW want activists judges.
ornotna
(10,800 posts)con·ser·va·tor
kənˈsərvədər,kənˈsərvəˌtôr,ˈkänsərˌvādər/
noun
noun: conservator; plural noun: conservators
a person responsible for the repair and preservation of works of art, buildings, or other things of cultural or environmental interest.
US
a guardian or protector.
"the court does not need to appoint a conservator to handle an incapacitated person's affairs"
Demonaut
(8,914 posts)hate for a few
Leith
(7,809 posts)Conservatives were conservationists. The radicals in control of our country are nothing of the sort - but we are.
I'll add my name to the list of conservatives.
Hekate
(90,662 posts)...everyday conservative Republican. The radicals were looked on with suspician and derision. No one wanted to be "those people."
And now ...somehow they took over the GOP. Really took it over. Steve Bannon, for gods' sake.
So yes, I understand you completely. We have become the "conservatives." But we can't even use that term publicly, because it has been so degraded.
TygrBright
(20,759 posts)Elections have consequences, words have connotations, and where those two intersect, I want to insert the thin end of a wedge of communication, and keep banging away at it, however futile-seeming, until the crack widens and light comes through.
wearily,
Bright
Hekate
(90,662 posts)Really, mean it.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)I'm this kind of Conservative too.
eniwetok
(1,629 posts)I really hate these word game. This one works because the terms liberal and conservative are RELATIVE terms... and if one merely mentions uses another relative term of being for or against X... one can make ANY claim...
Hekate
(90,662 posts)eniwetok
(1,629 posts)It's a clever game of word play that tries to make black = white.
For example one is conservative because "I have not abandoned the mission of progressive change."?
It's as silly as a far right winger back in 1981 saying they were progressive because they just thought of a new economic theory called trickle down economics.
Stinky The Clown
(67,793 posts)I posted along these same lines on DU(Original) waaaaay back when. I was soundly booed, hissed, and chastised. Its nice to see some enlightenment.
K&R
TygrBright
(20,759 posts)In fact, it may be the most profound and powerful time spent during our span here.
Thanks.
soberly,
Bright
susanna
(5,231 posts)I had to read it a few times before it sunk in. Very thoughtful. Thank you for writing it.
TygrBright
(20,759 posts)TeamPooka
(24,223 posts)Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)I wince when I hear the media or anyone on the left apply the "C-word" to those radicals. It confers respectability and measurement on a people the have not earned the label with their deeds.
Scruffy1
(3,256 posts)Personally I think of them as fascists or just crooks. We really need to come up with a new term and quit letting them get away with controlling the language. Just like "Pro Life" isn't pro-life conservatives aren't "conservative"All the other terms I can come up with are too obscene for print.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)for their position on abortion. My daughter nearly died because she was doing an internship in a conservative state. She had sort of an ectopic pregnancy, but the fallopian tube burst and the mass spilled into her gut. There was not a chance in hell that anything could survive in any form. The only question was, were the team of docs going to let her die, by refusing to give her methotrexate, which can flush out the material, but anti abortionists are against it for that reason. One dr was against using it and claimed it was unlawful. A strong female with less status took over, and sais she was leaving for another state anyway, so fire me, sue me, whatever. We were hiring an attorney, but time was of the essence. The drs had already said she probably wouldn't make it. We had a cousin, who is known world wide as a gyn: my daughter is a doc; both myself and her husband were lawyers; and she had excellent insurance. We were prepared to use all of our assets to try and save her life
Imagine what some poor mom does, who has several kids in school, and leaving the state is very difficult. To even get information from these people is very difficult, and they are passing laws that say they do not even have to give you info.
No one is pro abortion. There are times it is necessary. Roe v Wade had built in protections for a viable fetus. If and when these abortion laws are changed, more women will die, very often in cases in which the fetus had little chance of surviving or of surviving with any quality of life.
I'm hoping that on that issue at least, Gorsuch will uphold Roe v Wade. He sort of indicated that. We will see. He is obviously not an empathetic person.
I have a lot of other slogans, uses of language, that need to be changed too.
The Repubs are good at that
What they say is catchy, and often exactly the opposite of what they are really trying to do.
We need a committee or something.
I agree , many are crooks and liars.
FakeNoose
(32,634 posts)It doesn't mean what it used to, thanks to all the AM-radio talkies and Faux News.
So I agree that we have to redefine terms now, and Tygerbright makes a good point here.
For most of my life I was a registered independent, but I became a Democrat just so that I could vote for Hillary in the primary. (That was in 2008.) I never thought of myself as liberal or conservative, just open-minded and willing to vote for the right person, regardless of their party.
Well you know what, since 1972 I never voted for a Republican for president or any seat in Congress. That's how open-minded I was. I never believed the GOP's bullshit even when Reagan was running. I still don't call myself a liberal, but I'm definitely voting Democratic in every election from here on out. If we can somehow get the deplorables to let go of the silly meaningless term "conservative" maybe they'd starting thinking for themselves instead of believing everything Limbaugh tells them.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)reasonable, as opposed to rash. For some, it means Christian. We definitely have a semantics problem.
caroldansen
(725 posts)that. Under the definition you wrote, the democrats are the true conservatives and the TRUE EVERYTHING.
AntiFascist
(12,792 posts)that is vehemently anti-socialist by definition and wants to bring the current establishment crashing down. ORDO AB CHAO. Much of this thinking is what put Trump into power in the first place.