Conservatives are defined by the need to burn it all down. The point is that they see a horrible past as glorious, torture as duty, and war as peace.
It doesn’t matter who dies or whatnot, everything is just a tool towards this goal, not the actual motivation behind it.
I think they’re mad. Charlie Kirk was their man, and he was so young, who knows what he could have been. Like, Trump is what, pushing 80? Plus he’s a felon, everyone knows he’s in the Epstein files… he is on his way out, in more ways than one. Kirk is a little cleaner. So all their hopes and dreams of keeping the coloured man down, keeping the “alphabet mafia” as Kirk called the LGBTQ+ community, down, were pinned on this guy, or at least a lot of those hopes, so yeah, they’re pretty pissed.
Thing is, they weren’t gonna let up on people of colour or people of different sexual identities/orientations anyway. And all signs show they were ramping up the violence against minorities. So yeah, they’re mad, but when they say things like “now it’s war” it’s hard to know what they mean since they were waging war before.
It’s like an abusive situation and a lot of these people are probably domestic abusers and come from that mindset. Like they were already going to do damage, but now that you’ve struck back? Oh, now you’re really in trouble. But you were never not in trouble because the problem isn’t you, it’s them. They were always gonna be that way. We have to figure out how to get our country out from under this bullshit.
Lol now they’re left with Tim Pool hahahaha
Charles Kirk was a fascist. Call him that.
I’m a conservative, and no. Charlie Kirk was awful. I’m a pacifist, so I’m not glad he’s dead but I’m not surprised either. “Those who live by the sword” and all that.
“Burn it all down” flies straight in the face of conservatism anyway. It’s all about tying to save the good things in society from destruction. When it feels like the government or society is all gone wrong is the time when it’s most important to save what we can.
I’ll be honest, it’s hard to feel hopeful when our current President won reëlection on a deeply regressive platform. The man is hostile to any kind of conservatism because he hates checks on his power. His vocal wrath is directed against progressive standards because that’s what riles up his base but at the same time he’s doing damage to our government and social institutions that will last for generations. He’s a nightmare for conservatism. But that just makes it all the more important to fight the tide. Giving up and burning it all down is not the answer.
I’m curious what it is about conservative ideology that appeals to you. Because I have come to the conclusion after several decades on this planet, that deep down (or I guess really not that deep at all) it is a destructive, and morally bankrupt philosophy.
I’m curious how you came to your conclusions, too, because the point of conservatism, to me, is to prevent destruction.
I’ve been a environmental conservationist my whole life. As I became an adult and aware of politics, I came to realize that just as the natural environment requires protection against the selfishness, greed, and short-sightedness of humanity, so too do all the social and political systems that take decades or centuries to build but only years or months to destroy (as we’ve seen under the current administration).
It’s been said many times that at the heart of all conservatism is fear. That’s not a very generous way to put it, but neither is it inaccurate. Fear of loss, fear of risk, fear of change. Conservatism holds that if things are pretty good, most changes are likely to make things worse and not better, and so change is to be treated with suspicion, and people pushing for it doubly so, since altruism is rare.
A bicycle needs both pedals and brakes. We need to move forward, but not recklessly. Before a change is made, the case needs to be argued as to why it is necessary, what it will cost (and there’s always a cost), how to ensure it actually achieves what it sets out to achieve, and how it might be misused in the future. In other words, before a change can be made in the name of Progress, it needs to be demonstrated that the change actually is Progress. To progressives, this feels like standing in the way of Progress. To a conservative, this is safeguarding Progress, the Progress previous generations achieved, from changes that, again, are more likely to be bad than good.
I think that, perhaps, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the generally accepted (speaking for the US here) definition of what the conservative political ideology actually is. I say that with all due respect.
Modern conservatives do not care about conserving the environment. Literally the opposite.
I know what the generally accepted definition is, I just don’t accept it. Regressives don’t have a right to call themselves conservative and I won’t stop calling them out on it.
You really don’t have to accept it in order for it to be our current reality.
What is the point of labels like this if they don’t signal what it is you believe, relatively accurately?
What is the point of labels like this if they don’t signal what it is you believe, relatively accurately?
This is exactly why it’s necessary to push back on those who would twist it to mean something else.
I think you’re about 80 years too late for that. At least.
You built up your very own definition of the word while ignoring what any political conservative movement in the world actually does. You listened to someone’s argument on the concept of a definition, an idea that was stapled to a word in your head, without actually looking at factual reality. What you describe is simply not what any conservative party anywhere does.
Starting with the idea that you are conserving something that runs well and not spending resource on frivolous nonsense that doesn’t work - just look at everything a conservative party actually funds while blocking money for anything remotely humanitarian because they claim it doesn’t work, or based on the slightest disagreement about a boundary, while being themselves the very reason it doesn’t work.
Look at what is actually protected. And at who isn’t, based on not giving too much to someone you don’t think deserves it. Do those who already have all that deserve it?
Starting with your environmental conservationist sensibility and deducing (edit: typo) that you want to be a conservative is already super wild, it’s antinomic. You think you protect something from greed and selfishness, but those who who block progress are the selfish ones who hoard everything out of greed, using “this doesn’t deserve it” or “you can’t prove this works” as an excuse to keep everything. You are not safeguarding anything, and there’s zero place for environmental protection in any conservative party anywhere.
In other words, before a change can be made in the name of Progress, it needs to be demonstrated that the change actually is Progress. To progressives, this feels like standing in the way of Progress. To a conservative, this is safeguarding Progress, the Progress previous generations achieved, from changes that, again, are more likely to be bad than good.
That’s not what we see with Conservatism with, and is much more in line with 20th century Progressivism (i.e. leveraging empirical knowledge to moderate political change).
Conservativism in practice, as I’ve seen it almost invariably, says new is always bad, traditional is always good. It’s a bicycle that’s all brakes and no pedals.
Sometimes a system that took centuries to build, like chattel slavery, should be destroyed in months or years, and inaction does more bad than good. Progressivism took off after the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution because empirical data showed that traditional structures were ill-suited for the quickly evolving world.
Conservativism in the modern era is akin to trying to fill your gas tank with oats and hay. Cars aren’t horses, and the longer you drag your feet in updating your policies, the more damage you’re going to do to your engine.
Conservatism holds that if things are pretty good, most changes are likely to make things worse and not better
The problem is that things aren’t pretty good for most people. The system is in shambles and most suggested changes probably would make things better for everyone who isn’t a millionaire.
Nazis hate preachers aren’t awful for conservatism, they ARE conservatism.
“But I’m just a fiscal conservative, the only REAL kind of conservative!”
You’re joining forces with nazis. If you’re not a nazi, you’re a nazi collaberator. So please kindly go fuck yourself with your bullshit that only you believe.
Fiscal conservatism doesn’t work, any economist can tell you that.
You’re completely correct that conservatism destroyed its reputation when it allied with the religious right in an attempt at political power. The regressives took over the GOP, calling themself conservatives all the while. Terrible to watch from the outside, but like I said, giving up is not the answer. The only thing to do is push back, and try to save what can be saved.
The only thing to do is push back, and try to save what can be saved.
Not trying to bait here but what do you want to save and how far back are you going to find something worth saving? Some aspects of fiscal conservatism have their merits but I’m stumped thinking of any good socially-conservative opinions from the past hundred years
A non-stacked Supreme Court
The Electoral College
Human Rights
Civil Rights
Checks on Presidential power
the American melting pot
Birthright Citizenship
Separation of Church and State
basically all of the Enlightenment ideals the country was founded on and have been working towards, it fits and starts, for most of her existence
I hadn’t considered the Electoral College thing so I’ll give you that…but the rest of the list, aside from the supreme court thing which is non-partisan, are things conservatives (famously) fought against.
Are you sure you’re conservative? If you really hold those ideals, I think you might actually be progressive…
This list is all things under attack by the current administration that I want to push back and protect, that’s the point. That was the question I was answering.
I was moreso asking about the values that used to (but no longer) exist in the republican party as the main change I see is the willingness to let the mask slip.
Though I am still confused why you consider yourself a conservative when you support all those progressive ideas! I am not a conservative but we seem to agree on a whole lot
Many years ago I got banned from r/conservative for asking where exactly conservation came into play as part of their ideology. On its face, being conservative sounds awesome. I want to conserve this planet’s ecology. I want to conserve human rights. I have never seen any conservative American politician in the last thirty some-odd years try to conserve anything. It would be much more apt to call them regressionists, but they’re so much worse than that.
But since you willingly identify yourself as a conservative, and you’re here, what is your take?
Edit: After reading through your other responses… Never mind. I can see you are more a literalist when it comes to the definition of the word conservative, but that is not and has never been what the political ideology has been for or about. Your attempts to make it something it’s not may be noble, if not misguided when you could just associate yourself with the people who believe in the same things you do.
Democrat here. Didn’t want to burn it all down. Hoped there would be adults in the room to reel trump in like last time. Nope. He’s wrecking everything and I’m not sure it’s possible to put it all back together again even if it’s possible to put dems in charge.
I’m not sure it’s possible to put it all back together again even if it’s possible to put dems in charge.
We crossed this threshold on day 3.
Crocodile tears from crocodiles.
Edit:Alex Jones is already basically comitting taking Kirk’s “job” of going to colleges probably because he’d like a slice of those millions Kirk was paid.
These maga freaks would wear their friend’s skin like a suit if it made them an extra dirty dollar.
I’ll worry about 50,000 other things today before the question of how conservatives are feeling crosses my mind. It’s not important.
Trump & co are working towards stripping away the power of the people who already don’t have much power. I don’t think these two events are comparable.
Charlie Kirk might even have been killed by a far right Goyper. I’m not sure what conservatives can burn down apart from themselves.
" I’m not sure what conservatives can burn down apart from themselves."
Fucking everything. They want to burn it all down. Even if it doesn’t affect them, they want to fuck it up.
The less you have, the more they have. They don’t need more things to get comparitively richer, they just need to take things away from you. You wouldn’t do that, because you’re not mentally damaged, but they sure do at every opportunity.
I’m afraid that’s what they’re going to do, because they’re never rational. They will use this opportunity to accelerate their damaging politics.
He didn’t just die. He was murdered. Just saying
Oh do you mean like all the children that are dying in Gaza? No particular reason or anything, just dying. Sometimes (rarely) “killed”, by whom you ask? Just killed, no need to discuss the matter any further.
What? You seem unhinged.
It is a reference to how western newspapers say there are “deaths” in Gaza without explaining who caused those deaths. In the same way CK was murdered, those people have also been murdered, but western media won’t phrase it that way.
It’s all going to be a bit presumptuous unless someone who genuinely identifies as a conservative and it’s steeped specifically in the subcultures and particular varieties of conservatism Kirk was in to chimes in, but I’m not sure that they have that feeling in the way you’re describing in response to this incident because I guess you kind of can’t really feel that way more so when you’re already at that point that you feel like things are unsalvageable. Reaching that point, or being at that point already seems to be sort of the essence of the MAGA movement and why it was so successful even as people pointed out hypocrisies amongst it’s proponents or how the tenets of conservatism seemed so changeable so long as it’s Trump changing them at any given moment. Their movement basically encapsulated this with phrases like “drain the swamp”. They already long since considered the establishment order a quagmire.
Despite the irony that their saviour is still running for office within that system and contesting in elections within the supposedly beyond-fixing electoral system, they feel, I think, that Trump and his malleable brand of conservatism represents the final “burn everything down” revolution that will eventually result in the phoenix of the “great” America rising from the ashes. In this way it’s fine for Trump to forgo or undermine elections in future, to destroy institutions, even act in apparent defiance of supposedly core conservative ideals at times, because it’s part of the master plan to get rid of all the undesirables and defang opposition to the great new order that will eventually emerge.
To my mind within that framework, the maximal point fatigue and the end of patience and tolerance for the status quo was long since reached and support for Trump isn’t like traditional support for a candidate in the past, it’s more like outsourcing the revolution they’d otherwise take part in themselves, minimising the risk to themselves in the process. Events like the Kirk shooting do seen dangerous though in as much as many of those supporters likely think of themselves as revolutionaries in waiting until either the official word is given or some transcendent event lights the fuse in some way that becomes clear once it happens. This shooting might be viewed in that light. So rather than reacting to it like “that’s it! I’m now fed up with this system, time to burn it down” it could be more like “that’s the signal, I’ve already packed my go-bag and the gun under my pillow was already loaded anyway”.
No, not really comparable. Unless your blue anon and think Trump cheated. Probably more apt to compare J6.
Hurting others is all they care about. They’re fucking psychos. Stay strapped and don’t become their victim
No. Not even close.
Conservative religious terrorists feel hate, and that hate is cultured from childhood into a life-long, fictional god-approved hate.
Normal humans not suffering from major psychological instability don’t do this unless indoctrinated into a hate religion from a young age.
Seeing a hate preacher stop hate preaching is a good thing that bad people are pretending is a bad thing.
The orange pimple didn’t get elected, and that caused more confusion than anything.
Seeing a hate preacher stop hate preaching is a good thing that bad people are pretending is a bad thing.
That’s not what happened though. The message got amplified by the way this murder happened, and the cheeryness of how many people reacted.
If the self-proclaimed good guys repeatably celebrate violence over dialogue, then there’s no good, nor a need for dialogue. A valid conclusion were the premise true. Yet a message that’s now loudly shared.
There will be radical people like that.
