TID: Mystic BBS 1.12 A46   
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   On 26 May 2020 at 05:55p, Aaron Thomas pondered and said...   
       
    AT>  DC> way, you shouldn't use the word "we" when talking about   
    AT>  DC> conservatives, since you aren't one if you support Trump.   
    AT>    
    AT> I've heard this before; people don't know what is meant by conservative   
    AT> vs liberal. I took World Politics 101, and the course taught me that   
    AT> conservatives don't want to waste money, and they put the USA first,   
    AT> while liberals do want to waste money, and they want to be governed by   
    AT> international law.   
      
   Wow, your "World Politics 101" professor wasn't very good.   
      
   What you're describing is nationalism.   
      
   Classically, a Liberal is someone who believes in the   
   perfectibility of humans: that is, that we can be greater   
   than that that are.   
      
   A conservative, by contrast, is one who believes that we   
   are fundamentally corruptible and must be placed into a rigid   
   structure to curb our baser instincts, for our own good.   
      
   Liberals favor freedom and work for the common good.   
   Conservatives favor structure and limiting the individual   
   for the common good.   
      
   This has morphed, of course; now, Liberals are still about   
   freedom, but also about using the state as an apparatus to   
   support that as well as provide for general equity.   
   Generally, liberals want to see society evolve to be more   
   inclusive and egalitarian.  They do not feel fettered by   
   the confines of tradition as a motivator, or adherence to   
   a rigid social structure.   
      
   Conservatives are about limiting the role of the state, and   
   slowing the rate of social change.  They see tradition as   
   the model for future growth, favoring individual discovery   
   of better ways of being by working within the confines of   
   a existing, strongly proscribed social order.   
      
   There is much to be admired in this _true_ conservative   
   ideal.  Certainly, being careful and introspective with   
   sweeping social change is, on its face, laudable.  Limiting   
   the role of government in lives is useful as an aspiration,   
   as well.   
      
   Unfortunately, classic conservatism has been usurped by   
   right-wing forces that favor authoritarianism and want to   
   halt, not just slow, social change.  Liberals have long   
   recognized that the fundamental problem with the conservative   
   approach is that, very often, there's just not all that much   
   that's good in those rigid social structures and traditions:   
   too often, they exist to maintain a status quo in which one   
   group dominates another to the enrichment of the former and   
   great detriment (including, yes, loss of freedom) of the   
   latter.  True conservatives can recognize this and discuss it   
   rationally and acknowledge that, yes, these corrupted traditions   
   should be discarded wholesale: the right-wing, however, sees   
   them as an opportunity to gain power and enrich itself.   
      
   So ... that's what you really are: a right-winger, not a   
   conservative.  Don't believe me?  Well, you support Trump:   
   remember that one of his campaign planks was to pump a   
   trillion dollars into the economy to build up our infrastructure?   
   Since when is government funding on such a massive scale a   
   conservative ideal?  And that's just One example.   
      
    AT> I used to be a college kid. I wanted to see limits on greenhouse gases,   
    AT> and I wanted to be friends with all the nice Islamic people. But then I   
    AT> graduated & got a feel for the real world and noticed that the USA is   
    AT> wasting tons of money on crap like the WHO, losing tons of money on crap   
    AT> like the Paris Accord, opening itself up for attacks by foreign   
    AT> extremists, and letting career politicians fool weak-minded people with   
    AT> propaganda.   
      
   Seems like you're the one who's weak minded and bought the   
   propaganda.  When I see extremism in this country, I mostly   
   see its own citizens, particularly the right-wingers.  Who   
   shows up to rallies with guns and all tac'ed out like some   
   third-rate SPECOPS wannabes, or maybe just a bunch of   
   never-served losers doing military cosplay with ARs?  These   
   are the same people who "prep" by buying a bunch of cheap   
   Baofeng UV-5r HTs and stuffing them into Pelican cases, but   
   who have no idea to maintain them after they break the first   
   time they drop them.  What a bunch of posers.   
      
   It's funny that you think we "lost" a bunch of money to the   
   Paris Accord.  How so?  Seems to be that there were 4x as   
   many people working in clean energy (solar etc) when Trump   
   came into office as were working in coal, but what'd he double   
   down on?  We _could_ have opened new markets and become the   
   world's leader on something that is clearly going to be hot:   
   instead, under our "conservative" leadership, we went in for   
   something that was already getting its ass kicked in the market   
   on its own lack of merits.  Really smart.  We just handed that   
   market to China while we cling to our dying assets.   
      
   The WHO was giving us an inside look into COVID-19 early this   
   year via its backchannels; we should have gotten ready, instead   
   Trump ignored it and downplayed it while he golfed, tweeted,   
   and held rallies.  He's so dumb he even retweeted a picture   
   of himself fiddling, alluding to Nero fiddling as Rome burned.   
   But that's what you get when you elect a president who doesn't   
   read and doesn't listen to actual experts.   
      
   And I noticed you again ignored my question: what has Trump   
   done for you, specifically, that's so great?  What are his major   
   accomplishments as you see them?   
   --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/04/20 (Windows/32)   
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