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When did conservatism turn violent

Dcdrac

Philosopher
Dcdrac
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
5,141
I gre up in a conservative family and i do not rcall violence being the cntre for sorting the worlds ills, on the contrary the ideaology seemed at least, if not the practice, to sterr clear of violence and keep order at all codts. So when did conservatism turn to the violent prescriptions that, unless I am wildly misinterpreting htem, I see coming from the conservative types posting here?
 
Dcdrac said:
I gre up in a conservative family and i do not rcall violence being the cntre for sorting the worlds ills, on the contrary the ideaology seemed at least, if not the practice, to sterr clear of violence and keep order at all codts. So when did conservatism turn to the violent prescriptions that, unless I am wildly misinterpreting htem, I see coming from the conservative types posting here?
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I grew up in a conservative family as well. I remember conservative ideals as being more patriotic whereas now they seem more nationalistic. I remember the push for a strong defense, whereas now we concentrate on a strong offense. I remember my conservative father pointing to the ideals that made us "better than the Soviet Union," whereas now we spy on our own people, attempt to censor the media (or incarcerate them when they don't comply), and I remember the pride with which my father pointed to America as a melting pot where citizens can coexist together in harmony, whereas now we point at each other in suspicion and paranoia.

I also remember when (some) Conservatives could maintain an honest debate without resorting to personal attacks, graceless misdirection or shameless excuses. Certainly there are liberals who are equally guilty of fanaticism, but the neo-cons (at least to me) are very obviously guilty of a new brand of political vehemence and their knee-jerk reactions to many "problems" is very disturbing, especially if you consider the amount of lives being lost to their solutions.
 
the push for a strong defense, whereas now we concentrate on a strong offense
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Because the soviet union's conventional warfare strategy would have been a massive tank rush? Rather different to the threats we face today.
 
When was conservatism peaceful? Explain how the jingoism of the 1800's, the Spanish American War, and Mexican American War, the Westard Expansion and genocide of Native Americans, and the thousands of lynchings of any black person "uppity" enough to step out of line and try to be equal to the white people in defiance of tradition were all perfectly conservative. Conservatism values law and tradition, not peace. Conservtism assumes "we" are better than "them." Wherever there was someone preserving tradition over justice, fairness, life and liberty, there was Conservatism.
 
the conservatism i was bought up with stressed civic service, serving the country, and maintaining the peace and respect for other people, none of which I can detect in modern conservatism.
 
Dcdrac said:
the conservatism i was bought up with stressed civic service, serving the country, and maintaining the peace and respect for other people, none of which I can detect in modern conservatism.
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Civic duty is a value. Conservatism is, as much as it can be defined, as it lacks any strongly unifying doctrines or writings, concerned with the preservation of traditions, including values. A liberal view might be that civic duty is good because it helps people. A conservative view might be that civic duty is good because it's traditional. The value itself is niether conservative nor liberal.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Civic duty is a value. Conservatism is, as much as it can be defined, as it lacks any strongly unifying doctrines or writings, concerned with the preservation of traditions, including values. A liberal view might be that civic duty is good because it helps people. A conservative view might be that civic duty is good because it's traditional. The value itself is niether conservative nor liberal.
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Well I am talikng about the old brtisih version of conservatism and not the vurulent modern uS type we seem to have on show these days.
 
Dcdrac said:
I gre up in a conservative family and i do not rcall violence being the cntre for sorting the worlds ills, on the contrary the ideaology seemed at least, if not the practice, to sterr clear of violence and keep order at all codts.
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There's your problem: you never even recognized that your understanding of the situation was self-contradictory. If one is willing to maintain order at all costs, then one is willing to maintain order at the cost of violence, because order does not equate to a lack of violence. I have no idea what your family was like, whether they were really "order at all costs" types, non-violence types, or perhaps a preference for both but a flexibility about which to choose when both options become mutually exclusive. I just know that your above description doesn't work.

Oh, and I know that perfect spelling isn't really important, but my gods, man, I haven't seen such poor typing skills in a long time!
 
If you had to contend with dyslexia everyday you would not worry too much about typing skills
 
Dcdrac said:
So when did conservatism turn to the violent prescriptions that, unless I am wildly misinterpreting htem, I see coming from the conservative types posting here?
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Around the time you stopped beating your wife.

When did liberals start equating free speech over the internet with violence?
 
Dcdrac said:
If you had to contend with dyslexia everyday you would not worry too much about typing skills
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And yet, I notice that when you apparently do put a little effort into it, you are perfectly capable of writing a completely readable sentence, marred only by one small, and commonly-made error ("everyday" <> "every day") and the missing period at the end of the sentence. Congratulations, and keep up the good work.
 
Dcdrac said:
If you had to contend with dyslexia everyday you would not worry too much about typing skills
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Fair enough. You might want to consider getting spell-check support for your browser, though. If you use Firefox, for example, you can install spellbound to provide spell checking within web forms.

Now, about that self-contradiction...
 
ImaginalDisc said:
When was conservatism peaceful? Explain how the jingoism of the 1800's, the Spanish American War, and Mexican American War, the Westard Expansion and genocide of Native Americans, and the thousands of lynchings of any black person "uppity" enough to step out of line and try to be equal to the white people in defiance of tradition were all perfectly conservative. Conservatism values law and tradition, not peace. Conservtism assumes "we" are better than "them." Wherever there was someone preserving tradition over justice, fairness, life and liberty, there was Conservatism.
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At the time where those concervative? The problem seems to be that Concervatives really don't need to be convervative, as that would be in favor of the status quo and low rates of change.

I don't think you can view american expansion as concervative because it was changing what people thought america could do.

Many modern Concervatives would need to move subsantialy to the left to be concervative.
 
Dcdrac said:
I gre up in a conservative family and i do not rcall violence being the cntre for sorting the worlds ills, on the contrary the ideaology seemed at least, if not the practice, to sterr clear of violence and keep order at all codts. So when did conservatism turn to the violent prescriptions that, unless I am wildly misinterpreting htem, I see coming from the conservative types posting here?
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Can you give some examples of the "violent prescriptions" being advocated here?
 
ponderingturtle said:
At the time where those concervative? The problem seems to be that Concervatives really don't need to be convervative, as that would be in favor of the status quo and low rates of change.

I don't think you can view american expansion as concervative because it was changing what people thought america could do.

Many modern Concervatives would need to move subsantialy to the left to be concervative.
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The myth of the United States as perpetually expanding was part of the Manifest Desinty creed which dominted the 1800's. West we went, with guns. Mexicans, Indians, it didn't matter who was there, we shot them dead for the crime of being on our land before we got there. It was just, because our way of life was awesome, and theirs was bad. Besides, they started it by fighting back! Since we can exploit their land better than they can, we deserve to have it. - Conservatism.
 
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