I’d like to start a series seeking viewpoints from across the political spectrum in general discussions about modern society and where everyone stands on what is not working, what is working, and where we see things going in the future.
Please answer in good-faith and if you don’t consider yourself conservative or “to the right”, please reserve top-level discussion for those folks so it reaches the “right” folks haha.
Please don’t downvote respectful content that is merely contrary to your political sensibillities, lets have actual discourse and learn more about each other and our respective viewpoints.
Will be doing other sides soon but lets start with this and see where it takes us.
Conservatives, or people who would be considered conservative on Lemmy?
Lemmings who consider themselves and tend to the right politically. I realize Lemmy heavily leans left so this might be a less engaged thread but I want to do different vantage points as seperate threads.
It’s hella weird around here, because I consider myself moderate-to-reasonably-left wing, but by Lemmy standards I’m probably waaaaaay conservative. Like some of the stuff I see celebrated around here definitely makes my eyebrows shoot up.
And like, I’d actually enjoy having this discussion as well in that frame, but I don’t think I can honestly answer as a “conservative”.
Hahah- i started calling myself a San Francisco conservative: absolutely left leaning but compared to the folks in SF I’m not blue enough.
Right?
I basically identify as a socialist these days. But like, Scandinavian flavored, if that makes sense? So, strong socialized public services on a lot of fronts where it’s logical to do so, strong unions engaging in robust and productive dialog with the government and corporations, and - yeah - corporations. Capitalism can be, and is, a good system if it’s a component of the system instead of the entire system. The problem with most western economies is that neoliberal “captains of industry” have decided it’s time to take the governors off of that steam engine, and they’ve lobbied their respective governments to do so… and now the engine is running away (For those unfamiliar with the rough operating principles of steam engines, this is one of the possible outcomes of a runaway engine).
I agree that a disturbingly large proportion of our economy is straight up not working for humanity. But I also think a lot more good can be achieved much more quickly if we actually try to fix things instead of just tearing everything down (which I think would harm a LOT more people in ways that most people don’t fully understand). We just need to be more humanist about it (about a lot of things, really, but this topic in particular would be a great start).
From the reactions I get from some circles, you’d think I was calling for a fully libertarian hypercapitalist society. Which incidentally, is one of the things that frustrates me about the ML crowd: they’re frustratingly dogmatic in areas where it just doesn’t make sense to be, and they often refuse to admit when their theory doesn’t match with reality.
Lemmy seems like quite a progressive/leftist circlejerk to me atm, I think you’d have to change platforms to find many authentic conservatives
I was called “extremely right wing” the other day by a tankie, so I guess I can technically answer:
- Politicians pushing regressive legislation and talking points, instead of just letting people be who they are
- Conservatives who have no interest in conserving anything
- Extreme and growing wealth gaps
- Money in politics
- They never renewed Firefly
- They renewed Star Wars
- Fascists allowed to walk around unpunched
…yeah, as you can probably guess, I don’t exactly consider myself a conservative. You need to define what you consider centrist in this context.
Can I say I’m a single issue voter on Firefly?
Honestly, based on the stories I’ve heard about Joss Whedon, I’m not too sad about Firefly anymore.
Well, we’ve become so tolerant, we’ve forgotten that somethings are just not good, and it’s become taboo to talk about certain things.
Certain ideologies are just not compatible with western culture, specifically those who condone raping women and murdering lgbtq people. Ideologies are not races or ethnicity, they are not inherent to you like race is. Nazis are an ideology, so why give other ideologies a pass?
Furthermore, immigration hurts the average worker. A person born into a poorer country will usually work for less than a person born into a richer country. Immigrants are basically scabs, cheap abusable labor, and that’s why we let in millions into western countries.
Canadians can’t buy a house, the UK can’t get a doctors appointment, Germany elected the nazis in, Italy came close to electing fascists, Sweden is the rape capitol of Europe, and America is close to electing Trump again, wages are down every where, purchasing power is down, everything is fucked.
We’ve let in so many in the name of tolerance it causes problems that we aren’t even allowed to discuss, and it’s destroying our countries.
There’s a flip side to this too. First world countries that are completely opposed to immigration are starting to see a significant population decline which will come with a whole host of other problems.
And in the US at least it’s actually extremely difficult to immigrate through legal means. You have to be a qualified professional and generally have to be sponsored by an employer to get a green card, or have family members that are citizens. The main issue is people that abuse loop holes to get into the country without going through the immigration process. And I agree, that’s a problem that needs to be solved. It really does a disservice to the hard working immigrants that work their ass off to become US citizens/permanent residents the legal way.
First world countries that are completely opposed to immigration are starting to see a significant population decline which will come with a whole host of other problems.
I think the benefits, like less enviromental impact, outweigh the problems of lower population.
You are correct, as quality of life increases overall fertility rates decrease. That does need to be solved, and immigration is part of that solution. Unlimited/unregulated immigration is not.
Difficulty with legal immigration is generally the case for almost every first world country, the US is not abnormal or exclusive there. I do not meet qualifications to immigrate to Canada, or anywhere in Europe right now even as a tech sector worker, except possibly by having family history through my ancestors. I am not arguing that US immigration policy needs a lot of work, but it’s not fair how much the US gets singled out for it as if it’s the outlier here.
Sounds less like immigration hurts and more that lack of proper support networks and lack of regulation of capitalism is causing problems.
What’s the point of having a “free market” if you only want it free in the one way you prefer, and refuse to allow any other?
The invisible hand of the market is not all powerful, which is why regulation and safeguards are needed for a “free” market to function. Anti-monopoly laws, labor laws, etc. I lean libertarian, but do not embrace 100% laissez-faire economics. Immigration falls under this same framework.
The West has eliminated their manufacturing and blue collar base by outsourcing it overseas, which hurt large swaths of the working class. Outsourcing labor by importing labor from overseas to do the job cheaper here has similar results. See the agricultural sector in the US for this example. Everyone always says that the reason immigrants are needed is because Americans don’t want to do those jobs, but leave out “for the wages paid”.
Some regulation is needed, and we have had wholesale failure of meaningful regulation and complete regulatory capture by the oligarchy which started under Reagan and snowballed out of control since. Proper support networks and social safety nets have also failed, for the same reasons. Unrestricted immigration does not solve these issues, and with these holes in place does indeed hurt.
Things that aren’t a problem when everything is healthy and working as intended can definitely hurt when things aren’t healthy. Obviously the “health issues” need to be addressed to actually fix the problem, but ignoring symptoms while doing so doesn’t help.
Do you know what a union is? How about strikes and scabs? Immigrants are effectively scabs that dont know any better.
Certain ideologies are just not compatible with western culture, specifically those who condone raping women and murdering lgbtq people. Ideologies are not races or ethnicity, they are not inherent to you like race is. Nazis are an ideology, so why give other ideologies a pass?
I don’t think anyone is giving them a pass?
Furthermore, immigration hurts the average worker. A person born into a poorer country will usually work for less than a person born into a richer country. Immigrants are basically scabs, cheap abusable labor, and that’s why we let in millions into western countries.
Just not true, according to the data we have, a vast majority of workers are better off with immigration.
The only group which is hurt by it is people without high school diploma, which is bad, but the increased productivity and tax revenue could also easily be used to help those people.
Canadians can’t buy a house, the UK can’t get a doctors appointment.
How are these things caused by tolerance? The first one is a runaway unregulated housing market, and the second one is caused by austerity.
Sweden is the rape capitol of Europe
Just not true due to a huge variety of factors I am too lazy to explain right now.
America is close to electing Trump again, wages are down every where, purchasing power is down, everything is fucked.
Again, how is this caused by being tolerant of minorities?
We’ve let in so many in the name of tolerance it causes problems that we aren’t even allowed to discuss, and it’s destroying our countries.
“When I said that gay people are driving the wages down at Thanksgiving my family looked at me weird.”
I don’t think anyone is giving them a pass?
In France the left has the following explanation most of the time: “he doesn’t have our cultural reference and doesn’t know it’s bad,” or “he’s psychologically disturbed and therefore not his fault so no prison.”
“he doesn’t have our cultural reference and doesn’t know it’s bad,”
I guess I’ve seen people say this? But it’s not really the common way of thinking in most progressive spaces. Can’t really say for France specifically though, I guess.
“he’s psychologically disturbed and therefore not his fault so no prison.”
In these cases people are usually put on involuntary psych holds, and reassessed over time, as far as I know?
Either way, not really getting off scott-free.
Certain ideologies are just not compatible with western culture, specifically those who condone raping women and murdering lgbtq people.
I hear this argument a decent amount, but have never heard it actually expressed - only held up as a straw man argument on immigration issues.
None of us wants shitheads around. Some of us just want to give everyone a chance to prove whether they’re a shithead or not, before deciding whether they can immigrate.
I agree with most points except immigration since the workers compete in the same global economy except corporation get to pick the workers and laws ala cart while workers get stuck where they are born with huge hurdles to change that.
Their entire point is about immigration.
They went out of there way to say “not race or ethnicity” so I guess I feel that should separate out normal immigration rhetoric in my mind.
If taken in good faith
It was all immigration. Sone ideologies should not immigrate.
I suppose I’m conservative according to lemmy, (I’m also not great at internet arguments, but do like conversation, so let’s keep this nice.) Also, I’m not an expert, but I’d like to get the ball rolling here.
In my opinion, I think modern society is just more disrespectful. Social media makes the “shock and awe” approach the way to go to get views and get heard. Everyone is just pursuing their own “mic drop” moment. There’s just so much noise.
So to get heard and stand out you have to get more extreme and entrench in your own views.
So how do we fix it?
In my mind, respect comes from better parenting. More time off from work for people does not necessarily mean more time with their own kids, but it certainly can’t hurt. So maybe a reduction in the normal working week from 40 hours to maybe 35 would make a difference.
I’m not sure how we could make incentives to have people be better parents.
It’s a fair point. I don’t know if I could say I put all the blame on bad parenting, but I do think absence of parents (or, maybe, absence of parental attention) is definitely a thing that stunts kids emotionally for a number of reasons (including overexposure to social media).
I think the incentive to be a better parent is already there for most people; humans are pretty well hardwired to want to look after our offspring. But it’s being drowned out by multiple other incentives to spend time elsewhere, or risk falling into trouble - financial, social, whatever. It’s going to take more than an hour off from work a day to ease the incredible anxiety we’re filled with to focus on working more/harder.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I have all the answers either, but I think it’s going to take a multi-pronged approach.
So what do you make of my experience? For background, I used to live in an apartment in an otherwise-wealthy and desirable neighborhood, and worked at a grocery store. Within several blocks of me, there were three different well-to-do families that adopted daughters as infants from troubled backgrounds, probably with drug-abusing birth mothers.
One daughter worked at the same store I did. She regularly called in, or otherwise didn’t show up for work. Her diet was atrocious, she was always fighting with certain other employees, and eventually got fired for swiping her employee badge to get the discount for any cute guy who’d talk to her. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, or the most ambitious. Her sisters, though, were star students, and went on to attend Ivy League schools, and got high-powered jobs.
The 19-year-old daughter of another family moved into the apartment across the hall from me. Her parents paid the rent, because she would fight with her mother constantly at home. She couldn’t keep a job, even at the co-op across the street (absenteeism, again). She kept a string of pets that she couldn’t take care of, eventually a rabbit that she tortured by leaving alone for several days at a time while she was staying with her 50-something boyfriend. One time, she met a homeless man, and let him move into the apartment she wasn’t using (without informing our landlord). While she lived there, I had a chronic problem with small flies in my apartment, no matter how much I cleaned. When my landlord finally evicted her, he threw out the refrigerator, because it was caked and crawling with maggots. (The flies went away.)
The daughter of a third family, a friend of my landlord, got involved with a troubled young man, another student at her school. They hatched a scheme whereby he’d rob her parents, but the robbery went wrong. He shot them and left their bodies by the side of the road in a nearby wooded area. Same deal as the first family, though, her siblings were well-behaved, and good students.
These particular kids were problem children, although raised in exactly the same environment as their siblings, by the same parents. They had love, wealth, good schools, close involvement in their lives, lots of activities, medical needs attended to, et cetera, et cetera. What more could any of these couples possibly have done? In contrast, most people who have abusive, neglectful parents turn out to be responsible citizens, despite their emotional turmoil. Bottom line, I don’t buy the “bad parenting” explanation. There are way too many holes in it. What would better parenting look like, exactly?
Wouldn’t surprise me if they have loads of children and fuck up the next generation and thr cycle repeats. Forced sterilisation would be a great idea if it wasn’t such a terrible idea.
I honestly think unless humanity can diversify into different ideologies we are doomed.
Can you define conservative?
I am right-leaning and voted republican until Obama. My beliefs haven’t changed, but as the tea party took over, the parties shifted, and now my vote is typically for a conservative democrat, as the republican party strays farther and farther right.
So I’ve always been left leaning. But I went to uni for economics so some of my left views I believe are best solved through the market, which appear right wing.
Also I have given up with current left parties for the moment so will probably vote right in the next election.
I think more things need to be nationalised, like rail and water, need more money for schools and hospitals and the police (somehow that’s a right wing view on this website unbelievably everything short of communism seems right wing in this place.)
But largely I think we need more money in the hands of people, more taxes and value needs to be more accurately addressed (externalities).
The belief coming forward in economics is money beats everything. Poor people don’t have enough food? Don’t give them free food give them cash, it’s better for them and cheaper for the state. So eventually UBI needs to exist but cash transfers are the way for people that need help.
Things that pay back in 20 years should be focused on. Subsidised nurseries and free things for teenagers to do.
Rail adds value to the area directly around it so rail is subsidised by a Land value tax on the wealth it creates around it. (Japan does this sort of, they own land around stations). Land value tax in general is great.
This is all going to cost money and people ultimately need to pay for it. So people will have less wealth but if you can free up costs then it can be a win win. More for the state and more for the people. So let’s solve the housing crisis and wage stagnation. Immigration! That’s why I’m voting right wing. Unskilled labour keeps wages down and house prices up, it’s as simple as that. The capitalist win and that’s why they try to gaslight everyone into thinking bringing in people that contribute less to the economy and commit more crime than locals is a good thing. (Stats are out there. Some countries absolutely don’t do this, some do. A lot is lost in averages but some demographics make the country worse some obviously better).
Personally I’d demolish a lot of low density land and build more houses (privately) downtown and link it with public transport.
We work too much and we need to start reducing the working hours and put more money into reeducation. I’d probably give tax discounts to business that set up outside of the main cities too.
On a personal societal level we have also lost sight of what equality actually is. Equality isn’t treating people differently because they are different, it’s treating people the same even if they are different.
Equality isn’t treating people differently because they are different, it’s treating people the same even if they are different.
This idea really breaks down when you apply it to people with disabilities who have different needs than the norm, and that problem applies to systemically disadvantaged people too. Society isn’t one size fits all, we need to cater to everyone.
Obviously if you need some disability then that’s going to be an exception to the rule.
But when someone says “We need more women in the workforce so let’s only hire women. Men need not apply” that’s not equality. If we said “This person worse at the job but he’s black so we will make the enter easier for him because he can’t compete with white people.” That’s not equality.
Minorities get passed over and screwed over for basic needs like housing, education, childcare, etc. As a result, when someone says “we only hire competent people, the best people for the job, it’s not our fault if these minorities we interviewed happen to be incompetent” that’s already setting things up to reduce their presence in society, which loops into making them poorer, with less access to basic needs and so on. Refusing to hire a woman for one job and hiring a man instead because you think she’s less competent is tunnel vision, you’re focusing on a single job and trying to scale that to the whole of society; the most direct answer is just to hire more people and train everyone. It’s corporate thinking to assume you will only hire a single perfect worker for all of your jobs, but all you’re doing is only reducing your work force, which only ever works for the corporate bottom line until you run out of people to fire. And when the imbalance is so bad, there is a point where, on a large sale, you need to hire a higher number of women / Black people / handicapped people to catch up, because you’ve shut them down the whole time; and that basically makes it your own fault if you think they’re less competent than educated competent men, because they didn’t get the opportunity, because they didn’t get the training, because… they didn’t get the opportunity.
The “hire only competent people = only white men” is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it creates the entire situation of everyone else being less competent, being lower on the decision totem pole (like the decision to help minorities get out of that loop), having lower incomes. If you help only your own because they have the skills you want, you are creating the situation where you perceive everyone else to be lower by your own standards. Someone’s gotta make the first step to bring everyone up to the same level, and you know it’s not going to start in education and housing. Because those people are not up there making the decision to help with that. The people who can make the decision choose not to help, because those minorities don’t have the same skills as this other guy here.
So you’re saying to start a new system where you only hire non white/ non males. Suddenly you have a whole generation of young men/ young whites being passed over for positions just because they are white/ male. So what happens the next generation? You only hire white males because they were past over in the last generation.
No mention of hiring based on lower income. No you are doing it based on race. So rich black people get a huge benefit over poor white people who never had any opportunities and currently don’t but, fuck them right, they are white. They shouldn’t feel hard done by that they are poor have no opportunities in life because hey that CEO is an old white guy.
This is why it’s stupid you are actively disenfranchising people. Sure people got mistreated in the past but misreading people now isn’t going to make them be not mistreated. It just means twice as many people have been mistreated.
So you’re saying to start a new system where you only hire non white/ non males.
I say balance and that’s your take?
poor white people who never had any opportunities and currently don’t but, fuck them right, they are white.
Man. I spoke about hiring based on skills the whole time. This imbalance in poor, less skilled white men was already there before you started talking about diversity hire, but you chose to blame diversity hire, because you think unskilled women or minorities get hired over skilled but poor white men. I spoke about improving housing, education, childcare, and all other basic needs, I didn’t say that only applies if you’re not a white man. It goes for everyone. But those poor white men aren’t getting help from the current situation either way, and you seem to think that the only solution is to hire them over minorities. You’re not talking about helping all the people in this situation, you just want the poor white men to get hired and not get passed over for less skilled women - you’re fine with leaving everyone else behind. You’re not even considering that everyone might deserve a spot somewhere, you think there’s only one spot and it should go to the skilled white man.
Pretty much nothing you said is conservative except your views on immigration.
Immigrants are also not unskilled workers, a lot of countries only accept people with degrees or useful skills unless they are refugees.
At lot of left leaning parties historically have been the most against immigration also, but I’m voting right now.
I do think the left really fuck up with how they think the government should control a lot of the market. The government waste money horrifically.
Everyone on this website seems to think I’m die hard right winger.
I’m not against immigration overall (I’m for it in many ways) I’m just strongly against how immigration is being used currently.
Immigration! … people that contribute less to the economy and commit more crime than locals … . (Stats are out there. …)
Have you considered harm/benefit planet-wide? Is it really better leaving the escaping people under oppression / war / climate disaster caused by pollution from the West? They’ll contribute even less to the economy in their home country.
Yes. Lots of people leave their country, burn their passport then hop the border. I think people should make their own country better, if they want to move to another country they need to contribute more than the average person and be a better citizen (including culturally) than the average local.
My country tried real hard to build up other countries and make the most of them. Now they are on their own.
Lemmy’s loudest seem to believe me thinking the “democratic” part of “democratic socialism” is pretty important makes me a conservative. So here’s my “manifesto” for what needs to change in this country, not even to fix our problems but to give us the tools we’ll need to finally finish cleaning up this inherited mess that’s been made in this land for over 400 years now.
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Abolish the independent executive, inherently the body will become a parasitic leach upon the powers and responsibilities of the legislature until we get Caesar types running for the office just for the immunity to prosecution. Rome reserved that much power entrusted to a single person for ABSOLUTE EMERGENCIES for a reason, and the only two men in US history I think have ever actually needed that level of power were Lincoln and FDR.
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Delegate the responsibilities of government to a vastly expanded parliamentary house
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Delegate the responsibilities of state to a vastly expanded senate (still equal number of senators it’s just now you elect a handful at a time every two years instead of one every two or four)
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Multi-Seat STAR voting to fill the house and senate, every election will see every voting district/state send a delegation which roughly reflects the political cross section in each district and state, even Wyoming would send at least one democrat, and that fact that everyone would have at least one senator or representative who they feel validates their issues and concerns and hears their position will I think let a significant amount of steam off the building frustrations people have with their government. Plus these vastly expanded bodies will naturally end up being host to more people who previously had been kept out of the halls of power, more accessibility in terms of women, PoC, and Queer folks getting into office sure, but also, people who aren’t any of those things, but who also have been kept out of the discussion because they’re too poor to meaningfully challenge the established incumbents. It’ll also make lobbying WAAAY harder since you have to spread a massive amount of dough to make any differences at such a grand scale.
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Replace the current circuit system of the federal court with a sortitionate system that draws the judges randomly from across the entire pool of federal judges to try cases with federal jurisdiction. Court stacking and jurisdiction shopping both are too easy at present and both wildly undermine the idea of blind justice, so let the lawyers focus on putting a case together that can win in front of any judge instead of just choosing the judge that’ll say yes to them.
Again, none of this will fix all our problems, it won’t fix anything except our inability to get out of our own way when trying to solve the problems we face as a country, but goddamn is even that much desperately needed in this land made for you and me.
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I consider myself a centrist libertarian but I often feel like the most conservative one in the room around here. I think America needs electoral reform to allow more viable parties - having no viable alternatives is terrible for voters and leaves them few options if lunatics take over their party. It’s too easy for special interests (mostly industry groups) to use the government to obtain special benefits or protection from competition for themselves, with the costs widely spread across society, making it difficult to organize opposition to them. This should be someone’s (or a handful of someones’) job! An ombudsman or small panel of them, something like that. The government should not be paying off or guaranteeing student loans when people decide to study things that don’t lead to careers. If someone wants to get a grad degree in rich people’s hobbies or political activism that’s their first amendment right but it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. We need at least a plan to allocate limited resources including but not limited to road capacity, ideally with markets. Everyone sitting in traffic and suffering is not a good solution.
We have a duty to limit oppression of people whereever they maybe. “Culture” is no excuse to justify it. The “sovereignty” of a tin pot dictator doesn’t justify it. War is worse then hell, because hell doesn’t have innocents in it to suffer. It is the last option after all else has failed, but it is an option and better than allowing liberty to be snuffed out.
American society is too individualistic and needs a greater focus on family, including multigenerational households.
Need less work hours and more third places.
I want more pubs, working men’s clubs, sports teams, hobby clubs etc.
You’re not going to find these kind of conservatives on Lemmy.
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Multiple conflicting definitions for “Conservative”, for 1 thing…
WHEN you tolerate the:
- moneyarchists
- legalists
- class-position worshippers / monarchists
- authority-worshippers
to claim that they define conservatism,
& us who’re committed to conserving
- G-D given LivingValidity
- G-D given LivingWorth
- G-D given LivingPotential
- G-D offered LivingOpportunity
… people are therefore defined to be not “conservative”…
then the framing has been highjacked.
Integrity-conservatives are conservatives.
LivingPotential conservatives are conservatives, who’re interested in competent education for all, instead of accommodating the obliteration of LivingPotential through shit “education”…
LivingOpportunity conservatives are conservatives, who want wastefulness-of-LivingOpportunity to be eradicated, so that we can be inhabiting it, instead of allowint it to be eradicated/wasted…
etc.
I’d begin with the correct qualification of the version of “conservative” that a person is claiming.
Corrupt privilege-conservatives ought be called such, & not let get-away-with claiming that the’re the rightful definers of “conservative”.
This should go for all “conservative” & “liberal” identifications:
Let people claim whatever variant they want, and then enforce accountability through matching their actual-behavior against their claims, with indestructible public accountability.
_ /\ _
Theres no set conservative meaning. At this point, its anyone who disagrees with the left. Trying to make it into one big group is almost futile.
“Conservative”, “right”, “left”, are meaningless, political relevative terms we should stop using. Instead, we should just describe our values on a select major view points, including power, economy, and social structure.
While I agree and disagree with you, I don’t think the terms will stop being used anytime soon.
People like putting themselves into groups based on shared ideas and values. While the terms still allow people to do that, they will be used.
People demonize both sides of the political spectrum. But the left is absolutely has this issue a lot more making conservatives out to be the most comically evil people.
