How do I know if I should be liberal or conservative?
Don’t.Just don’t.The problem is that when we decide we are liberal (for example, it would work exactly the same if we were to choose conservative), we join that tribe and our thought processes become biased to those viewpoints; you lose a portion of your capacity for independent thought.You are better off coming up with your own world view. Decide what your moral axioms are; for example, is it just the results that matter, or is it the principles that are the most important (note another way of saying that is, do the ends justify the means, or do the means justify the ends)? Have a ponder on what is actually important at base. Should the individual have the right not to be coerced, or should the group come first? Ponder those type of questions.Once you have a bit of a feel for how you think things should work, start researching. Quora is particularly good in many ways, it has a platform for a wide range of views, both Left and Right. Listen to their arguments, ponder on them too. Try to refute them, that will help your reasoning skills. You will go through a period where you will feel that it is impossible to make up your mind because all sides have good points or they all lie, or some mixture of the two. Don’t let it weight you down; that’s normal and will pass; at some point you will start to get a strong feel for how it works and it won’t feel so futile anymore.If you feel yourself starting to weigh down on one side of an issue, make a point of trying to learn from people of the opposing view to help keep you balanced. Don’t let yourself get into an echo chamber; they don’t help you grasp the truth of a matter. After a lot of research, start trying to summarise the opposing viewpoints, try to make common lines of thought for different groups; this will help you understand the mentalities behind the philosophies and allow you to become more deeply informed.Sooner or later you will probably notice that you will start agreeing with one side more than another; this is normal. The difference between this and “deciding to become a liberal or conservative” is that you’ve come to it on your own terms with your eyes open; you have made your own mind up and not bound by loyalties to a particular tribe. You remain your own person with your own opinions; not someone else’s protege.
How do conservatives decide what's fair?
Morally speaking, conservatives believe people should have what they earn. This applies to wealth, health, lifestyle, respect, family, etc, etc. People are thought not to deserve what they haven't earned even if the absence of it makes them needy. What is it to earn something? To act in a way that creates value, either personally or by developing a plan, system, or concept of how it can be done to enable such action.There are some gray areas that can be debated. Should a person be allowed to receive great gifts or inheritances and, in doing so, own what they did not personally earn? One argument says no, since the recipient did not earn what they come to own by those means. Another argument says yes, since the one giving the gift is doing what they wish with what they have properly earned. Personally, I lean quite far toward the latter; I believe very strongly in voluntary, uncoerced charity as a moral good. Whether the recipients are heirs or strangers is of no consequence except personal preference.Even Ayn Rand, quite the radical in her dedication to the principle of earning what you have, conceded that voluntary aid can be justified if it improves the needy's earnings. One could call that the "priming the pump" theory of charity; you put in a little to get a lot back. The Religious Right tend to be far less strict about getting a high return on investment for their charitable dollars; in their eyes, the act of voluntary charity is its own reward, as it improves the spirit.The distinction that charity ought to be voluntary, and that charity ought to be motivated by self-improvement or to enjoy the societal company of more successful earners, sets conservatives apart from liberals. Liberals want all people to be materially provided for, no exceptions, as a moral goal unto itself. Conservatives want to live in a happy, successful society. Helping people become happy and successful serves their purposes, but taking money from successful people against their will erodes their happiness and not everyone uses charitable aid to become happy and successful. Some use it to perpetuate dependence, which serves liberal goals just fine but works against conservative goals.
Why do conservatives get blamed for slavery?
I'm not sure conservatives get hit as hard as whites in general, regardless of their political views. The thing that you have to remember is that both political parties have evolved over the years. I'm not sure why slavery is still an issue and more over I'm not sure why people, blacks especially, are seeking revenge for it. While slavery is an atrocity in and of itself, I feel no personal responsibility for any of it and I'm about as white as they come. Do I condone slavery? No. Am I glad that its over? Absolutely. Nevertheless, I've never done anything to anyone, slavery, nor any other sort of racist actions and therefore I don't believe I should have to apologize for nor should I have to explain the actions of those who lived hundereds of years ago. I realize that the hardcore black leftists like to pin everything bad on republicans simply because the republican party has become the quasi-embodiement of the 'white devil', but at the sametime I think thats why nobody takes them seriously. Now, its one thing to have black activists and leaders educating and raising awareness about those unbelievably horrible atrocities that took place 200 hundered years ago, which is fine. Understanding the mistakes of history is the best way to prevent them from happening again. Furthermore, those days of old were not only a defining time for black history, but American history itself. It really proved that we are a superior country because we did in fact not only realize that slavery is wrong, but we indeed took the steps necessary to end it. Lastly, we have to understand that the 'white devils' werent soley responsible for slavery, we also have to note the African leaders at the time who sold their own people to slaver traders, but for some reason that part of history always gets left by the wayside. People like to make it seem like George Washington blew over to Africa, single-handedly abducted thousands of people and brought them back to America with absolutely no help from the African people......give me a God d@mn break. In short, the whole finger pointing at whites and conservatives for slavery is really just a bunch of bullocks. Most intelligent people that I deal with are progressive thinking conservatives who think that the entire religious right and republican party is just as corrupt if not more so than the meandering liberals. It just goes to prove that broad generalization strikes again. -J.
Conservatives! Did you know that wages are not determined by supply/demand in a market economy?
Damn, you really are an idiot that doesn't understand the market. What do they teach you kids in school anymore? Ever run a lemonaide stand? Didn't think so. Ok, here you go, in small words. What is the market? The market is two or more people who wish to exchange something. One offers, the other decides to accept or not. now, how it works in action. Employer offers job for 10 bucks an hour, worker decides if they want to work for that. Business can't get worker for 10 bucks an hour. They offer 11. This continues until person takes job. Labor laws are created to make an artificial shortage of labor, in order to increase wages. Problem, businesses hire less since they only have a limited pool of money they can offer for wages. This means, some workers get more per hour, at the expense of other workers, this works out well for the favored workers and bad for those who are left in the cold. ------------------edit no, you're the one missing out on important concepts, especially if you think businesses run the economy as a conspiratorial block, yet refuse to admit the possibility on labors side.
Conservative Minnesota Colleges?
I think you're going to have to decide what factor's more important to you. Personally, I'd encourage you to expand your horizons, both in terms of location (I'm linking to a list of conservative campuses below) and campus culture. Even outwardly liberal schools tend to have conservative groups, and any good political science department will evaluate your work on the basis of your research and reasoning, not whether the professor agrees with your conclusion. Just ask my fiscally conservative friend, who graduated from Carleton with her philosophies and GPA intact. Besides, if you're going to work in political science, you have to deal with the opposition from time to time. Wouldn't it help to understand their thinking so you can pick it apart more effectively?
Tea Party Conservative... What does that mean? Who gets to define it?
The Liberal Progressives (LP) don't seem to be interested in the truth. They have their caricature of what a Tea Party Conservative is and they won't let they truth interfere in their narrative. I'm a proud Tea Party Conservative. I believe in a strict original intent application of the constitution. Application is far more important than interpretation. I want smaller government that lives within it's means. Don't spend money you don't have. Start paying off the debt. I have no problem with a government that shows compassion to those who CAN'T take care of themselves. I have a big problem with government handouts that encourage people who can take care of themselves to stop doing that and instead depend on government to take care of them. The lower the tax rate, the more the people can engage in commerce and build prosperity. More prosperity benefits all of us by creating more jobs and generating more taxable income to provide essential government services. But I really doubt any LP will care what I say here. They have got their story and they will keep telling it. There have already been those that said you don't really believe what you said you believe. It seems they think they know your heart better than you do. But I think we get to define who we are. They won't listen but we will continue to define ourselves. The trick is finding venues to discuss who we are and what we believe and have an honest debate with those who don't know who we are. I try to use this forum, and I've reached some people and changed their minds for the better. One by one we can reach people if they have an open mind.
Do you think the United States will get more conservative or more liberal after 2024?
I don’t know about 2024 but in 2020 we are definitely going to get more liberal.It is called backlash.When a presidential administration and a congress are viewed by the general public as being really bad and a failure, then lost of people will vote for their opposite in the next major election. So when Trump is out (2021 because there is no way he will get a second term - he is likely not going to get the Republican nomination in 2020, so he could only run as independent of the Republicans, which will split whatever votes the right gets and give whatever candidate the Democrats run a larger margin of victory), the majority will vote for the Democrat candidate for president. Many will go further, realizing that Congress could have done more to prevent the worst policies of Trump from having harmful effects and will vote against incumbent Republicans.Its possible, but unlikely, that the Democrats will run somebody who will do poorly, creating a new backlash in 2024. But again, unlikely. Just as it is unlikely Hilary Clinton will ever again hold any office in the USA. She will just retreat to the Clinton Foundation, extracting such a large salary that the foundation does no good for anybody. Basically a scam that I am surprised was not brought up during the last election. i guess the people who may have brought it up were guilty of similar scams and did not want those in the spotlight as well.