Quote:Original post by Promit
While that's a literal definition, I don't think it's appropriate to use as the definition of the political term "conservative", which especially in economic matters does NOT mean favoring the status quo. It means being fiscally conservative, ie conserving money etc.

Sure, but that doesn't mean you can say maintaining the status quo is not what conservatism is about. Like with anything in politics, it's more than just a simple definition, however tradition and the status quo are definitely conservative tenants.

Quote:Original post by Chris Reynolds

Quote:Original post by LessBread
Lately, I've been mulling over the definition of fascism as "revolutionary conservatism". If a conservative is someone who sees utopia in the status quo, a revolutionary conservative sees utopia in a past status quo and seeks to overturn the present in order to restore that past status quo. This does not mean that once the past status quo is restored revolutionary conservatives revert to conservatives. They'll play that up in order to gain international support from conservative governments, but they remain revolutionary. A revolutionary must have a vision of a better future to sell to the masses who follow him. Ordinary people won't overthrow the established order without a sense that it will improve their situation and lead to a better future for their children. Without that vision you get riots and scattered rebellions, but no revolution. What the revolutionary conservative says is that we have to go back to the past before we can get to that better future. So when a revolutionary conservative achieves revolution, instead of reverting to conservatism and preserving the status quo, the revolutionary conservative sets about destroying what he sees as coming about after that past utopia, distorting it, polluting it and so on, as obstructions to that promised better future. His project is all a pipe dream of course. It results in destruction, but little else.

What? I don't think any conservatives (educated ones at least) see "utopia" in the status quo. In other words, the status quo does not reflect conservatism. And I honestly didn't understand at all what this was about.. Conservatism these days IS progressive. We've had years of overspending, and if a fiscal conservative revolution comes it would be moving forward, not backward.

Sorry, I meant traditional conservatism, what today might be called paleoconservatism - Buckley, Kirk and long before that Burke and Hegel. Think old school Pat Buchanan conservatism. What is called conservatism today - Limbaugh, Hannity, Palin, Huckabee etc. - what I suppose might be called "populist conservatism" is much closer to the "revolutionary conservatism" I postulated above. What you mistake as progressive is actually reactionary. It seeks not to preserve what's best in the present but to overturn the entire present in the hope of turning back the clock to a time believed to be less anxious than now. A sure sign of this could be seen in the "I want my country back" declarations made at different town halls last month. As for your claim about moving forward, I see that as an instance of moving backwards to move forwards. In addition, I have to ask, where were these so called "progressive" conservatives when the Republican controlled Congress and the Republican controlled White House ran up the debt fighting a war they had to lie about to justify? [plus unitary executive theory, extraordinary rendition, torture, extensive use of signing statements, etc.] I don't expect an answer for that from you. There's no point in seeking to hold the hypocrites in the Republican party to account. [There are plenty of reasons to stop them from blaming Obama for the things that Bush did - which is really what resides at the heart of their lunacy.]

“Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party”

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And what Frank Schaeffer told me, which is most interesting, is that “This movement, we were like oncologists. We needed a crisis to keep occurring in American society in order for us to stay in business.” And that’s what we’re seeing with the healthcare debate, too. I mean, we’re seeing a movement that’s terrified that the government will start to be able to solve people’s crises, because they survive and thrive on manipulating people’s personal crises.
...
And then that’s something that’s happening in evangelical communities across the country. In Lubbock, Texas, for example, where abstinence has been mandated, you know, I mention in my book that the rate of gonorrhea there is twice the national rate. And so, the process of, you know, crisis and confession, and what a lot of people refer to as hypocrisy, was essential to the rise of Sarah Palin, because people could identify with her who are going through these struggles themselves.
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You might find the perspectives debating these issues currently at The Next Right more to your liking.

[Edited by - LessBread on September 9, 2009 2:43:23 AM]

Bleed over from link

Society is immoral because it doesn't want to pay for cancer treatments even as it subsidizes tobacco: Tobacco Subsidies in United States totaled $530 million from 1995-2006.

Panel Votes to Keep Tobacco Subsidies (1995)

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The tobacco-subsidy amendment failed on a vote of 17 yeas and 30 nays during the committee's consideration of the Agriculture appropriations bill for 1996.

The debate began like a whisper but quickly rose to a storm.

"Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment, and it is controversial," said Representative Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, sponsor of the tobacco amendment and the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture.

Mr. Durbin's statement brought laughs from some committee members, and grumblings from others who represent tobacco-growing states.

"Tobacco is unlike any other crop subsidized by the United States Department of Agriculture," Mr. Durbin said. "Tobacco, when used as directed, will kill you.

"Why, in God's name, when we are talking about cutting Medicaid and education, are we still subsidizing the production and the manufacture of tobacco?"
...

If society provides free health insurance, the incentives to produce health-bearing jobs and to increase prevention are both accelerated. It enables lifestyles that don't put people into hospitals in the first place.

Quote:Original post by LessBread
Bleed over from link

Society is immoral because it doesn't want to pay for cancer treatments even as it subsidizes tobacco: Tobacco Subsidies in United States totaled $530 million from 1995-2006.

Panel Votes to Keep Tobacco Subsidies (1995)

Very good point.

Quote:
If society provides free health insurance, the incentives to produce health-bearing jobs and to increase prevention are both accelerated. It enables lifestyles that don't put people into hospitals in the first place.

A lot of people strive to get a good job in order to get good health insurance. Free health insurance is just one less reason to need a job. And I don't see how getting free insurance will increase one's desire to watch their health.. What I can understand, is that if I couldn't afford insurance, I would be watching my own health and trying hard to find a job that provides good insurance, out of fear.

Quote:Original post by Chris Reynolds

Quote:
If society provides free health insurance, the incentives to produce health-bearing jobs and to increase prevention are both accelerated. It enables lifestyles that don't put people into hospitals in the first place.

A lot of people strive to get a good job in order to get good health insurance. Free health insurance is just one less reason to need a job. And I don't see how getting free insurance will increase one's desire to watch their health.. What I can understand, is that if I couldn't afford insurance, I would be watching my own health and trying hard to find a job that provides good insurance, out of fear.

What about the problem that many small businesses simply can't afford health insurance? And that the people working for them sometimes aren't even considered by the companies for a private policy?

Quote:Original post by Promit

Quote:Original post by Chris Reynolds

Quote:
If society provides free health insurance, the incentives to produce health-bearing jobs and to increase prevention are both accelerated. It enables lifestyles that don't put people into hospitals in the first place.

A lot of people strive to get a good job in order to get good health insurance. Free health insurance is just one less reason to need a job. And I don't see how getting free insurance will increase one's desire to watch their health.. What I can understand, is that if I couldn't afford insurance, I would be watching my own health and trying hard to find a job that provides good insurance, out of fear.

What about the problem that many small businesses simply can't afford health insurance? And that the people working for them sometimes aren't even considered by the companies for a private policy?

Yes, I do not disagree with that. It's the means about solving that problem that are at debate here.

The speech was well delivered, but I heard a lot of empty lines. Won't raise the deficit a dime over the next 10 years? No subsidizing? He claimed that 5 % of people would buy the public plan, yet he says they will be self-sufficient, only running off of the premiums it receives. How can 5% pay for an entire government system?

Less cost, lower premiums, lower deficit, everyone insured, better quality to those already insured, no added taxes, etc. etc. I don't think it's realistic.

I really don't have anything else to say on the subject, but if this plan does pass I will shut my trap and cross my fingers that it is successful. At this point, I just hope the projected savings from efficiency/overhead are accurate.

He started to lose me when he began to talk about the individual mandate and likened it to car insurance. Forcing people to buy health insurance would constitute a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry, even with the public option in place. It doesn't matter much if the insurance company is public or private if you don't have the money and yet you're forced to buy. I would have liked to hear him call for extending Medicare to cover anyone unable to afford insurance otherwise. That said, he should have shored up his support for the public option with a veto threat, perhaps a veiled veto threat.

It was good that he came clean on the fact that if enacted these reforms won't be fully applied for four years. That pulls the rug from beneath the "we have to go slow on this" rhetoric coming from Blue Dogs and Republicans. On the other hand, if the problem is as urgent as we are told, why didn't he call for a speedier timetable? It seems as if he's ok with letting the health insurance industry get in another thousand days of ripping off the country.

I was happy to see him call out the Republicans for lying about death panels and such. That alone made missing the second half of the World Cup qualifier worth it. Congressional Republicans did not look happy. And when he talked up Ted Kennedy and then singled out Hatch, McCain and Grassley and challenged them to come through for their recently deceased pal. That was effective. And, like the Democrats in Congress, I really enjoyed it when he rubbed the cost of the Iraq war in the Republicans face.