Are there any conservatives you like? I mean, I'm not saying you should like conservative ideas. But what would a sensible conservative even look like to you? Would a sensible conservative be one who could persuade you? If they're conservative, by definition they're going to disagree with you on some fundamental issues.

I don't think the NYT signed up conservative thinkers as columnists because they thought their subscriber base would find them convincing or persuasive.

Yes, better fit.

My dad grew up in the great depression. After he died we threw out like, literally ten boxes of margarine containers he collected, lol. He wasn't a hoarder, but it was like... this is a thing, I can reuse the thing, I need to hold on to the thing because I don't know if I'll be able to afford one if I ever need it. Believe me, he wasn't a great environmentalist either. That's just how bad the great depression was.

Edit: We also were very, very far from poor.

Yeah, I'm a little skeptical that that is right. There's this story. In 1932, someone asked John Maynard Keynes if there had ever been anything like the Great Depression. Keynes responded with, “Yes. It was called the Dark Ages and it lasted 400 years." That's obviously an anecdote, but I do think it's representative of a sense of civilizational failure that existed, and a sense that history could go in countless, terrifying directions, and without the hindsight we have, the fear of it all those possibilities, including the fear that the Depression could continue indefinitely, must have been horrific. Plus, with everything that was happening in Europe...

A sensible conservative, to me, is someone who values national institutions and identity, and believes progress should be tempered with prudence. Otherwise known as classical conservatives, or the traditionalists. I don't agree with them, but I understand and respect the position.

These conservatives have absolutely zero political influence under the big tent.

There are, conservative policy think tanks and honest conservative economists. But my stance is as Krugman points out: these people have no influence on the Republican Party.

I'll give you a relatively concrete example. My first instinct recently was that housing prices are too high in large part because the role profits and finance play in home construction, a left-wing critique. However, I did read an article, I guess it was on Vox, actually maybe even you linked it or referred to the author, who pointed out that often, housing is expensive because local governments, through many years of selfish lobbying by locals, pass crazy complicated and restrictive zoning which makes it hard to even build more efficient housing. A good tactic isn't necessarily a policy to mandate new housing or anything like that, but by cutting back overly restrictive zoning, and allowing the free market to take effect and construct more apartments and (hopefully) drive down rent.

That seems like a solid conservative critique. If all anything conservatives ever did in politics was make arguments like these, hell I'd be a centrist, because that small-government/deregulation argument is a fine one in this case.

I draw the line though because that's not what the Republican Party is. They always say they're about that kind of thing, but they look like class war, act like class war and quack like class war, and these sorts of actually sensible takes on policy are pushed to the sideline. "What the right wants are charlatans and cranks".

I imagine that something like Fox News can easily be persuasive to people who don't have well defined political beliefs and are only drawn to politics for the purpose of entertainment.

How bombastic. The Middle Ages weren't caused by a capitalist crisis, it was started by the political failure of the Roman Empire. Not that there's a conclusive smoking gun for that, but the fact that Keynesian stimulus was still possible should have been a sign that things hadn't gone that far.

I wonder if these sorts of conservatives have ever existed in the US in significant numbers. It seems that America is so inherently whiggish that there isn't really a place for that kind of conservatism in our national ethos. If there are or were many of them, I suspect the things tempering their views of progress are religious commitments rather than more practical considerations.

I don't know. I know many of them fled the US revolution. It's also an inherently collectivist stance, which runs against the grain of US individualism.

However, this isn't specific to the US. Traditionalists/classical conservatives have been disenfranchised throughout the developed world. In Canada they were deliberately and quite visibly expunged by the business right, so I would expect the business right is to blame in most other places.

We don't have complete data, but Gallup* polls from the era suggest that it's true:

http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/12/14/how-a-different-america-responded-to-the-great-depression/#optimistic-socialists

That kind of misses the force of my question. You answered by saying that 1) you find what some conservativism appealing and would even change your political affiliation if more conservatives argued along similar lines and 2) there's another conservatism (the conservatism of the GOP) that's beyond the pale. The question really is, what would a conservatism look like that you disagreed with yet nonetheless respected?

That data isn't insignificant but I wonder if the data from before FDR's election in '32 tells a different story. It makes sense that Americans would've expected improvement by the mid-30s given that things had already improved by that point.

tl;dr: it doesn't matter what the conservatism that I respect might look like, because it would be conquered and subjugated by the business right a long time before the first election ever happened.

but what do I know, I'm just an Albertan.

A conservative who currently supports the GOP? I don't think I could support someone who is both informed and supports the current Republican party. Well, actually I guess I respect Charles Murray because he's honest about what he thinks conservatives should do: become criminally anti-democracy.

I think that a sort of conservatism I would respect would look basically like the Democratic party that did less to appeal to progressives, but was also not lunatic anti-trans/gay whatever. More of a socially conservative and economically conservative party while also staying in boundaries of discourse.

Basically this.

Probably, yes. So we can't say certainly, but the stories I've heard in my own family reflect that there was kind of an optimism then that people don't feel now. It would be nice if there were more data.

Ok, so let's take this. Could you possibly respect someone who adamantly believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, that gay marriage violates the sanctity of marriage, and that gay sex is a perversion? Could you admit that someone might have sensible reasons for believing such a thing, even though you firmly disagree with both their reasoning, their conclusions and the implications?

Yeah. I know people like that who I have respect for.

So what about how they lay out the argument makes you respect them, despite the fact that in other contexts you wouldn't have as much patience for such views?

Well I don't respect the argument. I don't think theirs is a defensible position and I think it's unfortunate that they believe that way, and I'd prefer it if they'd change their mind. But I'm not going to start disrespecting them as a person for that one view.

However, one belief like that, coupled with many others that are unreasonable? At a certain point it becomes hard to no longer judge a person along with their viewpoints, if I find their reasons for believing them are very weak, and they refuse to acknowledge weaknesses in their views. Especially when their beliefs are ones that are aggressive towards the desires of other people in ways that are not zero sum.

One of my oldest friends is a rather conservative person, and while we don't see eye to eye on everything, he's often willing to admit or see the logic in my viewpoints, and I treat him with the same respect. Though, what typically happens is, he recognizes the strength of my argument, then says he hasn't done research/doesn't know enough and kind of backs down. I think he doesn't want to really question his beliefs down to the core, which is fine, that's how humans are, challenging core beliefs is very difficult. I don't press the matter out of politeness, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a foundation under that house, and if he would ever thought about it long enough, he probably would be confronted with some contradictions.

A good example: socialism. I can appreciate a person who argues socialist governments have been some of the worst, and holds a viewpoint that even idealistic socialism tends to lead to bad things, and recognizes Pol Pot, Lenin and Mao were terrible. I think anyone who doesn't recognize how awful the Soviet system was can't be serious, the terror was pretty objective. But, that sort of view also gets taken to a pretty stupid rhetorical standpoint where all reason and history gets thrown out of the window. People forget to compare the scale of societies, like how many people died under Mao's rule, but forget that China even then had a population of ~600 million and had just underwent civil war. If someone tries to peg all of the problem on just socialist ideas, but refuses to recognize the role that historical circumstance played in 20th century socialism, then I don't think I can respect them. It's just too stupid to say "millions died under socialism" with no context, comparative study, or any attempt at a fair evaluation of the facts.

Going back to marriage, it also depends on exactly what they think that belief on marriage should entail. Someone can prefer if gay marriage wasn't a thing, but there's a difference between having a preference and advocating for policy to enforce that preference. A person who believed in gay marriage with reasoning I think is poor, who also puts in money, time or effort into working against gay marriage legally, I would have less respect towards, because beliefs made politically active are more consequential than those which aren't.

A person who opposes gay marriage and also doesn't believe a bunch of other intolerably awful **** is kind of a unicorn though, so I will say the odds are against my having respect for a person who believes that.

I'm looking at consulting with this place:

https://www.monticellocollege.org/

To help them build eco village student housing. They make students grow food in addition to their liberal arts curriculum. I am expecting to be disappointed, but Im fantasizing about a southwestern paradise of classical conservatives where I can be the crazy ambiguously queer wizard who lives on the hill above the school that everyone tolerates because they recognize weird **** is p good tbh dunno if ill be able to shut up about tommy j banging slaves and george w splitting the families he didnt like up tho

Eyyy what I'm pretty sure we have the real little mountain over here mate, the one built by Tommy J and his real college.

And we also have the little pardner to Monticello, the smaller Montebello. Maybe you can have monte jello?

Also, living in Thomas Jefferson land has huge downsides: "Yes he raped his slaves. Yes literally every single person on the face of the planet mentions that. No, you aren't the only person who watches TV or reads books about Thomas Jefferson. Oh that's all you're curious about wrt Thomas Jefferson?"

I've had to sit through that conversation like ten times, not an exaggeration. I get it's an important thing to remember but it's like.. the only thing people can say about the man.

He could write two letters at once and was terrible with money. House looked nice.

I like talking about his weather observations and first indoor toilet, as well as his unique closet organizing device but theres a definite trend of people (in utah especially) idolizing the FF and promoting them as paragons of virtue, it must be combated.

Also the college is in a town called monticello, so eat my dick

Also I really like the idea of one side of my bed being my office and one side being a dressing room

All true! You know like 300% more than most other people do about him.. other than the "fact" he was our second president.

Utah of all places you would think shouldn't idolize a man like Jefferson, who was against superstition and was atheistic in tendency. And yeah, there's a gap between having some curiosity and respect for them and idolizing them the way they're idolized in conservative America, conservatives have really weird and particular ways of appreciating the founding fathers which don't seem to be very historically informed or.. real



jkjk no hard feelings. It actually sounds like a pretty sweet area. It's low population, so you're going to be around a different sort of person. But it would be a nice place to live if you wanted time to be meditative and study.



Immaterial living is great. I feel I'd live more authentically if I had less stuff in my apartment.

Jefferson was a president???

My wife didn’t believe me when I told her Franklin was never a president. “But he’s on their money”, she said. She had to look it up on Wikipedia. I thought it was funny but then I learned that even a ton of Americans don’t know. I guess it’s easier to uncritically adore someone if you don’t know anything about them or their beliefs.

Idolizing the founding fathers is fine, as long as you do so within an appropriate context. They rejected the call to absolute power, and even their (imo) most problematic belief, capitalism, was a reaction against the state imposed monopolies of mercantilism. Their beliefs would be barbarous by modern standards, but had they been more like the men of their time, the world would be a much worse place.

I got lots of sunday school lessons about Franklin and Jefferson as a kid, so I only found out about the slave banging and that Franklin is just Frank from always sunny much later. The LDS culture has a real strong affinity for them, due to their belief that the US was founded to bring about the appropriate context for the restoration of their true gospel. Which I thought was weird even when I was a kid considering that the church fought a cold war against the feds and wasn't super patriotic until the early 1900s ish.

Then I found out all the nasty **** about the dudes and became even more fascinated. I definitely think most people would benefit from a proper liberal arts education tho

Third president. Jeez, go listen to Hamilton or something. I thought you were supposed to be a nerd. :p

Pretty sure he put quotes around fact for a reason

I know... hence the smiley face...

Oh

I remember thinking this was a worthwhile way to wrap my head around Jefferson's vision for the US back when I heard it.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-gordon-wood-friends-divided

Also, Hamilton is totally deserves the hype...

https://twitter.com/andyriga/status/985939322263228417

hmmmmmm

Yeah, but did he smoke pot? Probably.

It's funny because I was accused of being part of the alt-right for replying to a comment with 'hmmmmmmm' I guess it is one of their colloquialisms.

overfitting