So what you are saying is: it's "us vs. them"?

Get back to me on how that works out as a strategy for convincing individual conservatives (such as the one in this thread) to jump ship and join you in the liberal chorus singing about how conservatives are fundamentally flawed.

They're not "the enemy" in any way, most of them are good people. If anything is to blame it's the Citizens United style propaganda, or Tea Party style astroturfing.

When you view the electorate as a discrete package, the problem is these people check Republicans. I'm not attempting to say anything further than that.

Ah, that makes sense. Wookie shouldn't be turned off from possibly responding to my original attempt to give him room to help me understand his thought process before the liberals all dogpiled on him, because he can take solice in realization that he's simply a victim of right wing propaganda and has no agency himself. Got it.

(I have to pee, so if you will excuse me, I will leave you alone with my partner here --Sergeant Jim)

Back to the thread topic: has the idea every crossed your mind that all this philosophy stuff has made you a bit fatalistic in the way you characterize others?

That's probably true.

I do overemphasize certain causations but the ones I emphasize I believe are easiest to be correct about. Someone who lives in Tennessee will be a product of Tennessee. Meaning their beliefs, language, attitudes, will probably be close to the Tennessee average. Yes, it's very deterministic and there's probably good reason not to think this way. Similarly, people exposed to propaganda will reflect the beliefs of that propaganda.

You're forgetting over thing: contrary to popular belief, conservatives are not more likely to admit they are wrong when confronted by elitist liberal academics.

For all their haranguing, philosophers have yet to answer the most fundamental question of all: "why does stuff exist?" For example, your posts in this thread.

This is why, like I am wary of math books that have no pictures, I don't trust philosophers who make use of words that aren't poets.

So to me it has been clear for some time (I hate and love that term "some time". It's seriously like the most ambiguous term that's used all the time.) that while Reverend Jones is certainly the most prolific poster we have now I think it's unquestionable who is the A Number One Champ when it comes to inspiring responses and discussion.
You know it's true. IT'S DAMN TRUE. [/yousuckchant]



Oh for Christ's sake. Ya mean the one I saw last night but was so boring I didn't feel compelled to reply? This one?



Okay, son, first off, you don't have to worry about my feelings or giving me space. This is the big leagues, I've been around for awhile. I'll be alright. But, seriously, good on you for actually wanting discussion and reply. You're still weird but that's admirable.

To specifically address your question: What the **** are you even talking about? I mean, seriously, give me an example if you want. I don't really give a crap about Ryan or Trump but neither one of them define the party in my view. The party's going to change with the people I suppose. So I guess you could say I liked Ryan as opposed to Biden but he's been a huge disappointment much of the time. Except when he was dissing Trump.



So these posts seemed to flow together for me. As far as defining the word, I may by the end of this post.

Having seen your post earlier today and being inflamed by it I was happy to have time to think about it before responding. And now that I've actually read it more fully after thinking about it and knowing you from your posts over the years I'm really glad it worked out this way.

I've actually found conservatives to be the logical ones and the liberals to be the emotional ones but other than your statement, "Asking a conservative to take responsibility for their choices is like asking a toddler to," I already completely understood your point of view before now when I am spending time revisiting these posts for discussion. I find it highly intriguing that we have the same views applied in opposite directions. Seriously, a get together is in order some day.

So, for a conservative (in my view), the destination is a return to a proper understanding of our founding principles. Now, the obvious problem with this is there isn't a set time we can say everything was fine because all of this has always been debated but generally speaking this is an originalist view of the founding.

Now, you rightly point out the "'small government' thing". I noticed this problem some time ago. If I can be optimistic enough to believe that most that say they're conservative think like me (probably too optimistic) that means government limited to its (I always find it strange that 'its' and 'it's' are written that way. Contracting for 'is' versus possession. Very interesting.) the "'small government' thing" refers to limiting government to its proper scope. The Constitution and Bill of Rights really does a good job of defining these things and so the destination includes restoring this idea.

I think it's important to state that I think a conservative doesn't have to hold "conservative" values or ideas on every topic. I do, however, think they must respect the sanctity of life. Just kidding. I think they must respect or understand what level of government, if any, can act on what issue. It's very complex and I admit that another word might better describe this philosophy but it's basically where I am.



OMG, JC son. Since it appears you have lots of time on your hands just go back to '05, or as far as the forum will let you, and see if you think I need all of these concessions. I'll go toe to toe with anyone here. Well, except for the guy that owns the site. He's a maniac.



Hmm, really?

lmao

I'm going to dip out of the discussion so that Wookie can reply, I won't push him at all. Jones I think you and I had different goals, because I wasn't really trying to convince Wookie to vote any way. So regardi g the goal of trying to have a polite discussion or to be convincing, I agree my posts are not good, I just wasn't trying.

Wookie, I was only trying to be nice because I thought I had mated you....

That was my reply.

Good cop signing off.

I'm not sure why you keep calling me a philosopher.

If you don't own up to it after thinking so much from the point of view of philosophy, you are a bad philosopher. As T.S. Eliot never said, "bad philosophers borrow, good philosophers steal".

Well, okay, Jones pointed out something about me so I'm curious, if you have time, to share your views. Promise I won't beat up on you. I really don't get conservatism, so I'll listen if you could explain to me your perspective? If you feel like typing a bit, I'm also curious to hear your views on these questions:

• What are the most serious problems we face today as Americans?

• Why are those problems more serious than other problems people commonly believe in?

• What has created these problems?

• What solutions do you think are best? Which are the worst?

• Why are these solutions better or worse?

I suppose it's my go-to framework, but unless I'm blind to myself I don't think I'm an especially philosophical thinker. I just crutch myself on other thinkers because I'm unoriginal and bad at explaining my point.

I mean, either that or I'm a bit of a moron. Which is probably a bit true as well.

If we've learned one thing in this thread, it's that Reid is humble. So I don't think it's fair for FGR to be labelling him as pretentious.

I don't think I am either for the record. I'm just a wordy **** wrapped up in his own incomprehensible word salad.

I like this post and I will endeavor to address it at some point this weekend.

Oh and, by the way, nobody here has to feel like they need to preface their post with anything about offending me or beating me up. I'm way past that. If anyone here sincerely needs a reply to a post then make your post and PM me if you want because sometimes when some time has passed and the post is buried under a few hundred of you know who's, I just don't bother.

I'm sure it feels that way.



I'm going to paraphrase you, because I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.

The US government was better at some point in the past, but you're not sure exactly when.
The Founding Fathers had a single, specific intention for how the United States government should work.
What the Founding Fathers intended is better than what the United States is currently doing.
You have reason to believe the above. (i.e. you do not simply feel the above statements are true.)

Strange and nonsensical.

Quantum mechanics is also strange and nonsensical to those seeing it through Newtonian eyes.

Let's do this!



****ing brilliant! The US government might never have been better at some point in the past.



****ing absolutely not! One of the most highly debated issues I can think of off the top of my head. Besides Obama's birth certificate, of course! j/k



The system constructed, yes. Intended? I don't think they envisioned us lasting this long.



Uh, I don't know. How would my above comments affect that assertion?

Jordan Peterson has a lot of valuable things to say about authoritarianism. Unfortunately - and I feel like I need to make this clear, because the kinds of people who link to his videos mostly don't realize this - he isn't famous for saying those valuable things. He is famous for a history of verbally abusing trans students, and for a very cringeworthy public meltdown about a bill that actually had nothing at all to do with what he was complaining about (although you'd never know that, if you only go by The Rebel and other alt right sources).

Now, I'm not saying you should stop linking to his videos. Like I said, he does have some interesting things to say about his area of expertise (law and trans rights not being among them). But you should probably keep in mind that people are gonna think you're a ****ty alt-right transphobe if you do, so you'd better be okay with that.

TL;DR: Thanks for making Google think I'm in the alt right. Again.

Okay. I think I'm closer to understanding, so let's do one more round to be sure.

What the Founding Fathers originally constructed is better than what the United States is currently doing.
But you do not have any particular reason to think so.

Interesting. That's very ****ing interesting.

To be honest, I'm not sure I can do justice to this in this thread. Or at least not right now. I don't know if you realized or intended that post to strike me so.

Let's see if I can.



So perhaps you mean that I haven't been educated enough nor thought enough about this to know why I have a certain opinion. Maybe that I have some "gut" feeling on the matter. That may or may not be the case but from how I interpret the arguments from the time, a main concern was overbearing government. I think that, at the time, British government was seen as a huge oppressor and a main inspiration going forward was to restrict government's ability to oppress. The founders primarily applied this concept to the national government and did not generally restrict lower levels of government. I can point to the first and tenth amendment on this topic.

Currently, we are all wrapped up in a national agenda or philosophy. It doesn't matter anymore what the federal government should be limited to. We all care more about national politics than local and that's not how most issues are supposed to be handled. Again, tenth amendment.

This is all very complex and, to be honest, I'm not ever going to do it justice here but I really commend your post.

I am pretty sure that we weren't meant to interpret the constitution literally. Just like the bible, protestants have it all wrong, whereas what we ought to do is leave it to the liberal high priests to interpret it for us.

Then again, I am sure (per Wookie's signature), I am just educated stupid.

I'm gonna agree with Jon on this one, I didn't watch the other Jordan Peterson video you linked because the guy is unsavory.

this one tastes quite savory though...

I genuinely can't remember who either of them are.

Also the leadership of the pretentious patrol goes JM, followed by me.

I agree with maybe 1/64th of the things he says, but I enjoy listening to a highly articulate but definitely often delusional kermit the frog go through his through process, especially when it is about less delusional things than his fear of the downfall of western civilization, which is definitely not happening for all of the reasons he thinks (it's not 'bloody cultural marxists'). I don't really care if people think I'm an alt-right transphobe because a very short time of getting to know me will reveal how incompatible I am with that group (they want to kill me or send me away).

So much like how I listen to Terrence Mckenna the same way that I listen to Led Zeppelin, I listen to Jordan Peterson the same way that I listen to Danzig, which is with an admiring ear accompanied by a smirk.

And for the record, Jordan Peterson's status as a iconic alt-right figure that he doesn't seem to understand is a constant source of amusement for me. Awful violence, the kind he thinks he is preventing, is going to be committed in his name and he seems to have no idea.

Since you mention Danzig, I will note that I recently amused myself by listening to some classic Black Sabbath stuff, and strangely enough I did not feel compelled to commit any unholy acts of evil. But think I remember something about that from the 80's and 90's that involved fundies protesting satanic lyrics, which if we are to believe them radicalized people into literally becoming Charles Manson, just as much as they might be by Jordan Peterson (although I take it your assertion has at least a little more credibility here )

That said, I certainly would conclude that he ought to shoulder the moral responsibility for acts of evil committed in his name, given his own hatred towards trans students being the reason for getting their attention.