this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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Old conservatism was people advocating for individual choice and less government intervention.
Misguided, sure, but a healthy check on expanding government into places it didn't need to be and advocating for the "ideal" capitalism that drives competition and innovation.
For as long as it has existed conservatism has been poisoned by religion of and in the last 50 years it as a party line has descended into incoherence, but it's interesting to see the best-faith arguments it has as a little contrast to my left wing bubble.
No it wasn't. They just said that.
While demanding anti-gay amendments, bombing abortion clinics, and expecting the literal apocalypse.
Old conservatism was defending the monarchy.
The whole "advocating for individual choice and less government intervention" thing was always a lie that they told to dupe rubes into thinking their ideology wasn't elitist and abhorrent.
Actual conservatism is healthy and useful. I want part of my government to look at what laws and policies are being pushed and say, "should we be doing this?", "Should it cost that much?", "Do we have something that does this already?".
Unfortunately, the label has been co-opted, and it no longer strives to create the smallest effective government, but the largest totalitarian government instead.
The problem is that that's always been a mask in American conservativism. That's the politics of George H.W. Bush, but even then he was CIA. Reagan was a result of the religious right and the call to unregulate capitalism. Nixon had a lot going on but was largely elected because the democrats had passed the Civil rights act pissing off the right and started the Vietnam War which pissed off the left, and in a statement that still shocks the party to this day you can't win by appealing solely to the center. But regardless Nixon famously didn't believe in a restrained use of government. W had the patriot act and was the pro state implemented torture era of conservativism in America. Eisenhower maybe was like that but he was president in a weird time period and the far right of his time was convinced he was a communist.
I'm firmly a supporter of political pluralism and I think that the conservativism you propose is a wonderful thing. And in the united states it's a wing of the democratic party represented by folks like the Clintons. As it stands our national politics are particularly out of whack, but the rot is deep. To create a great America we have to think and act differently to strive to create a positive peace, equitable liberty, and shared senses of duty and hope