My Understanding of Conservativism has changed as Life revealed itself [View all]

[PurgedVoter]

While I was in grade school I bet a teacher that Humphery would win. I thought I was conservative. Conservative meant, to me, respect to parents, wanting a family one day, and being willing to work for a living. I thought it was all about ethics. So for me being for Humphery and being a conservative against Nixon made perfect sense. Humphery was for racial rights so I was for Humphery. I loved my paternal grandfather dearly, but his racism taught me not to be a racist early on.

I delivered fliers for McGovern in middle school and at the time, I thought I was conservative. Conservative meant, to me, respect to parents, wanting a family one day, and being willing to work for a living and not doing drugs. Again I thought it was all about ethics. McGovern over Nixon was an easy choice. At the time though I was beginning to question conservatism. It was clear to me that liberals didn't think you should take drugs, and they took care of families and went to church the same as conservatives.

In high school I saw the conservatives that had been saying "Respect and support the office of the president," quickly turn it around and decide that Carter deserved no respect and the office of the president was too sullied to respect. In high school I saw that those who most loudly claimed to be conservative were also bullies. I saw that the conservative members of the debate team were pretty much evil. I examined the libertarian party, and while I was tempted by the non violent goals, I also noticed that liberals might protest for an end to violence, but libertarians just twisted non-violence into a hatred for taxes. Because taxes were violence. As it has ended up, there is no evidence of nonviolence in libertarian behavior and a lot of evidence of the reverse.

By the end of high school I was aware that what the leaders of a movement did was the true representation of where the movement was going. Conservativism lost it's shine as I examined what William Frank Buckley Jr supported. His support for McCarthyism was just part of the problem. In every case war was justified, and taxes were evil.
When I looked at what conservatives at the bottom end of the economic ladder did, and what conservatives on the top of the ladder did, the real question came to me and it has stayed with me. I had always heard of conservative values and I believed in them. The problem I had was that I could not name one. Liberals followed all the named conservative values that could be considered values as well if not better than conservatives.

So I was gently liberal and beginning to suspect that the core of conservative values resembled the stuff Ayn Rand preached. Total selfishness.

Then in 1990 I heard Robin Williams talk about homelessness in front of congress. That made it clear to me that selfishness and deceit were what you could expect from Republicans and the more conservative the Republican, the more selfish and deceitful.

This view on conservatism has remained stable until recently. After listening to Rachel Maddow's amazing Ultra podcasts and seeing Liz Cheney's response to Jan 6, I have had to adjust my view. Conservative means different things to different people. In general it means a person is weak to brainwashing and will accept deceit and support their team even if it leads to fascism. If a person is rich it means greed without need. And the core of what it means to be conservative is that you wish evil on those outside your group. Oddly while wishing evil, they can be generous and kind, but they will happily hate you for idiotic reasons pushed by their cult leaders. For example, they will happily hate you if you drive a Prius or wear a mask to prevent disease.