George Will leaves Republican Party. Is now "unaffiliated".

[feralkid]

You mean "real Republicans" such as John McCain?

https://www.mccain.senate.gov/publi...0th-anniversary-of-grenade-attack-in-cambodia

 

[Noah Abrams]

change is inevitable.

It is not actually. People in Amazon rainforests and other such places still live the same way they did thousands of years ago. A lot of change in the so called civilized world is because of the modern human’s innate restlessness

 

[kage69]

He should have done this awhile ago. But still, nice to see Will acknowledge the mentally ill traitor for what he is, and act accordingly.

Any conservative who puts country ahead of party should be doing the same.

 

[theeedude]

What is conservatism and what doesn’t work about it?

Trickle down. Hasn't worked in 40 years. But any time now...

 

[Amused]

http://fortune.com/2018/06/22/george-will-leaves-republican-party-donald-trump/?xid=gn_editorspicks

He also said to vote Democrat come November. Will is hardcore conservative, but isn't doing the "Party of Trump".

He's not even a RINO now.

I hope this helps other better understand my position.

The GOP has become the party of batshit and nationalism. It is no longer "conservative."

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Trickle down. Hasn't worked in 40 years. But any time now...

We just need to cut taxes for the rich a little more is what I keep hearing

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I hope this helps other better understand my position.

The GOP has become the party of batshit and nationalism. It is no longer "conservative."

Correct the obvious example is the current budget and it’s record setting deficit

 

[Moonbeam]

I don't see a party running on small government. I don't see a pro immigration party. I don't see a party running on fiscal conservatism. I don't see a party running on free trade. I don't see a party running on family values. I don't see a party running on being the world's police.

Whether or not they achieved those things in the past is immaterial to whether or not that's what their goals were.

OK, perhaps this isn’t of any importance but it was to me. I thought I saw a context to Vic’s comment you I thought you missed.

You had made the statement that you did not understand why more Republicans haven’t done what Will did, based of the notion the party is dead and no longer represents its prior stated principles.

What I think Vic offered you was an alternate context, a different reality, explanation, or understanding from which the answer to your question becomes more understandable. More people do not leave the party because what the party stands for or stood for is not the point. If so, if the definition of what a Republican is is not material to the actual people who are in the majority on the Supreme Court, House and Senate, and occupy the Office of the Presidency, that might shed a different light on why more don’t leave. It might offer an avenue into considering why it is they stay and why the R by their name is there for other purposes that transcend philosophical purity to most of them.

 

[Moonbeam]

That is a misunderstood concept of conservatism.

As for change, I have become more “conservative” over the years partly because of this zeal of many for change without fully realizing the broader context. They want to save the world but barely understand themselves

If so what would be the correctly understood definition?

The way you are defining it personally to you sounds like fear of the unknown coupled with distrust of others.

 

[Noah Abrams]

If so what would be the correctly understood definition?

The way you are defining it personally to you sounds like fear of the unknown coupled with distrust of others.

It seems to me liberalism has this distrust of people to know what is good for them personally and at community level. Hence the need for the soulless, remote bureaucracy to decide what they decide is good for people.

 

[Moonbeam]

It is not actually. People in Amazon rainforests and other such places still live the same way they did thousands of years ago. A lot of change in the so called civilized world is because of the modern human’s innate restlessness

It seems to me liberalism has this distrust of people to know what is good for them personally and at community level. Hence the need for the soulless, remote bureaucracy to decide what they decide is good for people.

Look at it from another point of view. How do people survive child abuse. I think there are two common paths, one to identify and deify victims to maintain self worth and the other to worship the philosophy of persecution. This would create two classes of people, those who see victims as deserving their state, and those who see horror in victimization. The first would fear what is in the heart of victims and the second what is in the heart of perps. One will fear authoritarianism, the other the nanny state. I leave you to decide where your sympathies lie. Personally, I would like to find a way that heals trauma so that one has no need to be either perp or victim. That would require letting go of whatever survival strategy one was forced to take to preserve the ego. The problem in either case is ego it seems to me.

 

[theeedude]

It seems to me liberalism has this distrust of people to know what is good for them personally and at community level. Hence the need for the soulless, remote bureaucracy to decide what they decide is good for people.

That's a bunch of horseshit. Republican pass state laws preempting local city initiatives all the time, because they don't trust local and community level. It's just a bunch of lame talking points. There is a reason Republican states are some of the most backwards in the US, unless they are lucky enough to have liberal cities.

 

[Moonbeam]

That's a bunch of horseshit. Republican pass state laws preempting local city initiatives all the time, because they don't trust local and community level. It's just a bunch of lame talking points. There is a reason Republican states are some of the most backwards in the US, unless they are lucky enough to have liberal cities.

Cities will always be liberal. The constant beneficial interactions between people who are different, owing to the number of impacts of that nature provided by population density, creates liberal thinking automatically. It is a requirement for survival with out-groups as demonstrated by the notion that the rural South is full of people inbred genetically concentrated undesirable genes. Successfully dealing with the other is a genetic necessity and a cultural strength. Variety makes possible adaption to change and the rate of change is accelerating, which is why conservative thinking has gone psychotic. It is struggling mightily to keep hold back our slide into a dark swan event.

 

[ivwshane]

OK, perhaps this isn’t of any importance but it was to me. I thought I saw a context to Vic’s comment you I thought you missed.

You had made the statement that you did not understand why more Republicans haven’t done what Will did, based of the notion the party is dead and no longer represents its prior stated principles.

What I think Vic offered you was an alternate context, a different reality, explanation, or understanding from which the answer to your question becomes more understandable. More people do not leave the party because what the party stands for or stood for is not the point. If so, if the definition of what a Republican is is not material to the actual people who are in the majority on the Supreme Court, House and Senate, and occupy the Office of the Presidency, that might shed a different light on why more don’t leave. It might offer an avenue into considering why it is they stay and why the R by their name is there for other purposes that transcend philosophical purity to most of them.

Call me an optimist but I refuse to believe all Republicans or even a majority of them are mentally damaged. Its certainly possible but I have seen good Republicans and I believe more exist.

 

[theeedude]

Cities will always be liberal. The constant beneficial interactions between people who are different, owing to the number of impacts of that nature provided by population density, creates liberal thinking automatically. It is a requirement for survival with out-groups as demonstrated by the notion that the rural South is full of people inbred genetically concentrated undesirable genes. Successfully dealing with the other is a genetic necessity and a cultural strength. Variety makes possible adaption to change and the rate of change is accelerating, which is why conservative thinking has gone psychotic. It is struggling mightily to keep hold back our slide into a dark swan event.

Yeah, hopefully the high cost of housing in liberal states will drive migration and gentrification of conservative backwaters.

 

[Bitek]

It is not actually. People in Amazon rainforests and other such places still live the same way they did thousands of years ago. A lot of change in the so called civilized world is because of the modern human’s innate restlessness

Retaining perfect fidelity of one's culture from year to year, generation to generation is impossible.
It defies the laws of thermodynamics, as would any information system.

The rates of change may vary, or may be imperceptible to you, but change is inevitable nonetheless.

 

[Noah Abrams]

One will fear authoritarianism, the other the nanny state.

A nanny state is by definition authoritarian I think. Soviet Union. Current day Saudi Arabia. And so on. So I do not understand the distinction you are making. I do fear both.

 

[ivwshane]

A nanny state is by definition authoritarian I think. Soviet Union. Current day Saudi Arabia. And so on. So I do not understand the distinction you are making. I do fear both.

I would imagine the difference is that one does what it thinks is in your best interest while the other does things that are in its own best interest. Of course, in a many state, people can complain about an overbearing government to enact change while in an authoritarian government it's probably best to keep your opinions to yourself.

You seem to fear everything including taking a stand on any issue. We call people like you, fence sitters or more recently, a "both sides" bitch.

 

[Noah Abrams]

You seem to fear everything including taking a stand on any issue.

Not fear perhaps but a realization of complexity of things and human nature. As a former liberal who knew everything, and then all the subsequent experiences invalidating a lot of that, it is I suppose only natural

 

[darkswordsman17]

Oh, I fully expect that we'll see a lot of Republicans try to switch to Democrat and push them back to center (or hijack them and push them right even). I hope the Democrats absolutely brutalize them in elections by showing how they enabled the Republicans into being what they are. Or, if they're willing to eschew all the shit they were pulling as Republicans, great, they can have honest competition. If they actually show that they will work towards being non despicable, I'll be more than happy to welcome them back to being a real American. They're gonna have to work to earn that though.

But I'm sure as shit not going to forget their bullshit past (and hereby declare them the Turmplecucks). Maybe we let them wear big rose gold T chain around their necks to remind them since I have a hunch many of them would've been quite fond of that type of public shaming for others.

That is a misunderstood concept of conservatism.

As for change, I have become more “conservative” over the years partly because of this zeal of many for change without fully realizing the broader context. They want to save the world but barely understand themselves

People in general become more conservative as they get older, for a variety of reasons. Which would be fine. The issue is that, Republicans are not conservatives, but because they sold themselves as such and keep marketing themselves that way, that conservatives just got locked into voting Republican and it enabled them to do a whole host of terrible things because they kept lying about what they were doing. And sadly, a they exploited a lot of inherent hate in certain groups of America, so the People certainly aren't free of blame themselves.

They're actually radically pushing for massive changes, that just because that's somewhat how things were long ago, does not make it traditional and therefore conservative, because they're not doing it to return to old ways (for tradition or "freedom" like they claim), but because they're wanting it to enable other radicalism that they're pushing. They're doing it to intentionally enable things that were changed because they were horrible for most of society (which they know, they want that though because they have power and wealth and so they think they'll be even better off). They just use this "it used to be like this" as a way of speaking to certain people that are struggling to come to terms with a world that is drastically different. The people that don't understand that the reason you didn't have to worry about shit, wasn't because it wasn't a problem, but because of a mixture of you being a kid, and general ignorance of society at large.

Supply side economics is not conservative (at all as far as America goes, it actually pretty well resembles how monarchies used to operate, which is kinda the total opposite of what America was founded on). It was radical. And it still is, in fact even more so, because when they initially really pushed it with Reagan's "Trickle-Down", we didn't have a lot of real world data for economics to study and see that it doesn't work at all like it should in theory. Now, we do, and we know that especially the way Republicans go about it is an almost complete sham that is absolutely destroying the American Middle Class. They fully know this and don't care. And they do it while lying that they're really the ones that care about the middle class and lower. Not caring about conserving our environment, well I don't think I have to explain how that is not conservative at all. Pushing for Wall Street's short term "profit now!" is not conservative. Declaring "war" on everything (especially the nebulous unending ones, like those on drugs, or terror - both of which became almost entirely ironic within just a few years, after they enabled pharmaceutical companies to push drugs like crazy and they've used the American military as a tool of their own terrorism), is not conservative. Trying to tear down entitlements (social security, medicare/medicaid) that were created to conserve our society (especially as it ages), is not conservative.

Conservative and progressive and/or liberal, while having fixed definitions, are relative terms. In the case of Republicans though, especially in modern times (basically post WWII; and its getting worse and worse and worse as time goes on; they're actually the ones radicalizing more than anyone), conservatism is an outright lie. That's not even getting into the ignorance of the religious nuts that think they have any fucking idea what living biblically is (full on guarantee you that almost all of the ones pushing for that stuff could not handle actually living that way, look at Osama bin Laden and groups like ISIS, they sure as shit couldn't give up technology to live that way; and even the most hardcore "live in nature" types of people I know can only do that for a certain amount of time - and that's with a lot of modern advancements which makes their treks into the wild far more convenient than they seem to realize; and notice how these megachurch evangelists preach that type of living while asking for money to buy private jets?).

It is not actually. People in Amazon rainforests and other such places still live the same way they did thousands of years ago. A lot of change in the so called civilized world is because of the modern human’s innate restlessness

That's bullshit. Other than maybe a few very select, very isolated groups, fucking no one lives just like they did thousands of years ago. They might still do some of the same things or do certain things the same way, but that's not at all the same thing. And that's ignoring that the vast majority of the world's population is indeed changing, quite rapidly too. So sure, you can be incredibly holy and read the Bible/other religious text, but doing that on a Kindle or iPad fundamentally is a different way of living.

Certainly, there's no reason why you can't hold onto traditions and yes plenty of modernity isn't better (or worse), its just different, and fucking no one is totally gung-ho about all of it (I sure as shit am not happy about how we have these "ecosystems" for computing, let alone telecoms and Facebook's lack of concern for people's information/data; among plenty of other complaints that I personally have about modern situation). But technology has completely changed society (I'm not talking about just computers and stuff like that, technology is much more than smartphones and the internet). No, technology isn't always good (like WWI and II where it enabled the most brutal killing the world had ever seen up to those points; and thankfully since for the most part, although it also gave us weapons that could easily be the most devastating in Earth's living history, rivaling that of meteor impacts and massive planetary events), but its all in how you use it (make vaccines and treatments or biological weapons, the same technology enables both, its up to man to not use it nefariously). Even those isolated tribes in the Amazon have to deal with it indirectly (they'll see populations of creatures they encounter dwindle and change because of things like pollution and climate change).

Trying to be a stubborn asshole and intentionally fucking things up (or enabling those who do) won't help things out. I have no problem with people that want to live their own little lives, be they hippies in communes, or people wanting nice quiet life farming and the like in rural areas. People need to see that Republicans, and their not at all actually conservative brand of conservatism, is against both of those types of people equally. Just as it is against middle class America, be it those rural towns, suburbs, hipster enclaves, and be they factory workers, burger flippers, programmers, average bankers, and everything in between. Even for the wealthy, the benefits aren't that great, they were already wealthy enough to have pretty much anything they want, the extra wealth isn't going to enable them to do that much more, and it could come with dire consequences that their money can't fix.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

The Republican party is a White Christian Nationalist party, just like Fox News is a news station for white christian nationalists.

The Libertarian party is the closest thing we have to a conservative party in America, and the Democratic party is mostly centrist with flavors of socialism (eg the adorable Bernie supporters).

Most modern conservatives organizations have had to make a choice, either sell out completely to the SnowTrumpian crowd (Im looking at you Hoover Institute but not so much you Heritage Foundation, yall are just nuts) or remain somewhat rational like the AEI.

I will quote WIlliam F Buckley from 16 years ago:

Look for the narcissist. The most obvious target in today’s lineup is, of course, Donald Trump. When he looks at a glass, he is mesmerized by its reflection. If Donald Trump were shaped a little differently, he would compete for Miss America. But whatever the depths of self-enchantment, the demagogue has to say something. So what does Trump say? That he is a successful businessman and that that is what America needs in the Oval Office. There is some plausibility in this, though not much. The greatest deeds of American Presidents — midwifing the new republic; freeing the slaves; harnessing the energies and vision needed to win the Cold War — had little to do with a bottom line.​

 

[Moonbeam]

A nanny state is by definition authoritarian I think. Soviet Union. Current day Saudi Arabia. And so on. So I do not understand the distinction you are making. I do fear both.

You see the evil in two opposites. But look at the good in them. It is of great value to respect authority as a child learning how to acquire it for responsible adulthood, and it is very good to disrespect any authority that is undeserving of the name. Thus do opposites resolve at a higher level of understanding.

 

[Jhhnn]

It seems to me liberalism has this distrust of people to know what is good for them personally and at community level. Hence the need for the soulless, remote bureaucracy to decide what they decide is good for people.

Alternatively, we could just let soulless & remote hedge fund ownership take care of everything. You know, the old trickle down.

 

[Moonbeam]

Call me an optimist but I refuse to believe all Republicans or even a majority of them are mentally damaged. Its certainly possible but I have seen good Republicans and I believe more exist.

How does “more people” equate to “all or a majority” and where did I mention mental damage in that quote?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Not fear perhaps but a realization of complexity of things and human nature. As a former liberal who knew everything, and then all the subsequent experiences invalidating a lot of that, it is I suppose only natural

You picked about the dumbest time to become a former liberal and embrace the bastardized conservatism that Republicans are pushing. That you seem to believe that they're not one of the main pushers of your nanny state fears (not talking about the authoritarian leaning feeling that Turmp rode into office on) is outright ignorance. Yes, some Democrats are on board as well (both the nanny and authoritarian stuff, I'm not happy that Obama basically kept the status quo on the NSA and other stuff), but the Republicans have consistently pushed nanny state stuff. They're going at you from both angles with their newfound authoritarianism lean. They want their own safe spaces, just ones where they're free to spout whatever they want without any repercussions for themselves. They were the ones that started pushing for strict gun regulations (a lot of it was about racism, they were worried that the blacks were gonna get all these guns and take revenge), which they became sensible for awhile, and then the NRA got hijacked by extremists and has been insane ever since. They've been trying to get rid of "satan" in things for decades (I find it baffling that people will go from "now you can't say anything without offending someone!" to "why's everything so crude and disrespectful now?" like they lack total awareness that gee, yes if you think people should have all manner of free speech, especially without consequence, that you're gonna have to put up with a lot of assholes saying whatever they want, including things you're not going to want to listen to or see). They wanted to clampdown on video games, they want to ban porn. They want to ban drugs, just, you know not the ones that they want (alcohol, tobacco, a few others). They want to control what everyone else does, and get a free pass for doing that themselves.

Your argument that you left liberalism because of that type of stuff shows you're either full of shit (not necessarily consciously, meaning, you actually always were conservative, but because you were in a group of liberal people that you expressed things via the bubble you were in, and it wasn't until you got out of that situation that you felt free to express how you actually felt all along you just didn't realize it) or massively ignorant that the conservatism you're enabling is doing that, along with a whole lot of other heinous shit. Seemingly you're still having more and more experiences invalidating that you knew everything, but also are somehow also not actually learning anything new either if you really believe the type of nonsense you've been posting on here.

I can accept people that say that they're going "non-denominational", because they feel all the ideologies have serious problems. I get that. The issue is when you try to defend and absolve one group that is objectively being worse (in just about every regard) to the other. I've told people before. You don't have to become liberal/Democrat to oppose what Republicans are doing. You just need to recognize and stop enabling them. So if you grow to despise one ideology, that doesn't mean you should naturally embrace the alleged opposite. It helps to be mindful of what is actually going on though, and try to stop it before it becomes so serious.