Talk:Conservative

This article now needs, at the very least, brief overviews of conservatism as known in other countries or regions. human be in 15:15, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

'facts'
Bohdan added a bunch of 'fact' tags with the comment: "some citations are needed for these claims". A quick scan made me think it ought to be easy to do. ANy help would be appreciated, but I'm going to see if I can ref them up - mostly with "explanations", but links to clear Reagan or Bush quotes (or others) would be even better. human be in 13:20, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I love adding fact tags. Resident vandal
 * If so inclined, may I occasionally feel free to revert them as being of vandalistic rather than improvement oriented? PS, your wandalism has shown much more effort and quality recently, good work.  One more hint - mix it in with about a 3:1 ratio of "good edits" and it will get past the radar for longer! human be in 13:26, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * You can revert any of my vandalism if you choose. I spent all night thinking up new ways to vandalize that would astound everyone. The problem is, what you have seen is all I got.  I'll try to concentrate more and come up with something better.  3:1 ratio?  I hate math!  And what is a "good edit"?  Is vandalism an edit? Resident vandal 13:29, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * A "good edit" is one that improves an article, from punctuation/spelling, to a citation, or addition of useful facts or jokes. Anything that would not get reverted ;).  Then the vandalism is harder to find. human be in 13:51, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

What happened to the references section? Bohdan did something to it that messed it up, then it vanished. --Kels 13:37, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Negative. I added two more reference sections. It was trashbat who messed it up. Resident vandal
 * That's what I meant by messed up. What do we need three references sections for? --Kels 13:40, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * We need it to fulfill my vandalism quota. Resident vandal
 * Quality over quantity, dude. --Kels 13:44, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

Re: m/M uslim
yeah (grudgingly) H. I hate to give any religion or deity the privilege of CAPS. It's just the way I am. RojerB-KtF! 13:39, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * No problem, I know where you're coming from. A certain respect is due in some circumstances, however, in order to appear reasonably authoritative.  I think. human be in 13:51, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

Goldwater vs. Rockefeller
I'd be slightly hesitant to define Goldwater as defining any aspect of conservatism by today's standards. The current group we have today makes me pine for Goldwater and some of his ideals; those neo-cons left Goldwater in the dust. He never had any use for Falwell and them. While I don't agree with him politically on many issues, he had an integrity that is sorely lacking in today's political arena. DickTurpis 19:05, 10 August 2007 (CDT)
 * So sadly true. What happened to the US conservative political movement is that for electoral gain, they co-opted and sold their solz to the conservative religious movement.  Thus, as the framers of the 1st amendment were concerned about, corrupting both.  They also (Nixon's southern strategy) retreated from advancing the cause of human rights in the US by "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" condoning racism.  It earned them post-civil right era votes & power, but at such a cost to the republic.  Eh, I could go on (and on), but I long for the days of watching WFB Jr. debating radical feminists on TV, with both sides acting "sane".  And polite.  Oh, and please feel free to improve the article! human be in 19:21, 10 August 2007 (CDT)

See also?
This is a really weird list. McDonald's? Why aren't they in Fun anyway? Or gone... AT the very least, it should list Reagan, Goldwater, Rockefeller, Churchill, Thatcher, Cons. Talk Radio... human be in 13:49, 12 September 2007 (MDT)

Color
What do you think is the color that would best describe conservatives? 98.17.14.201
 * Pink. human  14:48, 13 November 2007 (EST)

A Question
If someone you knew told you he was a Conservative, would you hate him on those grounds? GodBlessAmerica 21:37, 13 November 2007 (EST)
 * Nah. I'd begin to hate them if they started spouting racist, ignorant, dominionist rhetoric, and not shutting up about it. -- Ζωροάστρης  21:45, 13 November 2007 (EST)

UK Conservatives Liberal?
The fact that the UK Conservative party has many Moslem members is not really relevant to an argument that the party is liberal by U.S. standards. Many immigrants to the U.S. are conservative, and vote Republican, whether they are Vietnamese, Turkish, or Colombian. &mdash; Unsigned, by: PoorEd / talk / contribs

This article gets it wrong (Rockefeller v. Goldwater).
One, I'd be damned if I believe that Rockefeller believed in minimal public intrusion (see Rockefeller drug laws). Furthermore, Goldwater was pro-choice. TheRationalOne 18:01, 29 March 2008 (EDT)
 * 1. Look it up then. 2., Reagan, who was the successful bearer of Goldwater's mantle, was pro-choice too, or apathetic on the issue.  However, in order to fold in the socially conservative Christian movement, he became staunchly pro-life - and made GHW Bush swear allegiance to the same credo in order to get the veep candidate nod. human  18:50, 29 March 2008 (EDT)
 * @human: There isn't (well not at the instant I'm viewing the page), but this will change as soon as the page is reloaded thereby making this edit completely meaningless. <font color=Blue>Генгис    16:59, 16 October 2008 (EDT)

Rockefeller was more of a social conservative and economic liberal if anything. Given his anti-crime and anti-drug policies. --67.52.221.226 (talk) 19:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Wrong on almost everything
This article is as ridiculous and insulting as the article for Atheists on Conservapedia. Seriously, racism, xenophobia, warmongering? Why not just say Conservatives eat babies and poop implements of torture. This looks exactly like an uninformed high school student's paranoid view of conservatism - the version on wikipedia is much better and very well balanced. I suggest either deleting the article for its overwhelming bias or have a conservative write a rebuttal. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 24.17.131.16 / talk / contribs
 * You may have a slight issue with skimming or reading comprehension. What you mention above is from this: "The center of the modern American conservative movement has incestuously been pushed further and further to the "right": with each success, the bar is moved farther to the right; with each failure, it is likewise moved. It now incorporates strong elements of fundamental Christianity[1], xenophobia[2], whatever racism they can get away with[3], warmongering[4], willful ignorance towards science, and a prideful nationalism", which is part of a section describing how the philosophy has been derailed in the US.  <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  14:37, 16 October 2008 (EDT)
 * I agree, I'm not really conservative, but this article seems really biased and unbalanced. It reminds me of the stereotyping against liberals that occurs on Conservapedia.
 * Well i have to agree with the first person.Just read here this human. That is from conservative activist and former speech writer for George W. Bush. Ghy213 (talk) 16:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Glad to see at least one active conservative is decrying what I quoted above. Hopefully, one day the article will be able to include a description of the conservative movement in the US returning to sanity.  20:23, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Seconded, I'm not a conservative but this article is ridiculous

Dutch Lib-Dems
The Dutch Lib-Dems are considered to be Conservative by Dutch standards. In fact, Liberal and Conservative are considered synonyms when talking about politics (over here, that is). I, myself, would never vote for a Liberal/Conservative, as they are way too rightist. InaVegt 16:13, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

Conservatives move left and liberals move left
I don't understand this statement. Both sides move right and left depending on circumstances. For instance in Britain the Conservative party is indeed moving left - but the liberal democrats are moving right. Are you arguing for dialectical materialism here? Totnesmartin 18:41, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * What I am saying is that in the 1800's, slavery was a conservative idea. Well, conservatives advocated it, but you get my idea. Now they don't. So they have moved left. The point is that the center moves left, and everybody moves in relation to the center. Well, most people, anyway. --"CURtalk 18:45, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * slavery is only a single issue; conservatives and liberals have moved left and right, and even swapped positions, on a number of issues. sorry to bring up another Brit example but in the 70s the Conservatives were for Britain joining the Common market, and Labour were against. Now it's the other way round. Your side of the pond, the Democrats used to favour segregation, now they oppose it. Positions change all the time. Totnesmartin 18:51, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * About that: I am not talking about parties. When Democrats favored segregation, they were conservatives. They party position has moved. But what I mean is, over time, liberal policies will become accepted, and liberals will come up with new change ideas. Society will move to be more liberal. --"CURtalk 18:55, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * Yet in terms of things like the distribution of wealth America has been moving inexorably to the right since the election of Reagan--while moving to a somewhat more liberal position on a few identity-based social issues. TheoryOfPractice 18:58, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * (EC x 3) Left & right are only general phrases we attach to certain views; they're very interpretive & in reality there isn't a straight continuum (see political spectrum). I can see what CUR is saying to the extent that social progress (during recent centuries) tends to be towards more liberty & tolerance, which are arguably values of the left.  But conservatives of any age are only conservatives relative to their contemporaries, not judged against the conservatives of past of future ages.   18:59, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * that's true - today's liberals would have had no chance of getting elected 100 years ago. Totnesmartin 19:03, 8 February 2009 (EST)
 * Whoops, I've gone into Monday - goodnight all! Totnesmartin 19:06, 8 February 2009 (EST)

Cut to here to discuss
Tommy added this to the lead:

"Specifically, they tend to regard "holy" texts such as the Bible above intelligence and reasoning and use such texts to justify homophobia and other hateful speech."

Conservatives aren't necessarily religious, at the very least. 00:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * ...look at conservapedia...... Alabama.. The south in general. I realize not ALL conservatives are religious, thats why I italicized tend. Tommy0210 (talk) 00:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I know about those things, yes. And many Cs simply aren't religious nutjobs.  01:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

European 'Librul' dares to edit article about American Conservatives.
Americans please check these edits. Proxima Centauri (talk) 14:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Pseudoconservatism?
Historian invokes Burke again, calls American conservatism on its BS. -- Seth Peck (talk) 20:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Is this an article about conservatism or an article about how much we hate conservatives?
Blue has just deleted a valuable contribution to this article, marking her revision as 'minor' (presumably in order to draw attention away from the fact that she is effectively engaging in vandalism) without any apparent effort to discuss the worth of the edits in question. So I ask the question, is this an article about conservatism or is this an article that bashes conservatives? As far as I can tell, this website doesn't admit any official position on the left/right axis, yet consistently holds partisan and rather ugly views towards people who regard themselves as right of center. ProudTory (talk) 17:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "Vandalism" is stuff like blanking the page and replacing with a Goatse picture (we've had that, actually). Reverting an edit because you don't like it is good old edit warring over content.
 * "This website" is not a monolith with a top-down enforced policy - it's a wiki populated by a community of people with somewhat diverse views. Said community tends to lean left, because the site was originally created to mock a specific site populated by moronic right-wingers. A lot of the people here are American, and their view of what is "conservative" is colored by the people identifying as "conservatives" in their country.
 * And if you haven't noticed, a lot of the articles here "bash" their subjects. It's one of the points of the wiki.--ZooGuard (talk) 17:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * We are not an encyclopedia. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 17:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

PT's issue
I'm not saying what your writing is wrong, but your edits seem to be under the assumption that this is your blog. Despite the left/liberal bias, these articles are supposed to be politically neutral.--Token Conservative (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

HA! Politically neutral? Are you actually taking the piss? This article is a hatchet job and it delights in how much you guys loathe conservatives. If it was witty, it would be OK, but its simply factually inaccurate. I only have respect for facts and humour. When an article has neither, it is in dire need of reform. ProudTory (talk) 00:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Primrose Day
As it is, will mention it - see. (Keep for the rest of today :) ) 171.33.222.26 (talk) 15:17, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Right-wing vs Conservative
"Right-wing" redirects to this page but I don't think that's accurate. In Russia the "conservatives" were the old guard Stalinists of the Communist Party who wanted to overthrow Krushchev for implenting more market friendly policies. Conservatives can also be fairly centrist (such as Eisenhower). Perhaps we should create a seperate page on right-wing politics? I always thought of "right-wing" as being more extreme than a conservative, sort of like how "left-wing" tends to be well to the left of a liberal (in academic circles especially this is how the terminology is used).

What a horrendous website
I figured that 'rational wiki' would be above this simple-minded political favoritism. I wanted to use this page to link to on my site but now that won't be happening.
 * Well, ok then. Do you have any actual complaints about something?-- Mie kal  20:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Shit/r/shitstatistssaysays
https://www.reddit.com/r/Shitstatistssay/comments/43k8b5/lolbertarians_just_blame_all_their_problems_on/ 22:49, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Time for Cleanup?
It seems to me that this page is getting a little long, and might benefit from some reworking. For example, what if we broke out the section on conservatism in different countries into its own page? I think this page should focus on a general overview of conservatism only, but with links to more specific conservative movements or examples (i.e., in different countries, at different points in history, etc.). Jagulard (talk) 20:38, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I mean, I think the article should be grown from Bronze to Silver to Gold, but not via chopping it out to other articles. I instead we ought to make this article great again! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 20:54, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok, so how do you propose doing that? Jagulard (talk) 20:58, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's got major cases of outdatedness. And broadness of brush. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost)))  (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. But maybe "broadness of brush" is necessary for such a broad concept? That's why I suggested breaking the page into separate articles: one that covers the general concept, and points to others that discuss specific times and places. Jagulard (talk) 21:07, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with it being broad? How specific can an umbrella term get? Also, the way to improve it is by adding more sources, more text, polishing up the existing text (cutting/adding/improving)... Relevant images, extensive sources, novel coverage... Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If I were conservative, I'd say we don't need more novel coverage, we need more navel coverage. But I am not, so I won't another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost)))  (talk) 21:26, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There's nothing wrong with it being broad- the problem as I see it is that it does not remain broad, but rather moves from broad to American conservatism and back to broad again, e.g. "supply side economics," "conservative psychology," and "prominent conservatives." Ironically, tucked into the midst of those examples is a section that reminds us the term is hard to define- something that stylistically, the article itself tends to ignore. They are all good points, but they simply don't hang together coherently. To me, the solution would at the very least be to create a new page specifically about American conservatism. Jagulard (talk) 21:47, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

It almost as if the article had been written over several years by very different people who did not know one another and probably did not even share a mother tongue. where else have I seen that? Honestly, though, the article needs a lot of work. And maybe splitting of "American Conservatism" might make sense. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost)))  (talk) 21:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm for that. Some stuff from here can be cut n pasted to start with from here and revised over there. nobsGary Johnson for Rehab! 03:13, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Let's have a roll call. All in favor, say Aye. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost)))  (talk) 21:11, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Aye; even if it means putting my money where my mouth is, as it were. Jagulard (talk)
 * Let the record state that Laurogeita voted aye. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost)))  (talk) 18:51, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Criticism
In discussing American conservstivism, snd the Repuhlicsn party, I suggest the article attempts to assume a framework of how conservatives view themselves. This is a matter of priotitization. Articles that place the primary interest on domestic and social issues, and downplay, or show scant understanding of the Republican party's role in defense and security matters, and the level of taxation so that business interests are prepared to assist in a national security emergency, obviously are written by people with little understanding of the dynamics within the GOP and conservstive movement. Hey, we all know the Democrats care for poor people more and the Republicans are the party of the rich. All that can be hammered home when you list Social policy is #3 on the list of priotities of party insiders and donors. Maybe the single issue pro-lifers or anti-gay backers will get do offended once their eyes are open, they'll go home. Anyway, there's plenty of room to expand this broad outline that would make an article look more informed and believable rather than just leftist talking points as to why the GOP and conservstives are so evil.nobsGary Johnson for Rehab! 23:11, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) National security, defense, foreign policy. The GOP was founded on two principles: one, the dignity of the individual, and two, to preserve the Union. The attitude of most conservative Republicans today, as it always has been, if the GOP isn't looking out for these two causes, the Democrats sure as fuck can't be trusted to do it. Time was, there was a big debate between isolationism and internationalism. The internationalists won out, but the isolationists now are making a comeback. The dignity of the individual relates to two important issues today, taxation (which indirectly affects employment prospects) and abortion.
 * 2) Economic issues, budget, taxes, business & regulation. A healthy economy is the only way to meet America's defense needs, and just as Democrats feel Reoublicans don't care about poor people, Republicans feel Democrats don't care about providing for the common defense with a healthy economy.
 * 3) Social issues. Cosmetic and window dressing. However, nothing should undercut conservatives belief in the dignity of the individual. Here, government dependency undermines rugged individualism.
 * I think you make some fine points, and certainly they should b included in the description of conservative attitudes. However, if I were to tackle the issue, I think approaching it from a historical perspective would make more sense. After all, many of the items you list have not always been major concerns of American conservatives, nor have they ever been exclusive to American conservatives. Rather, I think it needs to be stressed that the point of view described above belongs to one very particular flavor of contemporary conservatism, and should not be mistaken for the whole. Jagulard (talk) 05:53, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree completely. Both American parties are where they are today as the result of a process of evolution and growth, and not as junior high school teschers like to say, "the GOP used to be liberal and the Dems were conservative, then they switched". Both parties and ideologies have followed a path of evolution which has left them, on the whole, not that far off from where they began. nobsGary Johnson for Rehab! 00:39, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's a NYT OpEd from today that says something quite different than what I just posted, yet there's much there I agree with. I think the timing is right for an overhaul.nobsGary Johnson for Rehab! 07:38, 11 September 2016 (UTC)