09-21-2017, 10:01 AM
(09-20-2017, 08:27 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:(09-20-2017, 05:27 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Speaking of conservatives -- the Party once associated with political and economic conservatism used to be for small-scale government and against debt. They thought competition adequate for economic justice. They believed in rational thought and expected it to overpower superstition and ignorance because of the advantages of objective learning. There would be room for big as well as small players in the economy. Now the last two 'conservative' Presidents stand for monopoly, debt as a generator of income and a promoter of consumerism, and heavy involvement of the government in private-public partnerships -- guaranteed profits to gougers with high costs for us all to bear.
The way you speak I'm pretty sure you're stuck in some sort of time warp where the Trump hostile take over of the GOP never happened. Of course this could just be a canned response you've been dishing out since the 90s.
Reality exists. The demagogue won, and he has showed himself behind an agenda that has the support of about 40% of the people. The now-dominant Party appeals to the worst in human nature -- mass vulgarity and superstition, and elite rapaciousness.
However inadequate, inconvenient, or unpopular it is, virtue merits cultivation. Surely you know the expression "pearls before swine"... we have marvelous technology and creative talent, and much of it is going to sordid ends.
Conservatives need to stand for something other than economic gain and mass folly (superstition, ignorance, and free-floating anger).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.