To my knowledge, the concept of “conservatism” is the will to conserve, preserve past values that are seen as superior. While I don’t agree with this either, this community has almost exclusively posts about fearing new things and trying to show them as evil. Evil migrants, evil new generations, evil new sexualities, whatever.
I do not see any “values” in it, only fear. Rejecting migrants is not based on morals or values that are rational, but on fear. Same for the rest. Which leads to the question, what is the point of this community? It does not lead to debate, people calling it out as fascism on one side (which is quite justified as the root ideas are seemingly identical) and the other side just saying that it’s wrong and that’s it. There’s no debate of values, as there are no values to debate about.
I do not agree with the concept of conservatism, and I couldn’t care less if this place is forever doomed to be downvoted in oblivion. But if you actually want to do something else than fear-mongering, even if you insist on talking about conservatism, then maybe it would be a good idea to refocus the community on actual ideas, and not the typical far-right speeches of hatred and fear that already flood a lot of media.
Of course I believe that it would be better to reconsider opinions that basically encourage the worst of humanity; but even aside from that, there is more to do than to replace every possibility of a conversation with the (stereo)typical “immigrants bad, jesus good, gays evil” speech.
Fear is a valid emotion when it comes to politics. Underlying articles based on fear, if that’s what you see, are the values to be protected, sustained, or advocated. I don’t really see fear itself as a problem.
That you see only fear is reductive. Isn’t “conservatives are afraid of everything” too easy? For me, it has no explanatory power. Why are they afraid?
Yeah, but also meet them halfway.
Go beyond the hatred and the fear to what values they’re really trying to communicate. If all you see in a Trump speech, for example, is his fascist tendencies (of which there are many, don’t get me wrong), then you’ll miss the appeal to regular people on the losing side of Democratic policies. The pathetic, in both the colloquial and rhetorical sense, appeal to leftists as invasive vermin is itself an expression of values defined in opposition.
As far as I’m concerned, the job of leftists in this community is to tease out the values that conservatives routinely fail to identify clearly and discuss that. That should be what makes this place different.
Fear is the mind killer. It’s rarely valid, despite being an emotion. Often highly irrational. Leading to bad decisions. Policy and legislation should never be based on fear. Fear should be the last thing anyone accommodates politically.
And that’s the point of deliberation. While a policy or a perspective might be advocated based on fear, it’s actual implementation should be based on a variety of considerations, of which fear, rational or not, is but a small part.
And it’s not like the any of the commenters here are trembling in their boots from fear of anything. So, even if it is fear that motivates conservative beliefs in this community, it’s an imminent mind-killing fear that can’t be opposed with our passion and reason.
One can’t deliberate over fear though. And so many of these policies have fear at their core. To the point they can’t be deliberated at all. It was true with all the policies wrought by the satanic panic of the late 80s and early 90s. The Muslim panic of the aughts. To the anti-liberal fear mongering of the 2010s still running to this day. As well as any number of other unjustified popular conservative/neoliberal panics like the trans panic etc currently ongoing.
We waste so much time and animosity being fearful about and legislating things that we have no business legislating en mass. Things that should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Five people it impacts. And perhaps medical professionals knowledgeable in the subject. Not some random bigot on the house floor who’s irrationally afraid of some group.
Our foreign policy has been almost completely fear driven for the last 60 70 years. Our drug policy has been completely fear-driven for at least last 40 to 50 years. Our economic policy and investment has been fear-driven for over 100 years at minimum. It’s why we can’t have nice things or actually take care of our people. Because a few powerful ones are so self-interested in more power and wealth for themselves or so fearful that some other group might have the same opportunities and benefits that they do. That we constantly deconstruct and take away everything from people. To the point where the majority can’t afford housing and can barely afford rent these days through no fault of their own.