I’d like to start a series seeking viewpoints from across the political spectrum in general discussions about modern society and where everyone stands on what is not working, what is working, and where we see things going in the future.
Please answer in good-faith and if you don’t consider yourself conservative or “to the right”, please reserve top-level discussion for those folks so it reaches the “right” folks haha.
Please don’t downvote respectful content that is merely contrary to your political sensibillities, lets have actual discourse and learn more about each other and our respective viewpoints.
Will be doing other sides soon but lets start with this and see where it takes us.
Conservatives, or people who would be considered conservative on Lemmy?
Lemmings who consider themselves and tend to the right politically. I realize Lemmy heavily leans left so this might be a less engaged thread but I want to do different vantage points as seperate threads.
It’s hella weird around here, because I consider myself moderate-to-reasonably-left wing, but by Lemmy standards I’m probably waaaaaay conservative. Like some of the stuff I see celebrated around here definitely makes my eyebrows shoot up.
And like, I’d actually enjoy having this discussion as well in that frame, but I don’t think I can honestly answer as a “conservative”.
Right?
I basically identify as a socialist these days. But like, Scandinavian flavored, if that makes sense? So, strong socialized public services on a lot of fronts where it’s logical to do so, strong unions engaging in robust and productive dialog with the government and corporations, and - yeah - corporations. Capitalism can be, and is, a good system if it’s a component of the system instead of the entire system. The problem with most western economies is that neoliberal “captains of industry” have decided it’s time to take the governors off of that steam engine, and they’ve lobbied their respective governments to do so… and now the engine is running away (For those unfamiliar with the rough operating principles of steam engines, this is one of the possible outcomes of a runaway engine).
I agree that a disturbingly large proportion of our economy is straight up not working for humanity. But I also think a lot more good can be achieved much more quickly if we actually try to fix things instead of just tearing everything down (which I think would harm a LOT more people in ways that most people don’t fully understand). We just need to be more humanist about it (about a lot of things, really, but this topic in particular would be a great start).
From the reactions I get from some circles, you’d think I was calling for a fully libertarian hypercapitalist society. Which incidentally, is one of the things that frustrates me about the ML crowd: they’re frustratingly dogmatic in areas where it just doesn’t make sense to be, and they often refuse to admit when their theory doesn’t match with reality.
Hahah- i started calling myself a San Francisco conservative: absolutely left leaning but compared to the folks in SF I’m not blue enough.
I was called “extremely right wing” the other day by a tankie, so I guess I can technically answer:
- Politicians pushing regressive legislation and talking points, instead of just letting people be who they are
- Conservatives who have no interest in conserving anything
- Extreme and growing wealth gaps
- Money in politics
- They never renewed Firefly
- They renewed Star Wars
- Fascists allowed to walk around unpunched
…yeah, as you can probably guess, I don’t exactly consider myself a conservative. You need to define what you consider centrist in this context.
Can you define conservative?
I am right-leaning and voted republican until Obama. My beliefs haven’t changed, but as the tea party took over, the parties shifted, and now my vote is typically for a conservative democrat, as the republican party strays farther and farther right.
Idk if anyone can define conservative at this point.
If I was being generous I would define conservatives as people who are in favour of less regulation, less social support systems, more privatization, anti-legalization/decriminalization of drugs.
We should probably include abortion and immigration as well. The problem I see is, 30 years ago conservatism was a big tent, and it’s devolved to “my way or the highway.” Party capture through first-past-the-post has allowed that to stick. “I don’t like that” has replaced “can we afford that.”
Well, we’ve become so tolerant, we’ve forgotten that somethings are just not good, and it’s become taboo to talk about certain things.
Certain ideologies are just not compatible with western culture, specifically those who condone raping women and murdering lgbtq people. Ideologies are not races or ethnicity, they are not inherent to you like race is. Nazis are an ideology, so why give other ideologies a pass?
Furthermore, immigration hurts the average worker. A person born into a poorer country will usually work for less than a person born into a richer country. Immigrants are basically scabs, cheap abusable labor, and that’s why we let in millions into western countries.
Canadians can’t buy a house, the UK can’t get a doctors appointment, Germany elected the nazis in, Italy came close to electing fascists, Sweden is the rape capitol of Europe, and America is close to electing Trump again, wages are down every where, purchasing power is down, everything is fucked.
We’ve let in so many in the name of tolerance it causes problems that we aren’t even allowed to discuss, and it’s destroying our countries.
There’s a flip side to this too. First world countries that are completely opposed to immigration are starting to see a significant population decline which will come with a whole host of other problems.
And in the US at least it’s actually extremely difficult to immigrate through legal means. You have to be a qualified professional and generally have to be sponsored by an employer to get a green card, or have family members that are citizens. The main issue is people that abuse loop holes to get into the country without going through the immigration process. And I agree, that’s a problem that needs to be solved. It really does a disservice to the hard working immigrants that work their ass off to become US citizens/permanent residents the legal way.
You are correct, as quality of life increases overall fertility rates decrease. That does need to be solved, and immigration is part of that solution. Unlimited/unregulated immigration is not.
Difficulty with legal immigration is generally the case for almost every first world country, the US is not abnormal or exclusive there. I do not meet qualifications to immigrate to Canada, or anywhere in Europe right now even as a tech sector worker, except possibly by having family history through my ancestors. I am not arguing that US immigration policy needs a lot of work, but it’s not fair how much the US gets singled out for it as if it’s the outlier here.
But why does a fertility-rate decrease “need to be solved”? Obviously if it’s in absolute free fall that’s going to cause short-term problems, but the underlying reality is that our planet is overstressed with 8 billion humans and counting. Personally I just do not get this anxiety about fertility rates, it seems so disconnected from reality.
quality of life increases overall fertility rates decrease
Look at Elon Musk, Boris Johnson, or a whole host of incredibly wealthy people with stupid amounts of children. Quality of life increase is also linked to higher economic power. This is linked to higher human capital investments, meaning that it’s now disproportionately more expensive to raise a child to be successful in the new economy with the higher quality of life. Quality of life increase generally correlates to life being disproportionately more expensive.
Solve the cost of raising children and you solve fertility rates
Certain ideologies are just not compatible with western culture, specifically those who condone raping women and murdering lgbtq people. Ideologies are not races or ethnicity, they are not inherent to you like race is. Nazis are an ideology, so why give other ideologies a pass?
I don’t think anyone is giving them a pass?
Furthermore, immigration hurts the average worker. A person born into a poorer country will usually work for less than a person born into a richer country. Immigrants are basically scabs, cheap abusable labor, and that’s why we let in millions into western countries.
Just not true, according to the data we have, a vast majority of workers are better off with immigration.
The only group which is hurt by it is people without high school diploma, which is bad, but the increased productivity and tax revenue could also easily be used to help those people.
Canadians can’t buy a house, the UK can’t get a doctors appointment.
How are these things caused by tolerance? The first one is a runaway unregulated housing market, and the second one is caused by austerity.
Sweden is the rape capitol of Europe
Just not true due to a huge variety of factors I am too lazy to explain right now.
America is close to electing Trump again, wages are down every where, purchasing power is down, everything is fucked.
Again, how is this caused by being tolerant of minorities?
We’ve let in so many in the name of tolerance it causes problems that we aren’t even allowed to discuss, and it’s destroying our countries.
“When I said that gay people are driving the wages down at Thanksgiving my family looked at me weird.”
I don’t think anyone is giving them a pass?
In France the left has the following explanation most of the time: “he doesn’t have our cultural reference and doesn’t know it’s bad,” or “he’s psychologically disturbed and therefore not his fault so no prison.”
“he doesn’t have our cultural reference and doesn’t know it’s bad,”
I guess I’ve seen people say this? But it’s not really the common way of thinking in most progressive spaces. Can’t really say for France specifically though, I guess.
“he’s psychologically disturbed and therefore not his fault so no prison.”
In these cases people are usually put on involuntary psych holds, and reassessed over time, as far as I know?
Either way, not really getting off scott-free.
Sounds less like immigration hurts and more that lack of proper support networks and lack of regulation of capitalism is causing problems.
What’s the point of having a “free market” if you only want it free in the one way you prefer, and refuse to allow any other?
The invisible hand of the market is not all powerful, which is why regulation and safeguards are needed for a “free” market to function. Anti-monopoly laws, labor laws, etc. I lean libertarian, but do not embrace 100% laissez-faire economics. Immigration falls under this same framework.
The West has eliminated their manufacturing and blue collar base by outsourcing it overseas, which hurt large swaths of the working class. Outsourcing labor by importing labor from overseas to do the job cheaper here has similar results. See the agricultural sector in the US for this example. Everyone always says that the reason immigrants are needed is because Americans don’t want to do those jobs, but leave out “for the wages paid”.
Some regulation is needed, and we have had wholesale failure of meaningful regulation and complete regulatory capture by the oligarchy which started under Reagan and snowballed out of control since. Proper support networks and social safety nets have also failed, for the same reasons. Unrestricted immigration does not solve these issues, and with these holes in place does indeed hurt.
Things that aren’t a problem when everything is healthy and working as intended can definitely hurt when things aren’t healthy. Obviously the “health issues” need to be addressed to actually fix the problem, but ignoring symptoms while doing so doesn’t help.
Certain ideologies are just not compatible with western culture, specifically those who condone raping women and murdering lgbtq people.
I hear this argument a decent amount, but have never heard it actually expressed - only held up as a straw man argument on immigration issues.
None of us wants shitheads around. Some of us just want to give everyone a chance to prove whether they’re a shithead or not, before deciding whether they can immigrate.
I agree with most points except immigration since the workers compete in the same global economy except corporation get to pick the workers and laws ala cart while workers get stuck where they are born with huge hurdles to change that.
They went out of there way to say “not race or ethnicity” so I guess I feel that should separate out normal immigration rhetoric in my mind.
If taken in good faith
I suppose I’m conservative according to lemmy, (I’m also not great at internet arguments, but do like conversation, so let’s keep this nice.) Also, I’m not an expert, but I’d like to get the ball rolling here.
In my opinion, I think modern society is just more disrespectful. Social media makes the “shock and awe” approach the way to go to get views and get heard. Everyone is just pursuing their own “mic drop” moment. There’s just so much noise.
So to get heard and stand out you have to get more extreme and entrench in your own views.
So how do we fix it?
In my mind, respect comes from better parenting. More time off from work for people does not necessarily mean more time with their own kids, but it certainly can’t hurt. So maybe a reduction in the normal working week from 40 hours to maybe 35 would make a difference.
I’m not sure how we could make incentives to have people be better parents.
It’s a fair point. I don’t know if I could say I put all the blame on bad parenting, but I do think absence of parents (or, maybe, absence of parental attention) is definitely a thing that stunts kids emotionally for a number of reasons (including overexposure to social media).
I think the incentive to be a better parent is already there for most people; humans are pretty well hardwired to want to look after our offspring. But it’s being drowned out by multiple other incentives to spend time elsewhere, or risk falling into trouble - financial, social, whatever. It’s going to take more than an hour off from work a day to ease the incredible anxiety we’re filled with to focus on working more/harder.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I have all the answers either, but I think it’s going to take a multi-pronged approach.
So what do you make of my experience? For background, I used to live in an apartment in an otherwise-wealthy and desirable neighborhood, and worked at a grocery store. Within several blocks of me, there were three different well-to-do families that adopted daughters as infants from troubled backgrounds, probably with drug-abusing birth mothers.
One daughter worked at the same store I did. She regularly called in, or otherwise didn’t show up for work. Her diet was atrocious, she was always fighting with certain other employees, and eventually got fired for swiping her employee badge to get the discount for any cute guy who’d talk to her. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, or the most ambitious. Her sisters, though, were star students, and went on to attend Ivy League schools, and got high-powered jobs.
The 19-year-old daughter of another family moved into the apartment across the hall from me. Her parents paid the rent, because she would fight with her mother constantly at home. She couldn’t keep a job, even at the co-op across the street (absenteeism, again). She kept a string of pets that she couldn’t take care of, eventually a rabbit that she tortured by leaving alone for several days at a time while she was staying with her 50-something boyfriend. One time, she met a homeless man, and let him move into the apartment she wasn’t using (without informing our landlord). While she lived there, I had a chronic problem with small flies in my apartment, no matter how much I cleaned. When my landlord finally evicted her, he threw out the refrigerator, because it was caked and crawling with maggots. (The flies went away.)
The daughter of a third family, a friend of my landlord, got involved with a troubled young man, another student at her school. They hatched a scheme whereby he’d rob her parents, but the robbery went wrong. He shot them and left their bodies by the side of the road in a nearby wooded area. Same deal as the first family, though, her siblings were well-behaved, and good students.
These particular kids were problem children, although raised in exactly the same environment as their siblings, by the same parents. They had love, wealth, good schools, close involvement in their lives, lots of activities, medical needs attended to, et cetera, et cetera. What more could any of these couples possibly have done? In contrast, most people who have abusive, neglectful parents turn out to be responsible citizens, despite their emotional turmoil. Bottom line, I don’t buy the “bad parenting” explanation. There are way too many holes in it. What would better parenting look like, exactly?
