They were right about their base wanting to vote for celebrities over politicians.
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The practical policy triumphs I see listed are Teddy Roosevelt’s setting aside national parkland, and Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. However, Teddy largely wanted to preserve animals to shoot at, and the highways were for providing escape routes in case of nuclear attack on cities, but they wound up helping to kill US passenger rail, so … still a mixed track record.
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Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive and Eisenhower “conservatively” maintained the liberal consensus of his predecessors FDR and Truman.
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In a functional system, you’d have liberals pushing for change, and conservatives asking “is this necessary?”; “Is there a cheaper option?”; “Can we test it on a small scale first?”; instead of LIBERALS HATE AMERICA AND WANT TO TURN YOUR BABIES INTO GAY FROGS AND GIVE YOUR GUNS TO FOREIGNERS!!!
Same here. The greatest hits sermon that stuck with me was AIDS being god’s punishment for the sodomites- I’m still a little surprised I never ended up in one of their teen torture camps.
I’ve spent the last two months in a predominantly Hindu culture, and I think I’ve seen one Christian church halfway between this city and the last one- it’s the safest I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m kinda dreading coming back stateside.
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The comic’s intended message is non-partisan, yes. Conservatives are going to be wrong because our ancestors were not omniscient demigods dispassionately setting up an eternally perfect system. Therefore, the better new ideas have to have come from liberals.
If they had said that liberals were always more right on moral questions, that’s fine. But to say they are always right is to ignore that there is a process that gets us to “right” that is going to involve disagreement, debate, overshots, undershots, mistakes, and so on. Not every change is an improvement, every improvement is a change, etc. In a sane world the conservatives, despite being wrong, would act as a useful brake forcing liberals to confront the details of implementation and the specific goals and prioritization among goals. Right now the lack of that causes a completely separate set of dysfunctions in government unrelated to moral rightness.
And yes, I’m very aware I am being nitpicky and I do think this is a good and funny comic for the target audience.
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The thing that I had to square was: the very large majority wants to be protected by the most open-minded, charitable positions in their caucus, but then doesn’t believe in or adhere to any of it.
You can find people who are logical, charitable, etc., but they often strongly believe that their ‘rightness’ will translate to the other people over in their camp. “If we’re just and sober, then people will be won over by our merit!” I’ve seen it with a scholar who was really good at distinguishing discussions between “equality of access” versus “equality of outcome” and making sound, detailed policy points, only to realize later that… all of the measured approaches were the first thing jettisoned. It’s only marketing. They’re not interested in being limited or precise.
I’ve seen some really well-intentioned people lose their jobs over it.
The people who make the most effort of being reasonable in any capacity don’t want to realize that the people across the aisle are a closer values match.
In short: suckers.
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This piece lampshades the conservative attitude about thier opposition, but again, ignores the elephant in the room: Conservatives being wrong about an issue, does not automatically make their opposition be right. (See: Prohibition)[edit: 18th amendment, brought to us by those same people who got us the 13th amendment and the 19th amendment. The whole ending slavery and women’s sufferage thing]
Those who oppose conservatives are more likely to notice that we are using a 2-party, 18th century paradigm to understand and deal with incredibly complex multipolar 21st century problems… but simply opposing conservatives doesnt magically make one right, it just makes less-wrong conclusions much more reachable.
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Oh god, that was rough. In addition to being a cop, my dad was also a preacher, as was his father and brother. When my cousin began nearing the end of his life from AIDS (just before the maintenance drugs really landed, unfortunately), I learned a really valuable lesson in how regressive thought will not be swayed by the teachings of Christ or basic human empathy and compassion, but only when it lands at their feet in the most painful manner will they realize that Jesus meant we must love and serve everyone. Seeing my uncle, who held even more caustic beliefs than my dad, go around and hug my cousin’s gay friends and treat them like family was beautiful and utterly heartbreaking. Imagine if he’d done that 10 years before?
Exactly. And the minority that actually are following the path of righteousness feel too hoodwinked to say something or falsely believe that they can right the ship. It’s the fallacy that comes from believing that people experience things the same way when, in reality five different people can hear the same exact words and draw five different conclusions from it.
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Yeah, it really glosses over the differences that liberal/progressive policy has held over the years. We’ve evolved from many of those views.
It’s also incredibly important to realize: you are not the progressives of the past. Sure, you’ve inherited so much from them, but you weren’t there and didn’t experience it and make those conclusions. In the same shoes, who knows if you’d agree with your current perspectives as much. In the same way, conservatives want to try and wear their granddad’s clothes and gain the same respect they think they’re due (… and the insistence on bringing back the worst of it is horrendous).
We’re here and now. Determine the most just policy and pursue it. Let the dead take care of themselves.
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“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types – the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.”
― G.K. Chesterton
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Two things: first, that’s a strange example, since prohibition was driven by conservative religious fundies; second, you’ve got the relationship wrong. Progressives are for change, and conservatives are opposing those things. I’m not sure there is much that progressives (or “liberals” in the words of the cartoon) have turned out to be wrong about that wasn’t something that was corrupted by conservatism.
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The crazy thing is that conservatives weren’t always anti-change. They didn’t like it, but they knew it was inevitable, so they tried to have it happen slowly so they could control it. It was infuriating for those of us fighting for liberation and civil rights, but things happened eventually.
Those conservatives are now right wing Democrats, and the Republicans have moved to anti-change reactionaryism desiring a return to an imagined better time somewhere between 1776 and 1959. Labour and the Tories have done something similar in the UK.
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