I’m not talking about political parties, I’m talking about conservatives vs. progressives.
You still seem to have difficulty understanding that “conservative” and “Republican” are not interchangeable terms. It was progressives (largely within the Republican party) who fought for abolition and women’s suffrage. It was progressives (largely within the Democratic party) who fought for LGBT rights. At no point did “conservatives” step up to help any of those groups.
That sound you hear from up North? It’s 37 million people saying “Seriously?!?” followed by raucous laughter.
I don’t know what “outside of the US” you’re thinking of, but it’s certainly not your closest neighbours.
“Liberal” is to the right of centre, yes, but your Republican party hasn’t seen that since the days of the Southern Strategy (might want to look into that before you call the Lincoln Republicans “conservative”, btw). They’re so far rightward that they’re claiming the very liberal/neo-liberal Democratic Party is socialist.
The problem is that you haven’t got a left-leaning party in the US, so you have no idea what it even lioks like.
There is a distinction between conservativism vs. progressivism and Republican vs. Democrat. And even than “conservative” itself has taken on a completely new meaning in common usage that has nothing to do with the conservativism that opposes progressivism and wishes to conserve. These days people talk about “conservativism” as the values of Reagan. But Reaganism/Thatcherism is the political philosophy that “there is no such thing as society” which is the exact opposite of opposite-of-progressivism-conservativism.
Today’s Republican party isn’t conservative in the Reaganite sense. It’s not conservative in the maintaining-society-and-it’s-institutions sense. It’s just straight up authoritarian. I disagree with your interpretation of Bob Altemeyer’s research on authoritarianism in terms of followers being more “moral”. I think it is fair to say they are more selfless, but they are also the most willing to engage in atrocities. They are as moral as their leader and as immoral as their leader.
But to further distinguish between conservativism and Republicanism: Well after the fact, a conservative ought to support them. At this point, it would be hard to describe someone as “conservative” if they didn’t support women’s right to vote. To suggest abolishing that, or bringing back slavery, or even overturning Roe v. Wade is advocating radical change and is totally anti-conservative.
But like I said above, I don’t even think “conservative” means that anymore. It has come to mean Reaganite, which is a near antithesis of the now archaic meaning of “conservative” that it is about maintaining existing institutions to counterbalance progressivism.
I think people in the UK tend to use “liberal” in a different sense, where it is more aligned with Thatcher - closer to what Americans would call libertarian (at least I’ve seen in used that way but maybe just by academics). Obviously in Canada the word “liberal” has had it’s meaning utterly overridden by the Liberal party.
Traditionalist: those that have power, have power, as long as they can defend it from you lot.
Liberal: the best governments are those that uphold the contractural rights of individual citizens. Theoretically, the character of the resulting governments (and societies) are shaped by recognizing certain individual rights and not others (at the outset or by formalized legislative processes). The law is sovereign; political leaders must comport their actions with the law,
Conservative: the best governments are those liberal societies that stay the hell away from our traditionalist power bases.
Socialist: the best governments are those societies which protect the rights of the working classes-- who by the way, are getting murdered by capitalist greed.
Fascist: the best governments are those that throw off the shackles of the social contract, and embody the vital interests of society as it struggles against other societies in the war of civilizations! It will be an honor for you to die in this glorious crusade!
Neoliberal: the state shall be limited, so not as to interfere with the emergent properties of capitalist greed and markets. The social contract must make way for the demands of contract law.
it does matter! how do you think he got in office? by people being uniformly concerned about his white supremacist views? no, it was by saying: those views don’t matter, it’s all this other stuff that’s important.
it matters.
when given a pot of money to do training, this was just about the stupidest option. because it was never about training.
training and support is the veneer over 45’s desire to play general. and - as always - trying to see what he can get away with.
There Are plenty citations but this one sums it up nicely
Ok … I just need to pile on here to point how underpants-on-head bonkers this belief is.
I think that Republican voters can be split into four groups. Reactionaries whose reaction to any change is to try to put it back like it was 50+ years ago, fascists who are self explanatory, free market extremists who object to any state interference in the market (but are fine with business interference), and sports team Republicans who would happily vote for Noam Chomsky just as long as he had an ( R ) next to his name on the voting machine.
If only Fred had done the same.
I should have been clearer… my opinion doesn’t matter as I am not a US citizen and my vote doesn’t count. As a Canadian, I do worry about US actions, since it affects me indirectly.
All I’m saying is: if the mission was to setup infrastructure to accommodate a large number of human beings showing up at the US southern border soon, and to assist border agents in handling these people, then mission might be accomplished.
The “might be” qualifier is important. For instance, did the troops leave this infrastructure behind, or did they tear it all up as they leave (are leaving?).
I agree Trump used it as a political stunt. Said so in my post. But I think it’s also possible it’s a good thing to be prepared for a large # of humans showing up soon.
ETA two more replies…
No doubt Trump and his mouthpieces spouted that to gin up support for the midterms. But it is also possible the army folks just went there, did their job, and are now done. Both things can be true.
I’m holding my judgement until these camps are in operation. And I’m hoping there are good eyes on these camps to ensure they aren’t concentration camps. But a bunch of tents and such is not automatically a concentration camp. It seems a bit hyperbolic to go there sans evidence.
Does anyone know if the infrastructure that was setup is still there? Or if some/most/all of the troops are returning home?
I have to admit to having enjoyed my Schadenfreude watching the free market extremists trying to get their head around the current state of the party:
All this time," [Rep. Thomas] Massie [R-KY] explained, "I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren’t voting for libertarian ideas — they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along.
I’m pretty convinced that free market extremism never appeals to less than 1% of the population, and people who won on it were just getting the authoritarian vote.
At least when Reagan ran he was presenting a new idea. People running on it now are like, “Hey, you know that idea that got us into this mess by being wrong for four decades? Let’s double down on it again.”
That’s because, outside of the US, the liberals are evil.
wonderful. from newsweek the order allows:
service members to use “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention, and cursory search"
what a coincidence that it was signed the night before a holiday weekend.
well, it is thanksgiving.
hey now. don’t make me go full palin. one turkey massacre was enough.
Yikes! That is disturbing. And obviously puts my scenario in doubt.
I’d still like to know the composition of the troops deployed. I’ve skimmed a few articles but don’t really have a good sense… 90% fighting infantry or 90% service & support?
Almost entirely support troops.
And according to Mattis, they won’t be armed. (NYTimes)
That’s a very good thing, IMHO.
