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.
San Franciscan here. We’re less crazy than the media makes us seem.
Lemmy seems like quite a progressive/leftist circlejerk to me atm, I think you’d have to change platforms to find many authentic conservatives
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 I say I’m a single issue voter on Firefly?
Honestly, based on the stories I’ve heard about Joss Whedon, I’m not too sad about Firefly anymore.
Edit: I’m surprised this comment is so controversial, given how Joss made one of the writers on Firefly cry twice during a meeting and thought it was funny.
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.
It only needs to be solved if the country is going to survive, so if that doesn’t matter then it doesn’t. There will be knock on results from that, because countries usually fall a grade or two when they fail, and with decreased affluence the number of children will increase again.
The reality is that if you do not have at least a replacement rate, retirement and social safety nets will fail as they become overwhelmed which leads to social unrest and upheaval. Immigration can help, but this comes with its own trade-offs. 8 billion people is also nowhere near an overstressor for the planet if fossil fuels and pollutants can be curbed, and even dropping the numbers of humans substantially will not help with unfettered greed continues to drive dirty industrialization
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
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.
I think the benefits, like less enviromental impact, outweigh the problems of lower population.
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.
I don’t think anyone is giving them a pass?
Theyre giving them a pass to enter the country.
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.
Do you know what a union is? How about strikes and scabs? Immigrants are effectively scabs that dont know any better.
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.
Their entire point is about immigration.
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
It was all immigration. Sone ideologies should not immigrate.
Oh I guess the fact that ideology is not innate and change change just makes that a mitigatable issue to me.
Do you really that the majority of them are going to just forget their ideologies?
It depends on how the immigration process works. Assimilation is a very real thing
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.”
Hey congratulations you just discovered what an Overton window is.
I’d say something to embarrass you further, but your comment history makes that unnecessary.
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?
Wouldn’t surprise me if they have loads of children and fuck up the next generation and thr cycle repeats. Forced sterilisation would be a great idea if it wasn’t such a terrible idea.
I honestly think unless humanity can diversify into different ideologies we are doomed.
You’re not going to find these kind of conservatives on Lemmy.
You’d be surprised
So I’ve always been left leaning. But I went to uni for economics so some of my left views I believe are best solved through the market, which appear right wing.
Also I have given up with current left parties for the moment so will probably vote right in the next election.
I think more things need to be nationalised, like rail and water, need more money for schools and hospitals and the police (somehow that’s a right wing view on this website unbelievably everything short of communism seems right wing in this place.)
But largely I think we need more money in the hands of people, more taxes and value needs to be more accurately addressed (externalities).
The belief coming forward in economics is money beats everything. Poor people don’t have enough food? Don’t give them free food give them cash, it’s better for them and cheaper for the state. So eventually UBI needs to exist but cash transfers are the way for people that need help.
Things that pay back in 20 years should be focused on. Subsidised nurseries and free things for teenagers to do.
Rail adds value to the area directly around it so rail is subsidised by a Land value tax on the wealth it creates around it. (Japan does this sort of, they own land around stations). Land value tax in general is great.
This is all going to cost money and people ultimately need to pay for it. So people will have less wealth but if you can free up costs then it can be a win win. More for the state and more for the people. So let’s solve the housing crisis and wage stagnation. Immigration! That’s why I’m voting right wing. Unskilled labour keeps wages down and house prices up, it’s as simple as that. The capitalist win and that’s why they try to gaslight everyone into thinking bringing in people that contribute less to the economy and commit more crime than locals is a good thing. (Stats are out there. Some countries absolutely don’t do this, some do. A lot is lost in averages but some demographics make the country worse some obviously better).
Personally I’d demolish a lot of low density land and build more houses (privately) downtown and link it with public transport.
We work too much and we need to start reducing the working hours and put more money into reeducation. I’d probably give tax discounts to business that set up outside of the main cities too.
On a personal societal level we have also lost sight of what equality actually is. Equality isn’t treating people differently because they are different, it’s treating people the same even if they are different.
Equality isn’t treating people differently because they are different, it’s treating people the same even if they are different.
This idea really breaks down when you apply it to people with disabilities who have different needs than the norm, and that problem applies to systemically disadvantaged people too. Society isn’t one size fits all, we need to cater to everyone.
Obviously if you need some disability then that’s going to be an exception to the rule.
But when someone says “We need more women in the workforce so let’s only hire women. Men need not apply” that’s not equality. If we said “This person worse at the job but he’s black so we will make the enter easier for him because he can’t compete with white people.” That’s not equality.
Minorities get passed over and screwed over for basic needs like housing, education, childcare, etc. As a result, when someone says “we only hire competent people, the best people for the job, it’s not our fault if these minorities we interviewed happen to be incompetent” that’s already setting things up to reduce their presence in society, which loops into making them poorer, with less access to basic needs and so on. Refusing to hire a woman for one job and hiring a man instead because you think she’s less competent is tunnel vision, you’re focusing on a single job and trying to scale that to the whole of society; the most direct answer is just to hire more people and train everyone. It’s corporate thinking to assume you will only hire a single perfect worker for all of your jobs, but all you’re doing is only reducing your work force, which only ever works for the corporate bottom line until you run out of people to fire. And when the imbalance is so bad, there is a point where, on a large sale, you need to hire a higher number of women / Black people / handicapped people to catch up, because you’ve shut them down the whole time; and that basically makes it your own fault if you think they’re less competent than educated competent men, because they didn’t get the opportunity, because they didn’t get the training, because… they didn’t get the opportunity.
The “hire only competent people = only white men” is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it creates the entire situation of everyone else being less competent, being lower on the decision totem pole (like the decision to help minorities get out of that loop), having lower incomes. If you help only your own because they have the skills you want, you are creating the situation where you perceive everyone else to be lower by your own standards. Someone’s gotta make the first step to bring everyone up to the same level, and you know it’s not going to start in education and housing. Because those people are not up there making the decision to help with that. The people who can make the decision choose not to help, because those minorities don’t have the same skills as this other guy here.
So you’re saying to start a new system where you only hire non white/ non males. Suddenly you have a whole generation of young men/ young whites being passed over for positions just because they are white/ male. So what happens the next generation? You only hire white males because they were past over in the last generation.
No mention of hiring based on lower income. No you are doing it based on race. So rich black people get a huge benefit over poor white people who never had any opportunities and currently don’t but, fuck them right, they are white. They shouldn’t feel hard done by that they are poor have no opportunities in life because hey that CEO is an old white guy.
This is why it’s stupid you are actively disenfranchising people. Sure people got mistreated in the past but misreading people now isn’t going to make them be not mistreated. It just means twice as many people have been mistreated.
So you’re saying to start a new system where you only hire non white/ non males.
I say balance and that’s your take?
poor white people who never had any opportunities and currently don’t but, fuck them right, they are white.
Man. I spoke about hiring based on skills the whole time. This imbalance in poor, less skilled white men was already there before you started talking about diversity hire, but you chose to blame diversity hire, because you think unskilled women or minorities get hired over skilled but poor white men. I spoke about improving housing, education, childcare, and all other basic needs, I didn’t say that only applies if you’re not a white man. It goes for everyone. But those poor white men aren’t getting help from the current situation either way, and you seem to think that the only solution is to hire them over minorities. You’re not talking about helping all the people in this situation, you just want the poor white men to get hired and not get passed over for less skilled women - you’re fine with leaving everyone else behind. You’re not even considering that everyone might deserve a spot somewhere, you think there’s only one spot and it should go to the skilled white man.
when the imbalance is so bad, there is a point where, on a large sale, you need to hire a higher number of women / Black people / handicapped people to catch up, because you’ve shut them down the whole time; and that basically makes it your own fault if you think they’re less competent than educated competent men, because they didn’t get the opportunity, because they didn’t get the training, because… they didn’t get the opportunity.
Aren’t you also talking about diversity hires? I’m assuming you think there’s an imbalance that needs fixing, and your way of fixing it seems to be to hire minorities at a much greater proportion than how they’re represented in the population? Shouldn’t your solution be more class based?
You complained that hiring was focusing on women and men didn’t need to apply and that’s not equality. I discussed why diversity is important to lift up people in need and why that is, in fact, equality. You’re the one who keeps focusing on poor white men, pretending that I’m ignoring them, why are you pretending they don’t benefit from equality and improving housing, education, childcare? Equality helps everyone.
hire minorities at a much greater proportion than how they’re represented in the population
Oh okay you’re just straight up lying then lmao. To those used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Did you know that about half of humanity is female? You know half the people in high places aren’t female. Or even in medium places. And let’s not even talk about all the other minorities.
Wherever you are, see if you can find some unemployment or income numbers for your area, if it’s broken down by gender or ethnicity. It might surprise you!
you need to hire a higher number of women / Black people / handicapped people to catch up
Thus reads like diversity hire.
Look we both agree give everyone the sane opportunity, education houses etc.
But you get a company like this 100 people. Over 30’s: male 80:20 female
So you get 10 new entry level openings, applications male 70:30 female. There a load of shit going on here, but to make it simple we both agree women have previously been under represented (let’s ignore children and whatever).
There are some people who say we are going to have an intake of under 30’s so because the workforce isn’t 50:50 male to female we should ideally hire only women until we get it to 50:50.
So now you hire 10 women and have a workforce of male 80:30 women. Right?
That’s not fair. Even hiring 50% women isn’t fair. Everyone should have equal opportunity, thats thr only way it is fair. It should be 7 men 3 women, on average.
Discriminating against men now doesn’t stop women in the past being discriminated against it just adds to the amount of people discriminated against. There is no other way to treat people than fairly.
It should be 7 men 3 women, on average
No, it should not. That’s just ridiculous. You don’t fix unequality by maintaining it just because that’s what you’re always known. You want to keep the privileges you have now while denying improving the situation of others, because you think losing your unfair advantage over others becomes unfair to you, that’s nonsense.
Hiring 50/50 is not discriminating against you just because you were at 70 before. You don’t get to decide that half the female population of the planet shouldn’t be allowed to work - because that’s what your 70/30 is, if the 70 is most of the male population (let’s imagine a >90% employment rate), then the 30 is around half of the female population, you’re saying the other half will never be allowed to work. You’re assuming they can keep being SAHM or whatever else.
The thing is that the 70% of workers being men shouldn’t mean there are less men if it becomes 50%. Men aren’t losing their jobs. It means there are more workers, including the same number of men, and more women. This isn’t supposed to be a zero sum game when population grows.
I’m not arguing for affirmative action, but the current system does not treat everyone equally. People applying to jobs with black sounding names get hired/interviewed much less than white sounding names on equivalent resumes.
I don’t know what the solution is but the current system is not working.
Take names off then.
Hiring unevenly now to make up for things in the past just makes inequality now. It doesn’t solve any inequality of the past.
I keep seeing this claim, but where are those numbers coming from? Are they from recent studies, or 20 year old studies? Are they major national employers or rinky dink mom and pop shops in Alabama? If you check the news you will see that companies like Google are actually being sued for purging white candidates, and Asian males. Straight up just deleting their applications based on their ethnicity and sex. Google is not alone in this. There are plenty of other companies you can find news for. The company I work for said that 85% of all interviewees need to classify as “diversity hires”. So, I keep seeing the claim that white people have an advantage when applying for jobs, but what I actually see at the corporate policy level is the exact opposite.
Pretty much nothing you said is conservative except your views on immigration.
Immigrants are also not unskilled workers, a lot of countries only accept people with degrees or useful skills unless they are refugees.
At lot of left leaning parties historically have been the most against immigration also, but I’m voting right now.
I do think the left really fuck up with how they think the government should control a lot of the market. The government waste money horrifically.
Everyone on this website seems to think I’m die hard right winger.
I’m not against immigration overall (I’m for it in many ways) I’m just strongly against how immigration is being used currently.
Everyone on this website seems to think I’m die hard right winger.
That’s the thing, viewpoints are so skewed here that as a Biden supporter (not just “better than Trump” but actually supporting Biden) I’m called a right wing conservative.
Name one left leaning party.
Immigration! … people that contribute less to the economy and commit more crime than locals … . (Stats are out there. …)
Have you considered harm/benefit planet-wide? Is it really better leaving the escaping people under oppression / war / climate disaster caused by pollution from the West? They’ll contribute even less to the economy in their home country.
Yes. Lots of people leave their country, burn their passport then hop the border. I think people should make their own country better, if they want to move to another country they need to contribute more than the average person and be a better citizen (including culturally) than the average local.
My country tried real hard to build up other countries and make the most of them. Now they are on their own.
Are these “left parties” (lmfao wut???) in the room with us now???
The truth is that nobody ever really cared about anyone else, but social norms kept people in line and slow communications made it hard to organize. The internet taught everyone that they’re always right, and it’s ok to argue about anything and everything with as mich vitriol as one could muster. It also allowed the worst among us to organize and communicate easily. COVID showed us how much people truly don’t give a shit about almost everything until it’s truly a disaster for them personally.
The truth is that nobody ever really cared about anyone else
That is not true. I care about people. Please don’t make overly generalizations like that. It’s not fair.
I consider myself a centrist libertarian but I often feel like the most conservative one in the room around here. I think America needs electoral reform to allow more viable parties - having no viable alternatives is terrible for voters and leaves them few options if lunatics take over their party. It’s too easy for special interests (mostly industry groups) to use the government to obtain special benefits or protection from competition for themselves, with the costs widely spread across society, making it difficult to organize opposition to them. This should be someone’s (or a handful of someones’) job! An ombudsman or small panel of them, something like that. The government should not be paying off or guaranteeing student loans when people decide to study things that don’t lead to careers. If someone wants to get a grad degree in rich people’s hobbies or political activism that’s their first amendment right but it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. We need at least a plan to allocate limited resources including but not limited to road capacity, ideally with markets. Everyone sitting in traffic and suffering is not a good solution.
Lemmy’s loudest seem to believe me thinking the “democratic” part of “democratic socialism” is pretty important makes me a conservative. So here’s my “manifesto” for what needs to change in this country, not even to fix our problems but to give us the tools we’ll need to finally finish cleaning up this inherited mess that’s been made in this land for over 400 years now.
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Abolish the independent executive, inherently the body will become a parasitic leach upon the powers and responsibilities of the legislature until we get Caesar types running for the office just for the immunity to prosecution. Rome reserved that much power entrusted to a single person for ABSOLUTE EMERGENCIES for a reason, and the only two men in US history I think have ever actually needed that level of power were Lincoln and FDR.
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Delegate the responsibilities of government to a vastly expanded parliamentary house
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Delegate the responsibilities of state to a vastly expanded senate (still equal number of senators it’s just now you elect a handful at a time every two years instead of one every two or four)
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Multi-Seat STAR voting to fill the house and senate, every election will see every voting district/state send a delegation which roughly reflects the political cross section in each district and state, even Wyoming would send at least one democrat, and that fact that everyone would have at least one senator or representative who they feel validates their issues and concerns and hears their position will I think let a significant amount of steam off the building frustrations people have with their government. Plus these vastly expanded bodies will naturally end up being host to more people who previously had been kept out of the halls of power, more accessibility in terms of women, PoC, and Queer folks getting into office sure, but also, people who aren’t any of those things, but who also have been kept out of the discussion because they’re too poor to meaningfully challenge the established incumbents. It’ll also make lobbying WAAAY harder since you have to spread a massive amount of dough to make any differences at such a grand scale.
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Replace the current circuit system of the federal court with a sortitionate system that draws the judges randomly from across the entire pool of federal judges to try cases with federal jurisdiction. Court stacking and jurisdiction shopping both are too easy at present and both wildly undermine the idea of blind justice, so let the lawyers focus on putting a case together that can win in front of any judge instead of just choosing the judge that’ll say yes to them.
Again, none of this will fix all our problems, it won’t fix anything except our inability to get out of our own way when trying to solve the problems we face as a country, but goddamn is even that much desperately needed in this land made for you and me.
Wrong post mate. You’re very far from conservative. And you know it.
It was a joke about the very far tilted overton window is on this network, but genuinely I don’t believe someone who truly is that fabled principalled conservative we keep hearing about would find any objection to my points.
Giving the Senate the president’s power of Veto and expanding it by itself is a significant investment into the powers of the states in opposition to the powers of the populace as a whole.
Turning supreme court cases into sortitioned bench trials all but nullifies the direct impact of court packing, significantly curbing the inclination towards appointing activist judges.
Expanding the house by as much as I imagine all but guarantees that conservative voices that have traditionally gone unheard will at least have easy access to at least one representative who they can feel confident is going to listen to their concerns.
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American society is too individualistic and needs a greater focus on family, including multigenerational households.
Is this a conservative view? I am in the US and here they are more about individualism and bootstraps.
But yes. I would like a broader definition of family but think people living with other people are almost always better off than people living alone. So much better off. More hands make lighter work, and economy of scale.
It is a conservative view, but not the only conservative view. Different people try to go serve different things.
Need less work hours and more third places.
I want more pubs, working men’s clubs, sports teams, hobby clubs etc.
The biggest problem by far in my opinion is the “political correctness” and the one-sided discussions. Everyone just wants to circle jerk in their own bubble. Be it left or be it right. Both have the same problem and both keep banning the other and escaping to new social media bubbles in the process (e.g., truth-social).
Lemmy tends to be rather left-wing, at least most mods are. I tend to be a bit more right. I’m not racist, not against lgbtq and not insulting anyone personally. Yet, whenever it’s about politics, I have to be very careful how I voice my opinion because the moment I’m disagreeing with any of the mods on the slightest, most irrelevant neuance, I’m being banned or the comment deleted. Everyone is just immediately judgy if you don’t say it exactly as you mean it. This is really hard and annoying for me as a non-native speaker. This has not always been like this eventhough my views haven’t changed at all. It’s getting more extreme recently and I’m getting tired of it almost to the point of leaving Lemmy. We’re seing new social medias like truth-social form for that exact reason. And this kills the internet and it kills political discourse!
The solution: hear EVERYONE out. EVERYONE. Only remove obvious bots and propandists from certain countries from the equation. You can easily filter these two out by just looking at their profile history. You’re allowed to downvote (that’s what the button is for). You can reply. If you feel insulted, tell them or insult back. Don’t be a man-baby and bitch about everything you disagree and stand your ground! If you don’t want anyone to radicalize, this is the only solution. We need every spectrum here. Everyone except for the bots!
Lemmy in particular seems to have a high percentage of reasonable people. As in people who can be reasoned with, but might just be stuck in a ideological rabbit hole. I’ve found that by dropping hostility and acknowledging common ground I can quickly turn an argument into a productive discussion, where both sides learn something. This happens with people who are on the left or right of myself. So it’d be shame to overly ban one side and lose that.
It equally must suck for the mods, because I’ve seen some very very vitriolic comments here, again, on both sides. Removing these comments helps cool people’s heads, but unequal enforcement may be an issue. I’m also generally against censorship, I just absolutely hate the platform when some stupid toxic divisive topic/meme gets posted everywhere for like a month. I really don’t know where I stand on removing comments or banning people, seems like a fine line to walk
Yeah, the question “when to ban something” is indeed a tricky one.
I propose that all good-faith arguments must be allowed, no matter whether they advocate for sovjet communism (so called tankies) or ultra-liberal capitalism or what.ever.
The only reason to ban something is if it’s personally insulting (e.g. non-sarcastic name-calling) or having the direct intention to hurt someone.
I very much agree with you that people need to grow thicker skin and learn to listen. This entire ban thing is causing pillarization and polarization in society. Unless that tide turns, I see that ending in a civil war, all will lose.
However, that thicker skin goes for both sides. Whenever I’m in a more conservative area of the net, I quite quickly get banned for having the wrong opinions. I’m sure the left side started this easybanning but the right side has caught up there.
Also what is not helping is tht the conservative part of US politics has been taken over by actual extremists, in large part helped by polarizing “news” sources like Fox and oan and the such. These sources have shit to do with news and merely exist to rile their base and make people more resentful of “the left” or whatever that it supposed to be.
Now you have trump in there as well, he just had a nice public talk with a guy who wants to stone gays to death… What am I even supposed to do with THAT?
How is anyone supposed to have a normal conversation anymore when everyone immediately jumps to extremes?
Yeah, jumping to extremes is indeed a problem for serious, honest discussions.
IMO there’s just too much money that “news” sources make by being polarizing. They know it increases their view-counts. And to them, that’s all that matters.
I think we need neutral, neutrally-financed news sources. Question is just, how do we organize that?
What is your opinion about “woke”?
I’m hearing this everywhere but honestly I have no idea what that actually means. I’m from Europe.
I’m from Europe
This makes sense because you imply that political correctness is bad. But in the US a disturbing pattern has emerged that the racists and bigots complain that when they’re called out for their views, it’s because of too much “political correctness’”. It’s hard to fight for someone’s right to speak and engage with equal weight when all they’re doing is spewing hateful bigotry.
I’ve seen this mentality quite a lot online, and amongst a few of my friends, and I strongly disagree. One of the best things about the Internet is that anyone is free to create their own space and treat it however they want. The Fediverse is a natural extension of that idea, allowing anyone to make their own website and federate it into the larger community. But the community should be allowed to reject people. I wouldn’t tolerate someone who walked into my house and started arguing with me.
The community will naturally form spaces that are open to discussion, but I don’t think that should be forced. If the larger community agrees that there should be no outside discussion and you disagree with that, find a different community or make your own. Not all spaces are meant for everyone and that should be fine.
I recognize that larger communities build traction, but that can be disrupted (see Reddit / Lemmy & Twitter / Mastodon). I don’t think people will radicalize just because they push out people who they don’t want in their online spaces, especially since the Internet is so widely connected through federation, screenshots, link sharing, and even telling stories.
I don’t want to say that you’re not allowed to have your opinions and feel displeasure with the way Lemmy is moving, but I do want you to know that you can create your own community, either through your own hosted server or through a server that shares your worldview. The Fediverse is larger than lemmy.world and it’s up to you to find a place that you feel comfortable and accepted.
The community will naturally form spaces that are open to discussion.
I wouldn’t tolerate someone who walked into my house and started arguing with me.
These two things are inherently contrary.
The way Lemmy is built, with treads and text based, it should be a forum where people discuss different topics. The problem is, it’s not. Everyone just wants to circle-jerk but says they are open for discussion. But they are not. People go the way of least resistance and nobody wants to truely argue.
This is the way it is right now and I don’t see how it will change in the future unless people start accepting some level of toxicity and get out of their comforty zone.
That is my opinion at least. I’m glad I’m not banned for this yet. And I’m glad that people respond and upvote and downvote. I actually enjoy getting the downvotes too because it means people read it and reflect on it. This is the way it should be. Talk, be heard, vote, respond, accept.
I don’t think we should have to accept toxic behavior or content on facilitate discussions.
Perhaps the problem is that many folks are quick to label anything they don’t immediately understand or agree with as toxic, and if that’s what you mean I agree we need less of that.
That’s what I mean.
Sometimes people say somewhat radical things that aren’t meant to be toxic but come off as toxic. If we could just replace all of that biased political hate in the discussions with curiosity for the other’s opinion, then the internet would be such a great place.
You can have multiple spaces in a community. Some for discussion, some not for discussion. You can also have different communities, some that allow discussion and some that don’t. To expand on the house analogy, if someone walked into a Star Wars themed bar with a shirt reading “Star Trek is the superior sci-fi show” and people got mad and tried to force the Star Trek to leave, they would be justified. That example is overly dramatic, but there are spaces online and offline where people want to enjoy or discuss a thing and should not have to be subjected to people who disagree with them. If some wants discussion, they can create a new space and advertise that space as friendly and open to discussion.
This post is a perfect example of being a space open to discussion. The OP wanted discussion and so people come in with that mindset. But if the OP said “What’s everyone favorite fruit?” and someone commented saying “I hate fruit”, that comment would not be appropriate for the post. It would be off topic and inflammatory and likely be cleaned up (removed) by a moderator. I know people believe that moderators can overreach, but those spaces belong to the moderators. If you don’t like how they police a community, find or make a new community.
We have a duty to limit oppression of people whereever they maybe. “Culture” is no excuse to justify it. The “sovereignty” of a tin pot dictator doesn’t justify it. War is worse then hell, because hell doesn’t have innocents in it to suffer. It is the last option after all else has failed, but it is an option and better than allowing liberty to be snuffed out.
I would not consider my self a “conservative” and definatly don’t associate with all the baggage that come with the word now, but I don’t consider myself republican or democratic either. Some can probably sort me in to a category, and thats okay, have fun.
I will support everyone living their best life as long as it doesn’t disrupt others from living their life. Overall I try to support policy that will benefit society and indivules as whole while respecting individuals freedoms.
Here’s some hot takes that will probably upset all kinds of people. These are poorly witten generalization of what goes on in my head. I do try to keep open mindied to other opinions and perspectives.
- LGBTQ+ - I fully support you, 99% of you are great, but the 1% on scocial media needs to stop throwing a tantrum whenever a stranger mistakenly misgenders you. It makes the 99% look bad. (hartasment/bulling not okay - If some jerk insists on calling someone
who appears to have fully transitionedthe wrong pronouns, after being asked to use the correct one - fuck em, they’re no better than racits and scum of society.) - Letting children transition? This one is much more nuanced, personally I belive letting a child dress/behave (I know theres more to it than that) in any fashion they like is absolutly okay. Putting them through various medical procedures/treatment like puperty blockers is an act I do not belive in due to some major (rare) side effects. Asking a 11 year old if they want to risk never having a child is absolutly insane to me. On the flip side, I do recognize the fact that pre-puberty is, medically speaking, the best time make the transtsion.
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guns? Don’t care, but treat them with respect and don’t blame the gun for muder. If you have a violent history - no gun for you. If you’re the type to pull out your gun to show your daughter’s BF how tough you are - no gun for you. If you the type to wave it out your car window when someone upsets you - no gun or drivers lincess for you. If you don’t keep it locked up/secured at all times - no gun for you. If you make a gun safe that can be opened with a spoon (LPL) - prison for you.
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ProLife/Choice - I’m personally pro-choice, but belive there’s got to be a limit, maybe after 6 months in its too late unless it’s medical or result of rape or something. Abortion clinics need to be seriously overhauled and properly avalible across the nation and regulated like any other medical facitly.
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On the flip side, take a serious look at why individuals are choosing abortion over having children. Is it the economic burden, lost hope for the future, poor access to brith-control, poor education about birth control?
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police - needs serious work. While most are okay, the bad ones get away with some terrifying life-destroying shit and it makes the rest look terrible. A law-abiding citizen should not fear the police, that’s is 3rd world dictator shit.
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Corporations - need some serious regulations that basically say “if the government can’t infringe on citizens rights (privacy) neither can you”.
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- stop making the fines for these big coportaions cheaper than doing the crime
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- who tf let Microsoft buy all those game companies in an obvious antitrust violation?
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- Ownership - when I buy something it is mine. If I buy access to a movie through service X, I have baught it. If service X shuts down, my access should be transfered (download perfered) at no cost to me.
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- Terms and conditions - if they change after purchase, I should be entitled to a full refund if I disagree. You can’t abritaritly change a contract. Forced arbitration should be illeagle.
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labor laws - mandatory holiday/vacation pay for all, even part time. Cut out the " tipped wage" bullshit. Find some way to raise wages without business needing to jack prices so high the new wages are worthless.
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Drugs/Weed - again do as you please but treat it like alcohol. DUIs should be treated as major crime - they are operating a death box and not treating it as such.
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Institutionalized gamabling/lotteries - go away. Its the poor people who get sucked in the worst, we don’t need people dumping the last of their money into slot machines and scratch off cards. Things like games of skill that can result in a prize, a raffel for charity or playing privately with a group of friends are all fine with me.
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Healthcare/Insurance - step one is to make it so insurance isn’t the one deciding what to cover. The ones making profit when they don’t pay should not be the ones making the decision.
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- Step two - universal coverage: everyone’s covered for life threatening emergencies and related medicine needs. Everyone’s covered for 1 head to toe physical a year (that includes basic vision and hearing tests). 2 dentist visits a year. Everyone’s covered for 2 therapy sessions a year. That alone should be good for most heathy people. If you need more coverage then you start paying a bit more. Any voluntary procedures, I.e cosmetic - not resultant of an injury or medical condition - will not be covered by default.
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- Militay vets and first responders have full coverage for life as a thank you for putting your body at risk for others. Any one in an executive or political postion making more than $500,000 a year in personal profits gets 0 coverage as a fuck you for hoarding your money.
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- Step 3 - no “in network” doctor bullshit. If they are a licensed doctor at a legimatly accredited/licensed? medical facility then they are okay. If insurances find that they have repeated issues with a person/place, they needs to be investigated and probably shut down.
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public education - boy what a underfunded mess it has become. Besides fearing for their lives, children are essentially being taught for one goal - pay into the college debt nightmare or go get a job as a garbage man. While an exaggeration and oversimplification, depending on where you go kids are being tested on high level collage literature (and all failing and made to feel like shit about it) or missing out on basic facts (yes the Earth only has moon, 5G towers won’t spread disease and Europe is not country.)
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rioters disguised as protestors - arrest/fine them. I’m sorry, but destroying random people’s property or harming people (even if they are police) is not okay. They need to be held accountable for their crimes. At the same time, violent maniacs disguised as “peace officers” or something is also not okay. Peacefullly protest, find ways to inform unrelated parties of your problems with out disrupting their lives. While maybe not as effevtive, don’t make your self the bad guy - no will support you. Those oil protestors who sit in traffic need to be run over. All they’re doing is holding up traffic, creating a ton more of the exact emissions,wasting peoples gas, time, holding up emergency vehicles or some doctor headed to preform emergency surgery. Imagine if your kid dies because Doc McMiracle got held up by protestors preaching about leaving a healthy planet for our children…
- LGBTQ+ - I fully support you, 99% of you are great, but the 1% on scocial media needs to stop throwing a tantrum whenever a stranger mistakenly misgenders you. It makes the 99% look bad. (hartasment/bulling not okay - If some jerk insists on calling someone
Hi there, I’d like to share my viewpoint.
(let me say up first that I’m not a conservative, not in the US, but still try to give good-faith understandings)
So I think a major pain point for conservatives in the US is that the traditional lifestyle (being a farmer, traditional family, …) are harder to uptain today than they were in the past.
Another issue is that conservatives don’t like that their children are being taught non-conservatives viewpoints in schools. Consider: how would you like it if your children are required to go to school by law, but then the schools don’t teach them “your” way of life, but a totally different one. It makes you angry.
