Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "The Bulwark"
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@neil216 Well, Tim and Bill are conservatives. I’m a conservative. We used to be mainstream conservatives. To be fair, I’ve come around on issues like health care and child care/child tax credits, but I think my values and principles remain the same.
Maybe some of that has to do with conservatives like us sharing some bedrock values with liberals like you. Maybe it has to do with recognizing everything isn’t black and white.
Take privatization vs government, for example. Sometimes (I’d argue much of the time) privatization makes sense, in other cases letting government run or subsidize a service makes more sense. In this case, I’m specifically thinking of broadband access to rural areas, but there’s plenty of other examples.
Our tax system favors the wealthy. There’s no getting around that. We need to rebalance the tax code. I still believe that wealth formation fosters innovation, investment and job creation, but on the individual level how much goddamn wealth does a person need to motivate them? The wealth gap has become utterly corrosive.
We conservatives had a great run from the 1980 to 2008. We got pretty much everything we wanted, which is why there is a dearth of fresh ideas coming from conservatives. Some of what we got didn’t turn out the way we had hoped. Now it’s the liberals turn for a while.
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Before I try to address your question, I want to distance myself from the sexist comments in this thread. Comments that use words like “misandrist” to describe people’s struggle to win their political, economic, and social equality. Second, I identify as a conservative of the old school, i.e., Burkean conservatism if you read political philosophers. I don’t see liberals and progressives as the enemy. Rather I see them as partners in a social dialogue as we muddle through life.
I guess I’m confused about what sort of an uproar you want or expect. The related issues of abortion and birth control do directly affect men, but particularly with abortion the issue’s strongest impact is on the liberty of women and their right to make decisions regarding their own health and their own bodies. The real issue is not about men’s access to sex, but it’s about the rights and freedoms of approximately half of our population.
How am I doing so far? You can see how I, as a conservative, think it’s wrong to limit the freedom of people based on their biological sex. As a conservative, I full support the right of a woman to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy or to let it run its course, resulting in bringing a child into the world (and all the challenge and responsibility that entails). The government should have zero role in making this decision.
So here is where I get confused. I fully support the “right to choose”, and I will vote accordingly, even if that means voting for a Dem.
There was once a time when the right was protected by Roe v Wade, and I could vote for an anti-abortion conservative despite their stance because I liked their other policies. I could be fairly confident that the conservative politician was merely trying to pass a social conservative litmus test. Politics, right?
But I digress. So here is my dilema: how can I be a supportive and “correct” ally for women’s rights in the way you propose if I make the issue about me? I’ve tried your way, and I’ve gotten shut down for centering the issue on myself instead of centering the issue around women and letting women lead the charge. I’ve been told that the public discourse doesn’t need to hear anymore men’s voices, and that it’s finally women’s turn to speak for themselves. I’ve been told that it’s my turn to listen.
And all of that is fair. It doesn’t mean I must be entirely silent, because I can still speak one-on-one with other men and try to be a voice for equality and personal freedom.
Men do have a stake in the abortion debate, but it’s complicated. We do make a contribution to pregnancy, after all, even if it’s only some body fluid and genetic material. Permit me to use some personal anecdotes. I was in a serious relationship of two years when my girlfriend got pregnant. She told me she was pregnant, and then, without telling me, without any discussion, she had an abortion within the week. She was perfectly within her rights to do this, but it still hurt me because I wanted to make a family with her. She had led me believe she wanted the same.
As it turns out, what was a serious relationship for me was not as serious for her. I think that the pregnancy caused her to reevaluate our relationship and decide I was not the man with whom she wanted to make a family. It hurt that she didn’t involve me in her decision making, that she just went and did it without telling me.
Within six months she ended the relationship, so I suppose it was all for the best, but I was still devastated (I recognize my devastation was both the abortion and being dumped. It’s hard to separate the two events emotionally).
The point is, we (men) are conflicted over the woman’s right to choose. A woman’s right to choose is absolute. And it sucks for the male partner to have no say, whether the man wants to have a child with the woman or wants to not have a child with her. Whether there is emotional involvement or not, whether the man is eager, willing, or uninterested in shouldering his share of responsibility for a child, the decision is out of our hands. And that makes us ambivalent on an emotional level.
I’m not saying the ambivalence is right. I’m just saying it exists, whether it is logical or not. This ambivalence might explain why more men aren’t as vocal or as passionate about the abortion issue. We might full support a women’s right to choose despite our misgivings, but those misgivings still exist.
I hope this clears up the confusion. I am a conservative because I believe in conservative values of personal freedom and the rights of the individual. I am sure many liberals also believe in these things, but the difference is a matter of emphasis. Civilization is always a balance between the individual’s rights and group rights. When the two are in conflict, I tend to favor the individual.
Goddamn it, I wrote another essay in a YouTube comments thread! I’ve got to stop doing this. Probably no one will read it. But I felt the OP asked a serious question that needed a serious answer.
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I hope Kamala Harris spells out what she’s talking about a little more, because it’s not clear what her proposed solution is. You don’t know for certain that she doesn’t mean government fixing prices, or prosecuting collusion by businesses that are fixing prices artificially high, or something else. I hope she isn’t talking about price caps, but I don’t know.
I’m also suspicious with the “$25,000 for down payments”. She hasn’t spelled out how it’s going to work, but it just seems like a bad idea in general.
But I’ll tell you what. I’m still voting for her, and if she doesn’t go into detail until after she’s inaugurated, I’m still voting for her. If she does go into detail, and I don’t like the details, I’m still voting for her. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like her policies, but, you got it, I’m still voting for her. We can wrangle over the policies once she’s in office.
I do think it’s a good thing that she is broadly staking out her policies, though. That gives me confidence that she’s upfront and not a weasel.
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Which system? Our society is a system of systems. Can you pinpoint where it’s going wrong? When you say people, do you mean everyone or a subset (for example, politicians)?
I see capitalism as a social technology. It’s a method or framework for creating value and for distributing goods and services. This is why it can be integrated into a variety of political systems. We go wrong when we think that there is an ideal capitalism end sate if we strictly adhere to laissez-faire capitalism. This is religion and/or ideology.
If you accept my premise that capitalism is a technology, you might ask how does it fulfill its role as a value generator and distributor of goods/services? Put another way, what is it? It’s an engine. Engines do work.
More questions arise: How can it be harnessed? Who should benefit from the work that it does?
In a democracy, we can answer these questions and determine how to make it work for the benefit of the greatest number while rewarding those individuals who take risks. In this motor analogy, we can tweak the engine to suit our purpose. If society is some sort of car or motor vehicle, is it a race car? A bus? Or is it a luxury sedan? Does it have safety features to protect the passengers? Now we’re talking about the design of the vehicle itself.
In a democracy, we get to answer these questions. We get to negotiate between differences of opinion on the purpose and design of both the vehicle and the motor and all the other vehicle stuff (seating, drive train, steering, suspension, safety features, etc.). In non democracies, we do not. The design is imposed on us to benefit a very few.
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@joex24b I think the first step to becoming a “reform conservative” is recognizing that capitalism isn’t a religion. It’s a way of structuring the economic system of a society to create value. I like to think of it as an engine, which would make society the vehicle. In a democracy, we get to decide about the vehicle: who it should carry, what safety features it has, where we want it to take us, etc.
Another thing that has modified my thinking is recognizing that the open, transparent, and free market is an abstract ideal. The level playing field is an ideal. It’s something we are moving towards and it’s worth moving towards, even if perfection is unattainable. This doesn’t mean we should tilt it in the other way, but it does mean nudging it and reassessing to see if it needs more nudging or less.
You said something important. Flexibility is key. We will not be flexible if we cling to political dogmas. Example: Supply side economics was a useful tweak under certain circumstances. But it should never have become an article of faith for conservatives because under other economic conditions it is too much of a good thing. In different economic conditions, temporarily increasing government spending might get us out of a hole.
If we let go of our dogmas, we will find that we have the same goals and want the same things, we just have different approaches to reach those goals. We can negotiate a viable path based on our shared values and respect for our different values. Knocking down our dearly held dogmas is the real challenge in our current political climate of division and tribalism.
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In some ways he’s worse. He’s worse because Trump is a lazy delegator whereas Desantis follows through on his cruelties, no matter how insane or repugnant. I know, I know, Trump will be forever tagged with “Children in cages, children separated from their families”, but a lot of that was Trump not being in control of his underlings. In many other ways, Immigration was a continuation of Obama’s policies.
Let’s be clear, the Trump Administration enacted a lot of policies that we conservatives should be happy about. But we are right to have misgivings about how they were enacted or whether they were worth the cost. We also must keep in mind that there were adults in the administration that managed to keep a leash on Trump. If Trump were to get a second term, I think he’d be much more unfettered. There would be fewer adults in the room. (Can you imagine Flynn as SecDef? It makes me nauseous to think about it.)
Trump slid into a Christian Nationalist movement that now worships him. He views them as victims for his grift as much as he thinks of them as the base of his power, if not more.
DeSantis is building his fiefdom of Christian Nationalism in Florida. I wouldn’t call him more competent than Trump. I’d call him more energetic and hungrier for political power. He’s building his base and his bonafides as the leader of the Culture Warriors with his quasi-fascist actions that draw comparisons with 1930s Germany. (Fortunately, his reach seems to be exceeding his grasp for now. His war on Disney is seen as failing, incompetent, and petty. The “Constitutional Carry” bill he just signed is a very bad look in the midst of a gun violence crisis and makes his “don’t say gay” policies look as ridiculous as they are.)
With all that said, it doesn’t matter who is leading the MAGA movement. It’s an anti-democratic, anti-American cancer that has metastasized throughout conservatism, and it must be excised. Conservatives (myself included) absolutely must figure this out. Chirping at Democrats that fumble the politics is small potatoes. Speaking out against MAGA and holding our noses to vote Democrat is not enough. We must contribute financially, we must get outside and canvas, and we must organize whatever base we have left. We have to get out the vote, whether those votes are from Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.
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First of all, academic credentials only go so far, even if you’re not an anti-intellectual. Someone in the role of a political scientist (or any academic, really) makes an argument and supports it with data. When you begin offering an opinion that goes beyond your argument, you’re becoming something else. When you host a talk show, you become something else again.
An argument or opinion in 2015/16 that Trump was a criminal authoritarian would not be supported by strong evidence. There were hints, but nothing conclusive (although clearly there was strong evidence he was a racist and misogynist, imho).
To someone on the right in 2016, Maddow was a partisan, to say the least. That’s the truth since she began her career in 2004 on Air America. She supported Democrats and railed against Republicans. She was the left wing equivalent of Hannity. It’s not that the right has done an excellent job of casting her as a partisan ideologue, she did that herself. And that’s OK, because the right was never her target audience.
And once she had that reputation, it was always going to be an uphill battle to get a fair hearing from the right.
It works the other way. Do you know who Sheppard Smith is? He is an excellent journalist that the left never forgave because he worked for Fox News for 23 years.
Anyway, wrt to Maddow, I don’t think she’s a left wing firebrand. I think she’s a pretty middle-of-the-road liberal. She’s certainly smarter than Sean Hannity, but she’s also been wrong (Steele Dossier comes to mind). And she seems to be doing fine, so I’m not clear why you feel the need to defend her.
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