Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "The Bulwark"
channel.
-
540
-
80
-
61
-
54
-
45
-
44
-
39
-
36
-
@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.
35
-
29
-
29
-
24
-
23
-
18
-
16
-
16
-
15
-
15
-
14
-
14
-
14
-
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.
13
-
13
-
13
-
12
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
11
-
10
-
10
-
9
-
9
-
9
-
9
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
6