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0 pointsAnimalMuppet6y ago0 comments

Well, the conservatives want to conserve, not the current status quo, but the status quo of, say, 1950. To get there from here, we'd need to make some drastic changes to the current status quo.

And that's not inherently an insane approach. If we've been going in the wrong direction for the last 70 years, the most useful move is to go back to where we were.

Now, in practice, it's not that simple. You can't just go back. You don't even want to just go back; parts of 1950 we do not want to return to. And you don't have the people you had 70 years ago, or the expectations, or even the societal values.

But I think this explains why a conservative could want to radically shrink (or, rather, de-grow) government, and still legitimately remain a conservative.

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Ididntdothis6y ago· 1 in thread

”Well, the conservatives want to conserve, not the current status quo, but the status quo of, say, 1950. To get there from here, we'd need to make some drastic changes to the current status quo.”

They don’t want that. Otherwise they would support tax increases and lower salaries for CEOs. They want to go back to a mythical past that never existed the same way they are Reaganites that would call the real Reagan a RINO.

AnimalMuppetOP6y ago

Of course. They want the 1950s, not as they were, but as they imagine them. In the same way, the liberals want, say, Sweden, not as it is, but as they imagine it.

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