This is why conservativism is just not compatible with democracy. You can’t have a society that adapts to a changing world and growing understanding of reality if people’s political ideology boils down to “We need to ignore new information and instead keep trying the failed ideas of the past.”
This is why when the Democratic party talk about the need for “balance” between the two parties it’s so toxic.
I don’t know if this is conservatism anymore. My Grandfather was conservative, and he was an engineer. He would have loathed the amount of misinformation and straight up lies being flung around these days. As much as his views were disagreeable, he never tried to manipulate or lie to anybody and always wanted to get to the truth of things. This is something else.
It’s still the end result, and while your grandfather might’ve been an engineer and accepted some science as an individual, his political ideology is what has contributed to the slow creep of increasing ignorance because his conservative views are what prompt him to vote for conservative politicians who obstruct attempts to improve society for all of us. Conservativism degrades a society’s ability to access the truth.
There actually is no reasonable form of conservativism. You’re either looking for ways to improve and integrate new understanding about the world based on the best information available to you at the time, or you’re trying to preserve ideas simply because they existed beforehand.
It would be like if someone brought a newer, safer design to your grandfather and he rejected it simply in the interest of preserving the old design because its old. He couldn’t function as an engineer if he applied his conservative thinking to his work, so I don’t see how people expect that philosophy to work in politics either. There is no effective scientist who, upon recieving new information, rejects it because it doesn’t fit with what they already believe, they try to adapt their model to fit the new facts.
We accept conservativism as some kind of immutable facet of politics, but we don’t actually need to. Making itself seem intrinsic is how the ideology survives, but really all it is is the remnant ideology leftover ftom the death of monarchy, it was injected into our politics early on in order to protect an aristocratic class, allowing it to continue on in a new form (corporate oligarchy).
Very well said.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that conservatism is an inherently reactionary and counter-revolutionary ideology: it is primarily concerned with protecting the powerful by entrenching privilege and maintaining the structural oppression of the underclasses.
Well said!
Yea basically you don’t accept “states rights” blindly unless you’re willing to overlook “other things” and accept them in the back of your mind.
What you look past is more telling than what you say.
It’s regressivism now
Capitalism was always destined to progress to an advanced terminal stage.
Sounds like your grandpa might have been conservative as in slow to change.
Nowadays, conservative in politics means deepthroating fascism.
Conservatism has always been authoritarian. The notion of “slow to change” has only ever been a fig leaf to obfuscate that fact.
I don’t believe actual conservatism exists anymore.
That’s why I call those clowns “servatives.” Take the “con” out of “conservative” and you get “servative.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower was a conservative.
I don’t know if this is conservatism anymore.
It’s a return to what conservatism always was.
Conservatism isn’t compatible with a lot of things in the modern age: social programs, military industrial complex during arms races spanning decades, late-stage capitalism in a social Republic…etc. I wouldn’t say Democracy in general though.
Also, these whack jobs are not Conservatives with a capital ‘C’, they are Radicalized Religious Zealots at a minimum. They think their way is the “right way”, and are on some mission to ensure everyone else gets on board, or else. It’s how they approach everything.
The nutty thing about Candace Owens is that as much as she is a liar and scammer, she’s just jumping into the deep end with all these people who are working against her own best interests. She’s not completely stupid, so she must realize this, but refuses to be deterred because she thinks she will somehow benefit in the end. To what end that is for her, who knows. She’s working hard to enable a bunch of racist, misogynistic, assholes though, but she’s also profiting from it and couldn’t care less about who she’s impacting elsewhere with her vitriolic bullshit.
Also, these whack jobs are not Conservatives with a capital ‘C’, they are Radicalized Religious Zealots at a minimum
Yes, there are degrees of commitment, but the normie conservatives are still enabling the extremists and play a key part in the progression from democracy to fascism, you can’t just flip from democracy to a fascist state, you need “respectable” conservatives to start to ease people towards the notion. There’s still no value in their conservative leanings, even if it’s watered down.
I don’t want any lead in my water ideally, even if slight amounts aren’t immediately harmful, the lead traces in the water has no benefit regardless of the degree.
Radicalized Religious Zealots
Run of the mill, average religious people. Religion is one of the many reasons the working class must never disarm. The cult followers literally cannot help themselves. At some point, they all will work to make their delusions your reality.
Well that’s not true. I know plenty of religious people who don’t give a shit about what other people do or believe, and that’s the standard. Anyone who is out trying to recruit, guilt, or force fear onto others in the name of religion is absolutely just a Zealot (capital “Z”), and that is not the standardnof behavior for what I would say is most people.
There’s certainly something about the Southern US that really churns these pieces of shit out like a factory though.
It worked out for Dave rubin. Wait, no it didn’t. And then he doubled down on hate speech so people would forget he was gay and having surrogate kids.
I’ve not heard the Democratic Party demand a balance between themselves and Republicans as a policy plank. Even if an individual had done so, It seems foolhardy to blame a large tent of fairly reasonable people for the incestuousness that has become conservatism.
You are in a abusive relationship with the democratic party. You are a domestic abuse victim.
And the Republicans burnt your house down every once in a while.
Smile, for you are fully represented by the greatest democracy on planet earth! Feeling free yet?
It’s less than ideal, but is still preferable to many places, if for no other reason than its potential for reform. We still have some insight into things like campaign finance for now, which makes it possible to fight from an informed position.
I’m actually not that committed to the Democratic party itself, but you’re right that they’re abusive. Acting politically based on the division between conservative and progressive, regardless of any label a politician might self-apply, helps clarify the way forward for me. As far as my mental model of the political landscape goes, conservative/neoliberal democrats are quarantined off with the GOP, they’re the same in terms of their potential to produce lasting change. I’m not going to support an AIPAC democrat the same way I’m not going to ever support a MAGA conservative.
But yeah, our democracy is functioning incredibly poorly at the moment.
The abuse comes from this comment.
You don’t recognize democracy and like to abuse people as a result.
We are all in an abusive relationship with our government here in the US. For some reason we are accepting being lied to, gaslight, and manipulated by our ruling class.
For all their faults the Democratic party is the only one doing something about it. From trying to hold police responsible to protecting our most vulnerable people.
Meanwhile Maga is repealing transparency laws, taking away women’s rights, and othering people at an alarming pace.
The two side of the same coin rhetoric grows old and at this point is only here to blur the lines and continue to give conservatives control due to apathy.
For some reason we are accepting being lied to, gaslight, and manipulated by our ruling class.
We have been bred to be moral. To NOT accept abuse and lies implies to fight. And fighting is never considered moral. To fight you have to admit there is a conflict (your interests vs the billionaires aka “the owner class”), then escalate the already existing conflict, do lots of deeds considered atrocious by society, etc.
Morality, like religion, is a conservative policy meant to protect the status quo at all costs. That’s why no one ever went to jail for preaching or exercising morality. If morality could change the status quo, it would be prohibited and punished.
Science is a religion in the same sense as not playing golf is a hobby.
Science is a religion in the same way that golf is a religion. It’s not, but it’s easy to see how one might get the wrong idea by listening to the rhetoric of its most enthusiastic admirers and not looking too closely at the actual thing they’re talking about.
An oxymoron. The principals of science are provable through repetition. Faith implies lack of proof. An oxymoron.
I’m unable to articulate the natural reaction that I have when somebody tries to sell me garbage. I can’t articulate it when somebody explains to me, ‘Well, the moon landings definitely happened.’"
Owens continued: “I’m just like, no, I don’t know. Instinctually, it just doesn’t register to me. Just feels like that is a lie. And I’ve realized that I’ve been thinking deeply about this, this pagan cult that we exist in. It is backed by a false science deity. That is what it is. It is the science. This is the new god.”
So she just “instinctively” doesn’t believe stuff that “feels” like a lie, and this proof that everyone else worships the “science deity.” No mention of the giant rocket that left the surface of the earth and the video footage of both that and the surface of the moon itself?
This is the fundamental problem with this type of thinking. Sure you have some aspect of faith (I wasn’t there, can’t 100% confirm the authenticity of the footage myself), but it’s clearly based on quite a solid piece of evidence. Dismissing that, on the other hand, is literally based on faith, her faith that this footage is fake based on no evidence whatsoever.
I contribute that, maybe, to coming from the school of hard knocks," she said, adding, “I am grateful for having gone through the school of hard knocks because you are required to have an element of common sense in order to survive.”
The “school of hard knocks” apparently does not have a good science program.
I only read this article to work out why she specified “pagan” and I still have no idea.
I’m unable to articulate the natural reaction that I have when somebody tries to sell me garbage. I can’t articulate it when somebody explains to me, ‘Well, the moon landings definitely happened.’"
Owens continued: “I’m just like, no, I don’t know. Instinctually, it just doesn’t register to me. Just feels like that is a lie. And I’ve realized that I’ve been thinking deeply about this, this pagan cult that we exist in. It is backed by a false science deity. That is what it is. It is the science. This is the new god.”
Oh, so what she’s saying is she’s stupid and is admitting to being stupid.
Sure you have some aspect of faith (I wasn’t there, can’t 100% confirm the authenticity of the footage myself), but it’s clearly based on quite a solid piece of evidence.
Except that you don’t need to have “faith” that this happened, you are able to verify it yourself!! There were reflectors left on the moon that you can shine a significantly strong laser to and have it reflected back if you have a sensor that can pick it back up.
THAT is the point of peer review. To prove that the results in the experiments are reproducible by those using the same equipment, and that faith isn’t a requirement - that anyone can verify it and reproduce it.
How would those man-made reflectors have gotten there if not for man going to the moon and placing them there?
There were reflectors left on the moon that you can shine a significantly strong laser to and have it reflected back if you have a sensor that can pick it back up.
Yeah this is the huge issue for moon landing deniers. Also they have pictures of the landing site from the lunar reconnaissance orbiter, not that “school of hard knocks” alumni would believe that anyway (I tried once, did not convince them).
I was mainly using it as an example of how you could argue there was an element of “faith” at play, being generous. But of course you are right.
The natural reaction actually has a name, it’s called being stupid.
Willful ignorance is even better since she is defensive about her stupidity and refuses to learn or accept new things.
Ya, and maybe only to trick stupid people to like her, buy her stuff or some other marketing shenanigans.
No mention of the giant rocket that left the surface of the earth and the video footage of both that and the surface of the moon itself?
This is why conservatism and conspiracy go hand-in-hand. You can’t believe the things that “feel” true if the “true” truths keep interfering with this pesky reality.
Christofascists fuck off. Not only is she obviously wrong about science being pagan, most pagans trust and follow the scientific method as the basis of our reality.
The Satanic Temple even has it as one of its tenets (not that they necessarily represent pagans, but it illustrates the idea)
V. Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
“The longer people stay in school, it seems the dumber they become,”
What she means is that exposure to new ideas usually makes people change their beliefs, and this is a bad, bad thing because that usually involves ditching their parents failed conservative ideas. Right wingers hate education because it shrinks their base. Science = bad is a scream of frustration.
Sure okay then show me the proof that your faith has that God exists and then it’ll be comparable to science.
Oh what’s that? You don’t have any fucking proof at all because it’s make believe bullshit made up by ignoramuses from thousands of years ago?
Go fuck yourself Candace you dumb fucking cunt.
LOL. She converted to Catholicism? Wait until she finds out the originator of the big bang theory was a scientist who was also a Catholic priest. Then again she probably knows more about being Catholic than the Holy See (which she probably thinks is a body of water in Rome)
Who?
Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know.
A broadly educated population is toxic to conservative ideologies.
holy hell she is an insufferable grifter. fits right into that party.
I describe Candace Owens as a “moron.”
That’s being polite
First off, Candeath Omens can go fuck herself.
I do think however that there is a weird technology faith in that people believe technology will fix all issues long term or improve or all aspects of our lives. Like when people say AI will fix global warming / climate change… dude, it can’t even properly take orders at a McDonald’s, which is traditionally one of the least qualified jobs. And if you ask an AI how to stop it, it’ll just tell you what we already know, which people haven’t been doing for years. Because that’s what am AI does.
It’s mostly the people neither actually engineering the technology nor studying the actual issue that believe this. But it’s a huge driver in the discussion.
Technology and science are not the same thing.
Laser is also not describing faith in the proper context.
Believing tech will make your life better and believing in supernatural beings are not even close to the same thing. One is an ethos one is not.
That’s why I wrote about “technology faith”, in contrast to the topic “science faith”, because while I think the dangerous idiot is wrong as always, the related issue (as technology is applied science) exists.
Regardless, her motive is just to discredit proper scientific methods and results she doesn’t like, while my point was about technology and its limitations that people don’t understand yet think will fix everything.
I can’t even get AI to put an email attachment in a folder. It sucks so bad.
There’s only one rule: say the most flippant thing possible to get platformed. Why are we still platforming this amoeba
De-platforming has proven ineffective. The best thing to happen to Trump was getting kicked off Twitter. Now he gets to spout all his bullshit and radicalize his fanbase with minimal pushback and reduced awareness from the public at large.
If de-platforming genuinely worked, then anti-semitism would have died out by now. But it won’t so long as people can form their own communities and recruit under-the-radar.
This. Her statements about science are completely arbitrary, as long as they gain attention. In the 1600’s, she would have been pushing heliocentrism only because it was controversial at the time.
Guess I’m just a filthy pagan then.
I’m rather a pagan than christian.
So are many Christians. Pagan practices were merged into Christianity around 300 AD. They celebrate Christmas near the winter solstice even though Jesus was reportedly born in late September. The Christmas tree was taken from the Pagan tradition of Yuletide. The three days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday were originally intended to correlate with the path of Venus during the spring equinox, mirroring the resurrection in the story of Ishtar.
