Why I am not a Conservative

[hugo]

Institut HAYEK - Why I Am Not a Conservative

 

[phreakwars]

Good article.

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[RoyalOrleans]

Those are some valid points.

 

[hugo]

Conservativism simply slows down the ride down the road to serfdom. We need to make a u-turn.

 

[timesjoke]

The first major mistake in the work is to try and show liberals and socialists on opposite sides of the "triangle" with conservatives on the third side.

It seems to me the writer is mixing time frames, blending his definitions to try and paint coinservatives as simply a "blocking" group while everyine else is offering great ideas that they just want to resist.

Go back 30 years ago and you get the Liberal who was not a conservative, today is is a very rare seperation. The blue dog liberals fit that description, everyone else is a socialist.

As I was reading I was wondering if this writer actually ever saw anything that was happening in the American political field. Liberals want unfettered change? To let things take their course? That Conservatives were the ones regulating things and limiting things?

Who right now wants complete control of all the banks.....liberals or conservatives? Obama has asked that he even be allowed to take over any private business to control it if "HE" feels it is needed.

Who took over GM?

Who wants to limit pay to every company, not just the ones in trouble?

This fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces is closely related to two other characteristics of conservatism: its fondness for authority and its lack of understanding of economic forces.

It was the liberals who forced banks to offer risky loans through fannie and freddie and that caused the economic downfall. The liberals were not just letting things happen the way they happen as the writer tries to imply, the Liberals tried to "force" prosperity and in turn caused a thousand times more harm in the long run.

I will agree on one area, many Republicans are no longer conservatives and have joined the Liberals/Socialists on their side of the rope.

I do believe that the socialist agenda will win, it is all about baby steps.

 

[snafu]

I think it's a label thats changed its meaning. Conservatism today doesn't mean they don't want to change with the times. It's doesn't mean we can't grow with the times. The Conservative movement today has the same morals and standards I hold. I believe in the sanctity of life. I believe in the pursuit of happiness for all people and not just some. I also believe that you must work for the that goal and not get it handed to you by the blood sweat and tears of others. I believe in the second amendment where it is my right to bear arms and able to protect my freedoms. If this is the meaning of conservatism today them I am a Conservative. Liberalism is what it should mean though but liberalism has taken on a new meaning too.

 

[snafu]

This difference between liberalism and conservatism must not be obscured by the fact that in the United States it is still possible to defend individual liberty by defending long-established institutions. To the liberal they are valuable not mainly because they are long established or because they are American but because they correspond to the ideals which he cherishes.

bull . Conservatives want to preserve our individual liberties because we cherishes them even more than the liberal who wants to change or distort our liberties. Liberals have a more socialist agenda than Conservatives today.

 

[timesjoke]

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. ~ William Boetcker

This says it all for me, and it is only the conservatives (at this time) who offer at least some support for my core values of responsibility.

Every Liberal/Socialist does not believe in this concept quoted, so there is no way I can support them.

 

[hugo]

Before commenting farther you need to read and comprehend the article. Hayek is using the term liberal in the classical sense, where liberals were the ones who believed in limited government. A quick explanation, when Hayek refers ro socialists he is referring to the modern liberal, when he refers to liberals he is referring to a group that is most often called libertarian today. He makes that clear in the article. The socialists stole the word liberal in America and have now sullied the word.

From the article:

It is thus necessary to recognize that what I have called "liberalism" has little to do with any political movement that goes under that name today. It is also questionable whether the historical associations which that name carries today are conducive to the success of any movement. Whether in these circumstances one ought to make an effort to rescue the term from what one feels is its misuse is a question on which opinions may well differ. I myself feel more and more that to use it without long explanations causes too much confusion and that as a label it has become more of a ballast than a source of strength.
In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use "liberal" in the sense in which I have used it, the term "libertarian" has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavor of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself.

A little info on Hayek:

At the time of his death on March 23, 1992, less than two months before his ninety-third birthday, F.A. Hayek was widely if not universally acknowledged as this century's preeminent intellectual advocate of the free market and one of its leading opponents of socialism. His death, coming so soon after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the abandonment of Marxism and socialism as intellectual ideals, occasioned understandable comment by his admirers about the vindication that Hayek, after years of vilification at the hands of critics, had received at the hands of history. Though long in coming, however, Hayek's vindication did not occur all at once. For his work had exerted a crucial, though basically indirect, influence over the renascent conservative and libertarian movements that had grown up after World War II in the United States and Great Britain. Indeed, the revival of those movements culminated in the rise to power of two politicians, Ronald Reagan in America and Margaret Thatcher in England, who were proud to list Hayek among their intellectual mentors. And his vindication had also been presaged, though in an oddly ambiguous way, when Hayek was named co-winner, with the Swedish socialist economist Gunnar Myrdal, of the 1974 Nobel prize in economics.

 

[phreakwars]

I'm guessing.... no strike that... it's very obvious.... TJ only read 1 paragraph and made his own conclusion about the article.

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[snafu]

Before commenting farther you need to read and comprehend the article. Hayek is using the term liberal in the classical sense, where liberals were the ones who believed in limited government. A quick explanation, when Hayek refers ro socialists he is referring to the modern liberal, when he refers to liberals he is referring to a group that is most often called libertarian today. He makes that clear in the article. The socialists stole the word liberal in America and have now sullied the word.
From the article:

A little info on Hayek:

Yeah I got that and I agree. I said in todays defintion. Yes I'm a liberal in this sense too.

 

[timesjoke]

I'm guessing.... no strike that... it's very obvious.... TJ only read 1 paragraph and made his own conclusion about the article. .

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Bull, just because I do not embrace or agree what you believe that does not mean I do not read what you read. It is pure arrogance to believe I should get the same revelations you think is obvious when you read something........your mindset is already blind socialist, so anything that feeds your feeling of being right is just fluff for your head filled with hot air.

The writer jumps all over the place, at one moment saying one thing then the next moment saying another. Yes he says his use of liberal is similar to "libertarian" but he also says at the end of the same paragraph:

What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself.

So he contradicts himself.

What you liked from the writing was his constant description of conservatives as being blockers of progress and wanting to control things but he is wrong. It is the Conservatives (not Republicans) who have been preaching to let free markets decide their future and to drop Government attempts to artificially control the markets.

Anyway Bender, you can't say your messiah Obama is doing the things Hayek is mentioning like letting change happen on it's own, in fact many of the things he claims Conservatives do are what Obama and the liberal elite are doing right now...........So based on this piece from Hayek, are Liberals really Conseratives in the way they want to dictate and control everything?

Interesting...........................

 

[hugo]

The proof is in the pudding; what have the conservatives accomplished in the last 75 years besides slow down the ride toward serfdom? On the main point of this thesis Hayek is 100% correct. History has proven it.

As for the minor point, raised by TJ, on what to call proponents of liberty, I, like Hayek, am not satisfied with the most popular current term, libertarian, I prefer describing myself as a classical liberal. Like Hayek, I often use the term libertarian because most people, who are not total ignoramouses, somewhat understand the term. When you state you are any kind of liberal most people think you are a **** socialist. Sadly, people are really stupid nowadays, no longer do books by economists make the best seller lists. People prefer the sophomoric crapola of Hannity, Limbaugh or Franken.

I suggest people turn off talk radio and read three books. "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek, "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman, and "The Affluent Society" By J.K. Galbraith. The first two are by classical liberals the third by a devout Keynesian, then you will at least understand the economic arguments between the two main schools of economics in the Western world.

More info:

Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, was an outspoken d?vote of Hayek's writings. Shortly after Thatcher became Leader of the party, she “reached into her briefcase and took out a book. It was Friedrich von Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty. Interrupting [the speaker], she held the book up for all of us to see. ‘This’, she said sternly, ‘is what we believe’, and banged Hayek down on the table.”

I'll have to read "The Constitution of Liberty".

 

[phreakwars]

Bull, just because I do not embrace or agree what you believe that does not mean I do not read what you read. It is pure arrogance to believe I should get the same revelations you think is obvious when you read something........your mindset is already blind socialist, so anything that feeds your feeling of being right is just fluff for your head filled with hot air.

A. What is it, in your opinion that makes me a socialist. And B. Why is that so bad?

The writer jumps all over the place, at one moment saying one thing then the next moment saying another. Yes he says his use of liberal is similar to "libertarian" but he also says at the end of the same paragraph:

What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself.

So he contradicts himself.

Actually, he doesn't. YOU misinterpret what he is saying by only applying it to one and only one group issue.

What you liked from the writing was his constant description of conservatives as being blockers of progress and wanting to control things but he is wrong. It is the Conservatives (not Republicans) who have been preaching to let free markets decide their future and to drop Government attempts to artificially control the markets.

And that one group issue you are applying it to, is this nonsense. MONEY.

Anyway Bender, you can't say your messiah Obama is doing the things Hayek is mentioning like letting change happen on it's own, in fact many of the things he claims Conservatives do are what Obama and the liberal elite are doing right now...........So based on this piece from Hayek, are Liberals really Conseratives in the way they want to dictate and control everything?
Interesting...........................

And, that would be your usual boring POTUS insult/blame game... ho-hum, such a 1 track mind. .

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[timesjoke]

The proof is in the pudding; what have the conservatives accomplished in the last 75 years besides slow down the ride toward serfdom? On the main point of this thesis Hayek is 100% correct. History has proven it.

There is too much wrong with that question to really even attempt an answer, you may as well ask what you have accomplished and me take potshots at whatever you say. Your trying to play sniper, so I will not try to dicker back and forth with individual points other than to point out both sides have made contributions and both sides have added to the problems. The question is not so much to be defeated and say one group or another has done "nothing" because you saying that proves your speaking from an emotional outburst instead of a logical one.

The question to ask is where do we go today?

What path are we on today?

I can care less about what word or tern was used to describe what kind of thinking many years ago, what I care about is how our Nation is turning socialist

and how I feel that is the wrong thing for us to do.

I have more in common with the old school liberals of old as your talking about sure, but times change and liberals today are socialists.

Bender, it is you that makes you a socialist and it is wrong because the American constitution does not support that direction. Punnishing anyone with more money than you have is not the answer. You cannot force prosperity or equality of circumstances. Each person must find that themselves.

Trying to force financial equality without people "earning" what they get is impossible. Nobody respects what they do not earn. This is why almost everyone who wins the lottery end up bankrupt.

I did not misinterpret anything. I saw what was said and even posted his own words saying two different things in the same paragraph.

Lastly it is not an insult to tell the truth, what is being described by Hayek is not what your savior Obama or anyone else in the Democratic party for that matter does day to day. The socialists he is talking about is people like you and Obama who have distorted the name Liberal for your own purposes.

 

[phreakwars]

There ya go again trying to associate socialist with welfare, and trying to associate socialist with a liberal.

It's what cost your party the election, chump.

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[timesjoke]

There ya go again trying to associate socialist with welfare, and trying to associate socialist with a liberal.

TRYING?

They are associated, all "modern" liberals including yourself believe in redistribution of wealth and social babysitting ran by the Government paid for through massive taxes on those you feel are "rich".

You said yourself, screw the insurance companies....well the insurance companies emply hundreds of thousands of people directly and indirectly so when you say screw insurance companies your really saying you want to get rid of hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs.

So screw the rich guys who are employing people, what do we need them for anyway..........

It's what cost your party the election, chump.

Chump?

Should I be devistated you resort to childish outbursts and insults?

What cost us the last two elections was the swing of the average voter to try and get more handouts, "give me free, give me free" is now the montra of the Democratic party, lol.

It is always harder to do what is right instead of what is popular. Your party is so stuck on your need to appease to maintain your power you have lost sight of what Liberal used to stand for.

 

[phreakwars]

2012 is gonna be a landslide with chumps like you thinking the way you do..

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[timesjoke]

2012 is gonna be a landslide with chumps like you thinking the way you do.. .

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Ya think?

I guess we will see, I wonder if you can just as loudly eat crow, lol.

My guess is you will slink away from being wrong and never admit it.