Conservatism News and Discussions

Post Reply
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

I am giving some folks a benefit of a doubt by placing this story here instead of the Fascism Watch thread. Cubias gives some evidence (not included in my citation) to support the idea that this is essentially fascist inspired in nature:

Republicans' Next Big Play is to Push for a Convention to Rewrite the Constitution
by Daniel Cubias
August 18, 2022


Conclusion:
(Mano) In theory, this constitutional convention would overhaul the document that Republicans claim to revere, creating “sweeping changes” that would fundamentally alter the American government.

So much for originalism and the founders’ intent.

If they succeed in organizing a constitutional convention, right-wingers will cement their ideas into irrevocable law, ensuring that America becomes the repressive theocracy of their dreams.

And then CPAC wouldn’t be an annual assembly of deranged hucksters, conspiracy nuts, and virulent bigots.

It would be the United States itself.
Read more here: https://manomagazine.com/benefitsofextremism/

Cited in the article by Cubias and giving critical background information is this Business Insider article: https://www.businessinsider.com/cons ... urt-2022-7
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8734
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

On economic matters, I do not consider myself to be a libertarian. I am more like a liberal (in the American sense of the word) or a Democratic Socialist (which is not tremendously different from being liberal, at least on economic issues). Still, out of the conviction that it does no harm to understand things from a libertarian perspective, I recommend the article below as I found it to be an interesting read.

The Rise and Fall of Trussonomics
by Kevin Dowd
November 14, 2022

Introduction:
(Eurasia Review) On July 8 this year, UK prime minister Boris Johnson resigned as Conservative Party leader after a Cabinet revolt over a series of ethics scandals had made his position untenable. A leadership election was then set in motion to allow party members to elect the next party leader who would succeed Johnson as PM. The result was announced on September 5: the winner was would-be Margaret Thatcher, Liz Truss.

The queen invited Truss to become PM on September 6. Truss immediately announced a “bold plan to grow the economy through tax cuts and reform” and “action [i.e., a price cap] this week to deal with energy bills.” The same day, she appointed Kwasi Kwarteng, a free marketeer with a Cambridge PhD on the Great Recoinage of 1696, as her new chancellor of the exchequer.

Government business then came to a stop after Queen Elizabeth suddenly died two days later. The country went into a period of national mourning that ended on September 20. It was then announced that there would be an emergency “mini-budget” to set out the new government’s economic program.

What followed can best be described as a case study in how not to promote a free-market agenda, and it deserves close study lest policy makers elsewhere repeat the mistakes that Truss and Kwarteng made, which ultimately brought them both down. Their fundamental failure was a simple one. Yes, tax cuts were reasonable, but those needed to be more than matched by large cuts in government spending to reduce the fiscal deficit and establish that the new government would be fiscally responsible.

Granted, the notion of fiscal responsibility had long been honored in the breach by successive UK governments, but even so, it was reckless to ignore the issue—especially for a government that promoted free markets. And so the gods of the copybook headings had their revenge on a government that ran off a fiscal cliff that it should have but didn’t realize was right in front of them.
Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/14112022 ... analysis/
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
weatheriscool
Posts: 12973
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

I am a early to mid 20th century economic progressive. I believe in anti-trust and punishing the fucking rich for abusing the workers. The problem with open borders and insourcing is corporations break every labor law ever created to protect the American worker.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8734
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

Lauren Boebert Rants Against "Unhinged" Marjorie Taylor Greene
by Sky Palma
January 9, 2023

Introduction:
(Raw Story) Stemming from the internal fight amongst Republicans over who would be the next Speaker of the House, the growing rift between Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., is showing no signs of slowing down.

As LGBTQ Nation points out, the rift between the two was exposed when Boebert joined her colleagues Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Bob Good, R-Va., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., in voting against Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for speaker of the House, while Greene was in favor of McCarthy. Speaking to the Associated Press this weekend, Boebert mentioned some of Greene's past conspiratorial rhetoric.

"I have been asked to explain MTG's beliefs on Jewish space lasers, on why she showed up to a white supremacist conference. ... I'm just not going to go there. She wants to say all these things and seem unhinged on Twitter, so be it," Boebert told the Associated Press, referring to Greene's comments where she suggested that the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family, were connected to the wildfires in California in 2018.

Boebert also referenced news reports that said Greene spoke at a conference hosted by white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes earlier this year.

"In the minority, all I had was my voice, the only thing I could do was be loud about the things I'm passionate about. We have to lead right now, we have to show Americans that we deserve to be in the majority," Boebert said.
Read more here: https://www.salon.com/2023/01/09/laure ... partner/
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8734
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

Outrageous!

/s

:roll:

------------

Microsoft's Changes to Xbox Console Leave Republicans Outraged

1/24/23 at 8:32 AM EST

Microsoft has announced changes to its Xbox console settings that is to allow users to save more energy and reduce the carbon impact of their gaming. But this has been read (or misread) by Republican representatives and organizations as the "woke brigade" wanting to "take your Xbox."

In a bid to reach its goal of being carbon negative and a "zero waste" company by 2030, Microsoft outlined two new changes to Xbox settings on January 11.

The company included a feature that allows the console to pick a time of the night for maintenance and updates to use the most renewable energy from the electrical grid, and a "shutdown" setting that can replace the sleep mode, which it says saves 20 times the energy.

[...]

"First gas stoves, then your coffee, now they're gunning for your Xbox," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted on Monday, citing a previous furore over remarks made by an official from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about the health harms of gas stoves. The CPSC chair stated emphatically at the time that it was not looking to ban gas stoves.

"A default setting does not mean they are 'forcing' anyone to do anything," one user responded. "As an Xbox owner, this has been a choice for a while now. I appreciate that they offer it."

https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-chan ... uz-1776054
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

The Word That Makes Brutal Budgets Sound “Truly Evil”
by Ruqaiyah Zarook
March April Issue, 2023

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) The cuts have come even for the word itself. “Austerity” is a cornerstone of conservatism—a catch-all term for limiting government spending to promote capitalist growth—and yet the expression seems to have disappeared from deficit hawks’ speeches. “I call it balancing the budget,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2013. “Everyone else is using this term ‘austerity.’ That makes it sound like something truly evil.”

Yes. That aura of “evil” is perhaps why writers, especially on the left, return to it again and again. As economists Clara Mattei and Sam Salour argue, “austerity” is a helpful word to describe what the failed policies of neoliberalism have done since the 1970s across the world: subdued the working class by driving up unemployment, keeping wages stagnant, and reducing welfare spending. The word connects everyday issues to structural decay caused by a fiscal playbook. Austerity is, as economic journalist Doug Henwood has argued, “causing America to rot.”

Historically, the word gave market cruelties a whiff of moralism. Drawing on the ancient Greek austeros (“what makes the tongue dry”), it offered a religious ring to financial asceticism. It was how one could argue that cutting social spending was a path to self-¬reliance. But over the last decade, there has been a shift. Too many people have lived under the actual policies. Austerity has moved from being a rationale for slashing government budgets to a damning critique of the consequences. In the reversal, you can see what many think of living under this anti–social spending project: It sucks.

The moral project of austerity has its beginnings in John Locke’s Second Treatise. Written in 17th-century England, it was a time when, as economist Mark Blyth notes, “public debt [was] the debt of kings” and rulers invoked God as a justification for appropriating wealth as they pleased. Locke found this arbitrary. He argued, in his now-famous philosophical framework, that governments should primarily safeguard private property. To undermine the monarchy’s influence, Locke preached limited government. Freedom, he explained, through austerity.
But this Lockean card is regularly overplayed. The modern rhetoric of austerity politics has firmer roots in the Confederate resistance to Reconstruction.
Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... uly-evil/

caltrek's comment: Too often it is a matter of you must suffer the consequences of austerity so that I can benefit from the luxuries that society can offer. Why?

Because I have the power to impose that upon you. Taken to an extreme, this results in huge inequalities of wealth and income. Thus, the evil at the heart of the system.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8734
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

weatheriscool
Posts: 12973
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Conservatism News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Indiana Lawmakers Back Defunding Kinsey Sex Institute - HuffingtonPost

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Republican lawmakers voted Wednesday to prohibit Indiana University from using any state money to support its sexual research institution after a far-right legislator unleashed disputed allegations of child exploitation by its founder and famed mid-20th century researcher Alfred Kinsey.

The Indiana House voted 53-34 to block state funding toward the Kinsey Institute that has long faced criticism from conservatives for its ongoing research and the legacy of Kinsey’s work that they blame for contributing to liberalized sexual morals, including more acceptance of homosexuality and pornography.

Alfred Kinsey, who died in 1956, produced groundbreaking sex-behavior studies in 1948 and 1953 and was portrayed by Liam Neeson in the 2004 film “Kinsey.”

Republican Rep. Lorissa Sweet claimed that some of Kinsey’s research was child exploitation as she argued for an amendment to the state budget bill against funding for the institute. “By limiting the funding to Kinsey Institute through Indiana University’s tax dollars, we can be assured that we are not funding ongoing research committed by crimes.” Sweet said.
Link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kinsey-i ... f5b487d7f4
Post Reply