Greta Christina does a marvelous job of rebuking American Atheists for their presence at CPAC. I agree completely with it. Go read it.
Nick Fish of American Atheists does a very good job of replying. In particular, he tries to put their efforts in a different light.
I want to clarify one thing right out of the gates: American Atheists did not attend CPAC with the purpose of “recruiting” conservatives into the broader atheist community. This is a misconception that I have seen repeated on Twitter, in the blogs, and in person. That this needed be clarified is likely a failure to clearly articulate it on our side. So, we’ll take our licks there.
It is much more accurate to say that we were there to empower atheists who already exist within the conservative community to be more vocal about their opposition to the theocratic elements of Republican Party orthodoxy.
Good try. Falls apart with a moment’s thought.
You’ve all heard the joke about the drunk who has lost his keys and is searching for them under a streetlight; a passer-by tries to help him, with no luck, and asks the drunk if he’s sure he lost them there. The drunk replies, “No, I lost them in the park, but the light is better over here.” It’s actually got a name: it’s called the streetlight fallacy.
Of course there are rational conservatives, and always have been, and I agree that they are a good target for recruiting (or “empowering”) by atheists. The problem is that those reasonable conservatives are as horrified by CPAC as we liberals are…maybe more so, since there has to be some bitterness in seeing your political party hijacked by frothing rabid loons. If you’re trying to reinforce and support the reasonable element in the Republican party, it makes no sense at all to hug a tea party member. You won’t help build a non-unhinged GOP by standing with the most unhinged side of the party.
I know the media spotlight is on the far right groups like CPAC, and the kind of conservatives you want to help are scattered and often disconnected from those weirdos, and hard to find, but searching where the media spotlight is is not going to accomplish anything.
I wish I could make a constructive suggestion about where you might find a more open-minded conservative — perhaps in civic organizations, or politically neutral groups? — but they are not my people, so I’m the last person you’d want to ask. I would suggest, though, that a better place to start would be with the Democratic party. All our candidates seem to be centrist or leaning right, with damn few real liberals among them, and most of them want to run and hide when atheists come by, so if you really want to empower conservatives, that seems like the place to go.
But CPAC? What a waste of time and effort.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a hankering to catch myself a bluefin, and there’s this mud puddle conveniently located in my driveway…
I’m not so sure about this.
Go where you can make a statement to the heathen. Put a presence in the most oppositional of camps.
Might as well tell the christian to not go after the sinner because, well, they’re sinners. Might have better luck with the choir in the church across the street.
A democrat meeting, some moderate political forums? Sure, go there, get the message out and find more productive ground. But do not avoid the harder places just because the prospects are not so bright … and neither are the prospects.
Oh, and PZ, bluefin do not like muddy water. You might have better luck in your neighbor’s driveway where the puddle is clearer.
Harder, or just plain harder of hearing due to their heads up their asses? That describes CPAC, and makes it a waste of time for atheists. Try the log cabin republicans. They might listen, as they understand not really being welcomed.
Umm… there are?
Are you feeling all right, PZ?
azpaul3 @1:
In service of what purpose though?
from Nick Fish:
For fuck’s sake, nobody needs to recalibrate that bullshit. It needs to go.
“Big government” is not a real problem in reality. AA has no business making that criticism or “empowering” people who do, because it is blatantly and absurdly contrary to the evidence.
And you want to “empower” atheists in this group…
On what fucking planet does a “but” belong in this sentence? Choking off spending on social programs and cutting taxes for the rich just is perpetuating discrimination against disempowered groups.
Parroting conservative assholery like this is not a demonstration that you’re
nor will it make it so that
It’s fucking appalling that we’re expected to take that shit seriously for even a minute.
No, there aren’t, and indeed cannot be; or rather, like theists, it’s possible for conservatives to be rational in some areas, but the extent to which they are conservatives is the extent to which they are not rational. Although I suppose that some would hold that festering malevolence isn’t intrinsically irrational, in which case conservatives come in two flavors: Wrong and hard of thinking vs. outright evil.
When you go to CPAC and say “we are just like you”, you’re saying that other than the religious difference you’re cool with the homophobia, sexism, racism, destruction of the public education system, and don’t mind blowing up countries for bad reasons. “American Atheists” is cool with all of those things, as long as they can get a bunch of cash and maybe some minor movement on Ten Commandments monuments.
I can’t get behind it, and I can’t support anyone who associates with American Atheists any more.
Aaaand, of course there’s a Pitter sighting in the comments.
When I look around at what Conservatism in the U.S has become, I find it damn nigh impossible to disagree with you in the practical sense. But I disagree in theory.
I think a (theoretical) rational conservatism admits problems and is not opposed to change, but it values stability more than it values change, and worries about unintended consequences. Having a mostly pessimistic view of human and societal perfectability, it tends to prefer the devil it knows.
I don’t think that’s an inherently irrational political orientation (though it is not my own,) if it remains open–even if grudgingly–to evidence-based arguments for change.
USAian movement conservatives, OTOH? Yeah. It’s morally wrong, in my book, to grant them any legitimacy at all. Shame on AA.
@Lady Modegreen
Imagine a perfectly spherical conservative
If you’re just talking about the “conservatives” you can find in the US in 2015, then yeah, those “conservatives” are theocratic, bigoted shitstains on humanity. But there was a time within living memory, a time before the Moral Majority, before Nixon embraced the Southern Strategy, when at least some “conservatives” were people who could disagree without being disagreeable, and were capable of working constructively with non-“conservatives”.
It would be nice if there were sane conservatives any more. Alas, sane conservatives haven’t been seen in the wild in the past couple of decades. I wonder how much of the contemporary GOP’s support comes from people who are old enough to have actually had a chance to vote for sane conservatives?
I don’t think that’s fair. I understand that there was a very sane Republican in the 2012 presidential nominations. I don’t know his policies in detail, so I could be wrong, but the general understanding I was given was that John Huntsman was both sane and a conservative. So they exist. The fact that he was one of the first to be bundled out of the nomination race shows that the problem isn’t a lack of sane conservatives in the wild, it’s a lack of sanity within the Republican Party.
There are reasonably sane conservatives. They’re called democrats. ‘liberal’ is a right wing term. A left wing term would be ‘socialist’.
Republicans are undiluted fascists.
Quentinlong@12,
Please avoid the implication that irrational political or religious views indicate insanity; first, it’s clearly false and second, it’s unfair to people with mental illness.
That might be tenable were it not obvious to anyone who removes their head from their fundament that radical political and economic change is required to avoid environmental catastrophe. That fact is an important part of the explanation of the descent of (particularly American) conservatism into flagrant irrationality. Oreskes and Conway, in Merchants of Doubt, note that half a century ago, more than half of American scientists voted Republican; now, very few do. During that half-centiry, science has repeatedly produced findings (on smoking, second-hand smoke, pesticides, acid rain, ozone-depleting chemicals, lead in gasoline and paint, depletion of aquifers and above all, anthropogenic climate change) that undermine the beliefs that “free markets” solve everything, big business is an unmitigated force for good, and regulation is unnecessary. These are central to American conservatism, so American conservatives have been faced with the choice of rejecting science, or (at least) drastically modifying their conservatism. Most have chosen the former. European conservatives, who are often attached to a different set of myths (about monarchy, nobless oblige, an established church, traditional ways of life) have done somewhat better – most acknowledge the basic fact of anthropogenic climate change, for example, however much they baulk at doing anythnig effective to mitigate it. But that reluctance spreads far beyond what is normally thought of as conservatism – and in that sense, very few politicians are advocating rational policies, which would necessarily be extremely radical.
I disagree that conservatives cannot be rational. They simply work towards different goals.
Denying women bodily autonomy is not irrational, it is evil.
That’s why logic only gets you so far.
There’s also another point that contradicts Fish’s reply: Jamila Bey’s speech. It was not about “hey, lonely conservative atheist, you can come to us as well”. It was about promoting conservatism among atheists, how they could get that precious atheist vote, not the other way ’round.
Going to CPAC is like teaching people how to better hunt elephants.
At the center of a square circle?
Oh I’m pretty certain there are Atheists gravitating around CPAC: the problem is that they’ll be those who adhere to a variation of Maher’s school of thought: “The religious rubes are moronic bipedal cattle (Maher) therefore we’ll use religion to keep them under control (CPAC)”
Fish claimed:
Jamila Bey indicates that this is a false statement. She wrote glowingly of the wonderful people whose values she shared that she met at CPAC:
So American Atheists was excited by “progress” that had nothing to do with why they were there??!?? And Free One Year Memberships to a bunch of racist sexist rich assholes?!!!!! I think the keyword there is “rich.” If AA gets just one 1 per-center to sign up, they can lose millions of members and still come out way way ahead.
Fish writes:
Dave Silverman has said clearly and unambiguously that he is a “fiscal conservative.” He supports heinous economic positions for reasons other than religion (pure greed? pleasure in seeing the middle class and poor get what they deserve?) He has stated that he wants the government to “his rights” and no other functions. That means no government funding of Planned Parenthood, ending Obamacare, cutting/eliminating Social Security, gutting the social safety net, reducing environmental protection, to just get started. I don’t want to be anywhere near the guy.
Fish also wrote:
I don’t want to help conservative win national elections in the future. It is morally repugnant that Nick Fish and Dave Silverman do.
@18 : Laurentweppe
16 April 2015 at 5:39 am
Also known as an Atheist who would consider SJW a pejorative.
Also known as an Atheist on the other side of the Deep Rifts (TM)
Also known as an Atheist that I have no desire to work with, hang around with, or be associated with
Also known as a Libertarian with the attitude of ‘fuck you, I got mine! Now, how can I get more “mine” from you?
re @1:
Good strategy _IF_ that is what they were attempting. It rather sounds like the title’s metaphor: fishing in the wrong place. They were not trying to “make their presence known”, that they were instead looking for fish who were silently swimming in this lake of magma.
“sowing seeds on barren land”, supposes the land is nutritious to plants and not just gravel.
Right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.
If you have a half-way decent and half-way rational conservative, they can have neither of the above.
Good fucking luck.
Also the distinction between recruiting conservatives into atheism, and empowering conservative atheists to identify with atheism is just hair splitting. It is essentially the same thing, and it makes the following line bullshit:
You are trying to collect conservative atheists from CPAC. Liberal or allegedly liberal atheists are fucking bad enough on this issue. Bull fucking shit to this claim.
And as if to prove my point, I stumble across this recent news item!
http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2015/04/15/western-conservative-summit-disinvites-gop-gay-group/118957/
I should remind people that what we are dealing with in the U.S. is not the general, historical, transatlantic kind of conservatism discussed in Poli Sci 101. The conservatism that dominates here now is a specific project called “Movement Conservatism” that started to coalesce in the 1950’s. Look up that phrase to learn more.
It sounds like AA is stepping up to fill the role of “strawman atheist” for the conservatives.
“See?! There are conservative atheists!”
“See?! Atheists came here to learn from us .. about jesus.”
“See?! We have atheists we can tune our messaging against. To help fool other atheists later.”
Isn’t it part of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy that organizations eventually shift from their original purpose to self-perpetuation and aggrandizement?
Yeah, I’m pretty much in agreement with Dalillama @#7. There has been some research that indicates that liberalism/conservatism is hardwired into our brains. How hard the wiring is is a question. Just as some scientists seem to function well while juggling the cognitive dissonance of religious belief, some conservatively inclined people can still find empathy for people different from themselves, so we probably should never completely write off anybody, but I say that conservatism is fundamentally at odds with social justice.
Of course there are rational conservatives. In many ways, I’m one of them. I believe in small government, fiscal responsibility, rule of law and justice for all.
I also don’t believe for a moment that the Republican Party supports ANY of that. We do exist – but you won’t find us at CPAC.
sundoga:
And why does government need to small and in what respects does it need to be small?
@Nick Gotts
Um, you do realize that I was speaking theoretically, about a political philosophy, and explicitly not about contemporary US conservatives? Because I said that. Quite clearly.
Guess what, sundoga: rule of law and justice for all have only been achieved by BIG government, actively intervening in many aspects of public life. The “small government” you advocate is directly antithetical to those two priorities. So is “fiscal responsibility,” unless that includes raising taxes so a big government can finance its operations on a pay-as-you-go basis (because rule of law and justice for all are not things we can do on the cheap).
Well, it boils down to Karl August Wittfogel’s theory that two major forms of tyranny exist: one is the feudal system and its oligarchic capitalist successors (where wealthy dynasties use their riches to buy a monopoly over political power), the other is the “Oriental despotism‘ (called “oriental” because imperial China was seen as its epitome) and its soviet successors where bureaucrats gain a monopoly over political power and use it in order to embezzle as much wealth as possible for themselves and their heirs.
Some conservatives thus argue that the state must remains relatively weak else some ambitious public servants will use the opportunity to become the next aristocracy. While the argument may have a modicum of merits, it’s so often coupled with craven deference toward hereditary wealth that it’s simply a statement that one would rather promote a feudal regime than risk a potential (but frankly unlikely in today’s societies) despotic bureaucratic takeover.
sundoga,
So you’re saying liberals believe in fiscal irresponsibility, anarchy, and injustice. Got it.
Lady Mondegreen 10
In theory, perhaps. In practice, however, conservatism seeks to conserve the privilege, wealth, and power of the privileged, wealthy, and powerful, and has never done or meant anything else. This dates at least to Edmund Burke, generally considered the first harbinger of what’s now called conservatism.
quentinlong 12
That’s nice, but meaningless; they still had prinicipally the same policies (although you’re right, conservatives used to understand that you can get richer in a place with infrastructure than one without); fuck the poor, fuck women, fuck nonwhites, fuck queers, etc.
chrislawson 13
Huntsman was more polished and articulate than the shitstains he was running with, but his policies differed not one iota.
Giliell 16
As I noted in #7, I tend to categorize most types evil as also being irrational (particularly in a political context), because it involves spending loads of time and effort to make things worse for everyone, including the evildoer. Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face sort of thing.
sundoga
Stupid buzzwords will get you nowhere. Define ‘small government’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’; what do they mean to you? Because here in the real world, those terms mean ‘I don’t like infrastructure and fuck the poor and minorities’, and ‘I don’t have the first fucking clue how macroeconomics or government budgets work, and my grasp of microeconomics is pretty shitty too’ respectively. And every future response from me is going to use those definitions, unless you provide better ones.
I think a (theoretical) rational conservatism admits problems and is not opposed to change, but it values stability more than it values change, and worries about unintended consequences.
From the days of the first “conservative,” Edmund Burke, conservatism has never been a philosophy or movement in itself; it’s always been a critical reaction to liberalism — not saying “no” to liberalism (that would be reactionary or fascist, not conservative), but saying “yes, but…” As in, “Yes, the French monarchy had to be overthrown, and yes, it’s good to replace monarchy with democracy, BUT this revolutionary movement has clearly gone horribly wrong in the following ways…”
That’s all “conservatism” is good for: questioning and moderating liberal actions when liberals are in power and taking action. Remove the liberals, and “conservatives” become reactionaries — as American conservatives have become starting in the Clinton administration.
Ah code words! I love code words…
Small government — large enough to fit inside a pregnant woman’s uterus.
Rule of law — see “small government”.
Fiscal responsibility — ensuring that each and every person who can afford a gold-plated toilet in their second yacht gets enough tax cuts to be able to buy a solid-gold toilet instead.
Justice for all — all those with gold-plated toilets in their second yacht, that is.
#32: No, or at least not necessarily. I would argue that liberal governments have tended to be fiscally irresponsible, but that’s neither true in all cases nor unique (as the Shrub proved, so-called conservatives have managed to be very effectively irresponsible indeed). I’d like to think that a commitment to Rule of Law and Justice for All would be areas any reasonable person would have no problems with; clearly, in your case, I was wrong.
#33 Dalilama, by no means as smart as he thinks: No, those terms DON’T mean that, for all that the idiots in the tea privy would like them to. Why are you letting them dictate the terms and the argument?
Small government is simple: minimum governmental power, enough to get what needs to be done done and no more. Government is not trustworthy, and should be both restricted and avoided where both possible and practicable. That latter, of course, is the rub – in the modern world, government needs quite a lot of power to do the jobs we require of it. We need an EPA, a Social Security, the Affordable Care Act. However, we do not need four times the number of Aircraft Carriers as the rest of the world combined, B2’s, or about 80% of our Nuclear Deterrant Force. We do not need the DEA, ATF or Department of Homeland Security – all of these things are a result of a bloated and unwieldy and greedy government that needs to be cut in size and power.
Fiscal Responsibility means PAY FOR IT. NOW. Occasionally, to meet a shortfall or an unexpected expense, credit is needed, but the rest of the time, either raise the taxes to pay for what you want to do or don’t do it. Huge debts do no one any good.
sundoga, #36
Ah, so No True Conservative. Cool.
Conservatism is not for justice for all. That’s just basic information. American conservatism is for justice for rich, white, Christian men. If you’re for justice for all, then you’re not a conservative. Pick another label.
LOL @ you even implying that conservatism is for fair treatment of LGBTQ people and black people. LOL.
Actually, I never made any claims as to what conservatism means or it’s belief structure. I only said what I believe in.
sundoga:
Your points suggest we need a better government. Which is not the same thing as needing a smaller government.
That is true, but I have long felt that the maxim that government governs best which governs least has at least a modicum of accuracy, provided one does not take it to silly extremes.
sundoga @40:
And do you have any evidence to demonstrate that a smaller government is more effective than a larger one?
No. Just the opposite, in fact – small government tends to be less efficient in general, and it’s effectiveness in dealing with large-scale situations is decidedly less. Which is the point, when you get right down to it – while it can’t do good things for it’s populace as well, neither can it do bad things TO it’s populace as well. Look at how quickly and efficiently the TSA and Homeland Security were rolled out.
Small government does tend to be a bit quicker response wise, though – fewer levels of bureaucracy to deal with.
sundoga #40:
If you mean ‘Don’t pass intrusive laws for which there is no need,’ and suchlike, I agree; but it seems a trivial and obvious statement if so. ‘Don’t have layers of unneeded bureaucracy,’ ditto.
I’m not disagreeing with your priorities, per se, just wondering why you feel the need to call this ‘small government,’ when, though your usage is linguistically accurate, that phrase’s normal usage means something else entirely.
OK, how strong should the FDA be in ensuring the safety and efficacy of your pharmaceuticals? Details, like yearly inspections, the ability to require recalls, etc., not vaguery, which is bullshit.
Funny how the conservative administrations, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, left huge amounts of deficits that weren’t covered due to tax breaks, whereas the “liberals”, Clinton and Obama, have almost balanced budgets, and far less of deficit increases during their tenure. The rethugs aren’t fiscally conservative. The are fiscally irresponsible.
Nerd, what part of “practicable” do you not understand? Cutting the FDA would be both IMpractical and downright STUPID. If you’re going to criticize what I say, use some modicum of thought rather than automatic knee=jerk reactions, please!
Also, kindly READ my posts before you comment on them.
#43 Daz – at least partially because I don’t want to give the Tea Privy morons even an inch. I won’t let them hijack terms to turn them into code words for their insanity without a fight.
sundoga #48:
I sympathise, but I’d also suggest that that’s not merely a losing fight, but one that’s already lost.
I’m a practicle scientist. You haven’t defined your terms precisely. In fact, I find your vaguery to be an amusing way of saying nothing while pretending to be deep. It isn’t. Either detail up, or we can’t have a discussion. The size of the government depends upon what you want it to do. Sometimes, like with the FDA, bigger is better. And it is underfunded at the moment due to the rethugs.
Take welfare. You want to prevent fraud? You can accept a little fraud for cheap, and see everybody who needs it is covered. That is the position of progressives. If you get too officious, you aren’t giving the money to some of those with real needs and qualify, and then spend $10 to find $1 in fraud. I see that as government waste/big government. But that is the Rethugs attitude.
And I’d stick with the progressive position in that case. Welfare is something we, as a people, have decided we need from government, so let’s do it in a sane and effective way that preferably doesn’t cost too much or require a huge and impersonal bureaucracy.
Oddly enough, I don’t generally find precise definitions either helpful or useful when you’re talking politics. If a policy is to be wide-ranging, you’re going to find situations where it should apply but the definition doesn’t cover; likewise, you’re going to find areas the policy was never meant to apply to, but which are technically inside the definition. Where too great a precision could lead to unintended consequences, I’d rather leave it up to a human being on the spot to make the call – at the very least, you then have an actual person to blame if they screw up, rather than trying to get accountability out of an entire government department.
Conservatives accidentally bump into a valid point, though they tend to cross themselves hurriedly and then quickly stumble on: given that the government has the capacity to perform the functions and provide the services society needs from it, it is then best, all other things being equal, for it to be minimally intrusive and maximally efficient in doing so.
How they got from this to “Small” is beyond me.
Lady Mondegreen 10, Dalillama, Schmott Guy 33:
Theoretical conservatism is not a helpful concept when we have a deadly and destructive scourge of actual conservatism to deal with in the real world. Of course conservatism admits problems—but these can never, ever be the fault of conservative policy. Conservatism can never fail you see, it can only be failed. That is conservative reason and logic. IOW “rational conservatism” is an oxymoron.
PZ, I thought you knew better. :|
Dalillama, Schmott Guy—yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I just want to add that it is always worth pointing out that the status quo conservatives wish to conserve—or to “value stability” if one prefers—is not some abstract world where they raise perfectly reasonable cautions about unintended consequences. It is a brutal, white supremacist, violently misogynist, profoundly unjust, deeply corrupt, colonialist/imperialist oligarchy in a state of permanent war.
Seriously, fuck conservatism—”rational” or otherwise.
And the answer occurs to me: “Small Government” is a deepity.
When speaking to the Rabble, those who hope to benefit from adoption of conservatism pretend that it essentially means what I said above: that a “Small” government is one which is minimally intrusive and maximally efficient in providing the services and functions society needs from it. This allows them to fly under the radar, and even fool some otherwise decent people into believing the form of conservatism that makes a big deal about “small government” is a reasonable, respectable position.
But when speaking among themselves, their meaning becomes clear: they mean “a government small enough that I can drown it in my bathtub.” In other words, it’s the provision of those functions and services – at least, of a broad subset of them – that they object to.
What, aside from a sustained campaign of lies and constant attempt to hobble the system from the right, makes you think we aren’t already?
Not if the rate of return on the expenditure exceeds the interest rate on the debt. It may make perfect sense to borrow to construct a major infrastructure project during a recession when costs are lower rather than waiting until the economy picks up, costs are higher and the infrastucture is now needed yesterday if not sooner.
@moarscienceplz 26
My take on it and a bunch of tangents.
I can’t say that I know for sure, but I make an interesting case study in associated characteristics, and that is the sort of thing that is used to study “normal”. That thing in my head called Tourette Syndrome feels like a conservative authoritarian stereotype, with the emphasis on the authoritarian. It’s also about 80% inherited and I have a family history FULL of military and religious authoritarians. I literally believe that this is a transgenerational concentrated dose of authoritarian instincts.
As far as how hard the wiring is, I’m quite able to control those instincts and they are even useful to more than me. I can recognize where I have excesses that can become flaws. I can develop morals and ethics for when and how authority should be expressed. I can figure out what parts of the past should be chopped off of society like a gangrenous limb. I can develop empathy. I can learn to see outside of my own perspective. I can allow others around me to be authorities when it is required for the greater good. I can drop a person that abuses authority without a problem. I think that political orientations are things that can be changed, but the reinforcement by society and in-group is very important in holding it in place (the fallacious reasoning also helps).
I think that the association of conservatism with authoritarianism is because it involves an established power structure. Things we think of as liberal would be quite able to become authoritarian in time and that is a thing that needs planning for.
Some random TS characteristics of note:
TS is involved with excess aggressive dominance behavior that we learn to deal with as kids.
TS involves obsession with social hierarchies, aggression, and sex.
TS involves excess oppositional behavior (Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder).
The corprolalia (cussing verbal tic) is very socially oppositional as it involves very specific things like obscenity, insults, slurs, and other socially forbidden things like saying “bomb” in an airport. That behavior is running off of a mind that is constantly thinking about social sensitivity and conflict. It reminds me of a disembodied version of the “boomerang effect” that never shuts up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_effect_%28psychology%29
And there is lots more. Fun stuff. Fun now that I have a handle on what it is anyway.
If I can handle this shit, I don’t feel sorry for most people with an authoritarian streak (I’m still leaving room for other mental complications).
#55, Azkyroth – What, aside from unwarranted assumption, makes you think I have a problem with the current system? (I do, actually – it isn’t sufficient – but I don’t think that’s what you meant.)
#56, militantagnostic – I think that would come under the “unexpected expense”clause, generally. I certainly have no problem with necessary infrastructure, with the proviso that a plan for maintenance should be drawn up at the same time.
#57 brony – I think you might be right as to the link between authoritarianism and current day conservatism, particularly the Neocon and Christacon branches. However, I would define myself as an Atheist Paleoconservative Anti-Authoritarian.
@sundoga 58
The use of the term “conservative” in political names will complicate things here so I’ll just say that I see conservatism more generally as an instinct to preserve a social/cultural structure that is perceived to be under the threat of change. It’s a neutral instinct and what matters are the reasons and logic for that preservation balanced against any harm caused by the social structure in question. So I can believe that there are conservatives that use persuasion more than authority independent of the things they are conservative with respect to.
Authoritarian instincts are also neutral. We are primates that “spontaneously” (nothing involving brains is that random) create hierarchies for many reasons and as long as these instincts are being used with awareness they can also be reasonable. People in different social roles will be using these instincts to a greater or lesser extent. An existing social structure will call on authoritarian instincts to preserve itself and often have something of an advantage in that area because that is the status quo. (It should not be ignored that challenges to that structure will also be using authority, that’s a matter of undermining illegitimate authority in the status quo).
Allow me to add my interpretation to their statement:
I guess I’d have to ask, what is the harm in wasting your time?