MUST READ! Conservatives Are Always Wrong

[Joanne98]

This WHOLE website is dedicated to documenting why conservatives are always wrong. Bookmark it for ammunition!

>>>>
Suppose you had a friend you had known for many years, one who was very opinionated, who always seemed absolutely certain about everything, and yet who was always turning out to be wrong. He got you to buy stock in Enron and swore it would just keep on rising. He bet on the Yankees to sweep the Red Sox in ’04. He said mobile phones were just a fad, and before long people would give them up and go back to sending telegrams.

Would you trust this person’s powers of analysis? Would you continue putting any faith in his predictions?

“Conservatives,” or those who call themselves this nowadays, have an equally good and much longer record of faulty analysis and wrong prediction. In order to exist as a viable movement, they depend on everyone forgetting that they’re basically always wrong.

Unfortunately, progressives and liberals have obliged. They seem to have forgotten who they’re actually dealing with. I’m not the first to point out that conservatives are always wrong – on any longer view, it’s hard to miss – but after years of observing the dispirited moderate left and the hapless, helpless leadership of the Democratic Party, I thought it was about time for a few reminders. If we step back from the issues that preoccupy us at the moment, it’s easier both to see that conservatism has consistently been failing and to examine the deeper reasons why. There are flaws in conservative positions that eventually cause them to collapse, and those same flaws are at work today. It’s true that one side in America’s great political debates is playing a very weak hand. Fortunately, that side isn’t ours.

If they recognized this, if they remembered how reliably the conservative cause has come to grief in the past, I think my fellow progressives would be in much better spirits. I hope the analysis I’m offering here will not only brighten their mood, but suggest some specific arguments and approaches they might find useful once they figure out that they’re already winning – and have been for a very long time.

Continued>>>
http://conservativesarealwayswrong.googlepages.com/

TOPICS DISCUSSED

in this article:


How are they

always wrong?

Conservatives’ terrible

track record



Why do they keep

getting it wrong?

Conservatism’s faulty assumptions


But hasn’t the left

been wrong too?

Some conservative excuses


Why do they

hate America?

Conservative naivete

and self-contradiction


What should we

do about them?

Conservatism's continuing

failure

http://conservativesarealwayswrong.googlepages.com/



:patriot:

[Buzz Clik]

1. The left, again, adopts another huge segment of Bushthink.

Conservatives are not always wrong.

To state as much is symptomatic of a tiny mind.

[Joanne98]

2. Just what are they right about?

[SpiralHawk]

3. Gigadittoes

Please specify what they are right about.

And also, please explain how republicons can, by any measure of truth, claim to be 'conservative' in any way shape or fashion?

[Buzz Clik]

7. You can argue about Republicans all you want, but that isn't the topic.

[wolfgangmo]

54. There is a difference between conservatives

And republicans.

Conservatives conserve. I don't know WTF the repubs are doing.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Here's a quote from William Buckley:

"Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."

QED.

Can we stop this stupid bullshit now?

[sandyd921]

12. You've cited a conservative taking a liberal position.

This is a position that libertarians often take. I like the way Thom Hartmann puts it: "Libertarians are just conservatives who want to smoke pot and get laid". In other words conservatives taking a liberal stand for convenience's sake.

[Buzz Clik]

14. How convenient. It is not what you asked nor is it what the website suggests.

For over 50 years, Bill Buckley assumed a completely consistent conservative ideology. I gave you a quote of a conservative being correct and destroyed your stupid argument.

This is over.

Good night.

[sandyd921]

16. Prohibition is a conservative position.

You've actually cited a conservative criticizing a conservative idea.

[Buzz Clik]

23. Maybe, but I also defeated the opening argument.

[SpiralHawk]

29. So nice to be your own judge, Buzzy

I understand that so-called 'conservatives' disdain facts, but you've yet to even try and float one to support your claim.

[Buzz Clik]

45. Post #5. Read the thread, and save the self-righteous bullshit for someone else.

[bvar22]

39. I don't think so.

You have actually validated the OP, and blown your OWN claim right out of the water.

[Buzz Clik]

46. The OP and the quoted article said that conservatives are always wrong.

In ten seconds, I posted just one quote of an extreme conservative who was absolutely correct.

All the rest of the discussion on this thread is a waste of electrons.

[Joanne98]

31. That's absolutely true. Remember "JUST SAY NO"!

[nashville_brook]

17. okay, except for this one pot-smoking quasi-conservative getting it right about getting high,

have they been right about any thing else? or, is this enough to dismiss the entire OP?

i would add, that he was prolly stoned when he wrote this and therefore spilled a little truth on himself by accident.

[Buzz Clik]

22. LOL!!!! Buckley a quasi-conservative?

Dude, pass the doobie.

[Joanne98]

27. That's nice but it was conservatives who started the war on drugs!

Buckley is an exception. More like a libertarian view.

[immoderate]

37. Ah, the exception that proves the rule.

Have conservatives adopted Buckley's notion? Does this one statement constitute a reason to reject the thesis of the article? Taken as a whole, Buckley was wrong about just about everything, unless you are the Pope.

I'm thinking you are deliberately rejecting the nature of generalizations to be argumentative.

--IMM

[Buzz Clik]

47. Yes, that one quote is more than enough to reject the thesis of the article.

Another good reason is the pure stupidity of the thesis.

[lefthandedskyhook]

51. Here's an example

I asked myself a few years ago if there was even one thing Bush has supported that I and other progressives also support. The answer was not too hard to find: It's the national "do not call" list. Yeah, it's kinda puny when you consider all the damage that's been done, but it offers a way out of the kind of thinking that can trap me in resentment, which harms me more than the target of loathing.

[MessiahRp]

53. Damn those telemarketers for not giving enough to Bush or other GOP candidates

because you know damn well if they had there would not have been a Do Not Call list no matter how much their constituents wanted one. I read someone mention before that the have the Do Not Call list in PA but a also a Do Not Enforce Republican AG. That seems to be about right.

Rp

[Hugin]

4. Perhaps, for some balance, you could give us a link to a site listing their achievements?

:)

[Buzz Clik]

8. See post #5.

I really love this new approach by liberals: you're either a liberal or you're wrong.

Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- could be more moronic.

[Hugin]

19. I was thinking conservatives were early proponents of ecological conservation...

So, there you have it.

[Joanne98]

32. That was TR. He wasn't a real conservative. BESIDES just because one or two

conservatives jump off the ranch doesn't matter. The conservatives have a CONSENSUS on their ideas. We know what they are and they're WRONG 99% of the time.

[Pab Sungenis]

40. Teddy Roosevelt was NOT a conservative by ANY stretch of the imagination

He was a progressive. The conservative wing of the Republican party HATED him. They tried to field an opposition candidate to him at the 1904 convention, but their choice (Mark Hanna) proved to be in too frail health and died before the convention. Their other choice, Fairbanks, accepted the Vice-Presidency instead.

It was Roosevelt's break with the convservatives that became resurgent after his retirement that led to Woodrow Wilson's election in 1912.

[Two Americas]

44. the problem with this

If we define conservative as "those who got it wrong," then yes, of course, conservatives are always wrong. We can then say that any time someone we identify as a conservative gets anything right, they must therefore be "off the ranch." You are trying to make reality fit your theory, rather than your theory explain reality.

If we said "ruling class" rather than "conservatives" - explained this in terms of relative access to power and resources rather than trying to make vague ideological distinctions fit reality, rather than trying to identify teams and put labels on them, like "conservative," we would be closer to the truth.

But even then, the ruling class is not "wrong" - they are right about how to promote their own interests at the expense of the rest of us.

The other problem is that Democrats have done and are doing much to advance the interests of the ruling class, the wealthy and powerful few. It really has nothing to do with ideology, nor with being right or wrong, it has to do with whose interests are being served. That is what politics has always been about.

Of course the right wing propaganda is wrong - it is all lies, because otherwise the people would not support the ruling class agenda if the truth were told about it. But the right wing propagandists are not trying to be right, they are trying to fool people, and doing a good job of it, so it isn't accurate to say they get it wrong. They are not trying to get it right. They don't care about being right - that is a fetish of modern liberalism, and being right is the consolation prize in politics. They are trying to grab power and resources while we play naive and childish games about who is right and who is wrong.

[Joanne98]

28. LOL..I would but there isn't any!

[sandyd921]

10. Pray tell, on what planet of the universe

have flat earthers been right? Can't wait to hear this!

[Buzz Clik]

13. You're correct. There is not one person who could be called "conservative" in the history of earth..

... who ever made a correct statement. Not one.

Congrats on achieving this level of genius.

[Bjorn Against]

26. I think we are taking a broader look at conservative ideology though...

I don't think anyone claimed that every single conservative has been wrong in every position they have taken as individuals. To make such a claim would be ludicrous, but I don't see anyone here making that claim. When we are talking about conservative positions we are not talking about positions that certain individual conservatives might take, but positions that the majority of conservatives would take.

Could you name a position held by the majority of conservatives on a controversial issue in which they have been correct?

[sandyd921]

34. Exactly!

This discussion is about the ideology of conservatism and not an individual position a particular conservative has taken that may deviate from the large body of conservative thought.

[Elidor]

41. You are correct

But there is little enough incentive for pointing out the painfully obvious around here.

A quick search of teh interwebs turns up some more proofs of your position:

1. Richard Hooker - Anglican priest who argued that Christians of different sects should work to recognize their commonality rather than emphasizing their differences.
   
   
2. Green Conservatism
   a. David Cameron - the current leader of the Conservative Party in the U.K. announced his support last year for a set of green taxes (proposed by Tories, no less) on things such as SUVs and air travel which would help fund tax cuts for "families."
   
   b. Preston Manning - founder of the Reform Party of Canada, argues that growth must be balanced against protection of the environment.
   
   c. Japan and Germany also have right-wing parties with strong ecological agendas.
   
   
3. Conservatives have pronounced the War on Drugs a failure: the late William F. Buckley, founder of the National Review; Ethan A. Nadelmann, a scholar and researcher; Kurt Schmoke, a mayor and former prosecutor; Joseph D. McNamara, a former police chief; Robert W. Sweet, a federal judge and former prosecutor; Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist; and Steven B. Duke, a law professor - together held a symposium based on the premise that "the war on drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction, that it is wasting our resources, and that it is encouraging civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police states."

Regardless, it's unclear what definition of right vs. wrong we're talking about. If the argument is that conservatives can never take a position in agreement with liberals, that is false. If the argument is that conservatives can never hold a reasonable position which reflects a solid grasp of fact based on a thorough grounding in reality, that is also false.

It's sad that this is even a question for discussion. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should require no more than the briefest moment of thought to see the fallacy of the argument. The web site in the OP looks to be a nice resource for pointing out the errors of conservatism, but hyperbole in defense of absolutes is no virtue.

[FormerDittoHead]

6. They are wrong because everything they say is a LIE.

A good read, but I think it misses the broader point.

Sure, they pepper their views with common sense and facts, but the CORE of what they say, the RESULT of their ideology is something FAR AWAY from from their rhetoric.

Republicans don't care about religion and unborn babies.

Republicans don't care about "life".

Republicans don't care about morality.

Republicans don't care about taking responsibility.

Republicans don't care about small government.

Republicans don't care about the Constitution.

Republicans don't care about gun ownership.

There is only one, true core of modern Conservatism: making sure rich people pay lower taxes than those people who don't have as much wealth, and to make sure they STAY rich.

The cornerstone of what we call Conservatism has been financed by RICH people. The pro-lifers aren't financing the Heritage or Cato Foundations, or any of these other think tanks.

None of these think tanks would exist without RICH PEOPLE.

THERE IS NOTHING IN ANY "CONSERVATIVE" PROGRAM WHICH WOULD EVEN COINCIDENTALLY END UP WITH RICH PEOPLE PAYING MORE TAXES OR SIMILARLY CHANGING THEIR RELATIVE ECONOMIC POSITION.

THAT IS NO COINCIDENCE.

The rest is whatever they need to get the support needed for the primary goal.

EVERYTHING ELSE IS A LIE - THAT'S WHY THEY ALWAYS GET IT WRONG.

[Buzz Clik]

11. That is truly amazing.

Clearly you are correct that not one Republican -- not one! -- cares about life or morality.

What amazing insight on your part.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

15. BINGO FOR YOU

[nashville_brook]

18. we have a winner.

eggsactly.

[Joanne98]

30. That's true but calling them ALWAYS WRONG will work better as an argument.

[Aviation Pro]

9. Bottom line after reading the article....

.... U.S. conservatives are the most fearful people on the planet and believe in magical thinking.

[nashville_brook]

20. fear and magical thinking are definitely at the root of conservative ideology.

listen to any of the blowhards and the meme you get repeatedly is that privileged white males are victims (VICTIMS, I say!) of the larger pluralistic society. it's a spectacular tautology -- "we are no longer hegemons in a society that values equality --- WHAAAAAAAAAA!"

[Buzz Clik]

21. That is correct. There has never been a conservative who does not believe in God ...

... and God always -- ALWAYS -- influences every move they make.

Every conservative (alive or dead) has dreamed of a government with a popelike figure leading it.

[nashville_brook]

35. it's the authoritarianism -- i think this is why Harry Potter is so threatening,instead of the magic

it's the dominant theme that one has to makes one's own way. that no one is going to save you, and that some authority figures are often malignant and odious. the fact that it's *some* authority figure and not ALL is even more vexing for them, because that supposes a universe of ambiguity rather than absolute truth (the authoritarian's ultimate magical thought).

[Octafish]

24. Proud to K&R

Thank you, Joanne98. Nothing scares a conservative more than the truth, except maybe having to work for a living.

[supernova]

25. Because their first instinct is always to protect the status quo

The only change they ever suggest is always to some imagined more moral and naturally more pure time in the past.

They are quite fearful of the future and so always want to mitigate it or or cancel it altogether.

Though, once they are dragged kicking and screaming into a more equal, more ethically diverse present and future, they always say OK and enjoy the benefits of the change as much as anyone. That's why they conveniently "forget" all their old positions from earlier times, meaning that they really aren't as "conservative" as they like to project. I always delight in reminding my conservative friends that had they been alive at various other points in history, they would have been all for The Inquisition, for the owning of slaves, for the French Aristocracy (heh), and so on.

That's way I say we should positively steamroll them on universal healthcare. Don't pay any attention to them whatsoever. They don't expect to be asked and and frankly will be grateful to simply be told what to do. When we have put in in place, of course they will then jump on board as if they had supported it all along.

[Joanne98]

33. Thank you supernova. You're absolutely right.

[immoderate]

36. K&R, good article.

--IMM

[Jade Fox]

38. Wasn't there a study done recently......

that showed how today's Bush-era Conservatives will continue to hold their position even when presented with facts clearly contradicting their views? I think this is the effect of Fox News/talk radio, where they lie quite frequently.

Thanks for posting that page.

[Joanne98]

42. Yep! Here it is....

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Continued>>>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/13/usa.redbox

[flamin lib]

43. Marking! nt

[shellgame26]

48. Is there a set list

of positions that one must take in order to be labelled a conservative and another list in order for one to be labelled as a liberal?

I know many conservatives who might agree with some things on the liberal list and liberals who might agree with some things on the conservative list. Does that therefore nullify the ideological group they've chosen to identify with?

I will say this though; reality has a liberal slant-Stephen Colbert

[Jefferson_Smith]

49. A REPLY TO THIS DISCUSSION from the author of "Why Conservatives are Always Wrong"

Hi everyone, Jefferson Smith here -- I'm the author of the article being discussed on this thread. I haven't participated in Democratic Underground before, but was alerted to this discussion by the "hits tracker" on my site. I'm really grateful to Joanne98 for noticing the article and for the comments on it here from critics and defenders both. The most common criticism seems to be that the title is too absolute, that nothing is ALWAYS true in history or politics and that too many people and ideas are lumped together under the name "conservatives." I don't really disagree with that. The point of the title was twofold: (a) to be provocative, and (b) to try putting the shoe on the other foot, after nearly three decades now of the right's similarly absolutist attacks on the left -- attacks that, in my view, have essentially gone unanswered. Or more precisely, they haven't been answered in the same terms: Progressives have an admirable, but sometimes self-defeating, desire to stick to facts and details, even as their opponents are succeeding politically by denouncing them and their ideas wholesale. This struck me as a ludicrous imbalance, given that progressive ideas have mostly been right and conservative ideas nearly always discredited as time goes on, and I saw my article as one tiny effort to help correct that imbalance, to signal to fellow progressives how I would like to see them counter-attacking.

Those who read beyond the title will see, I think, that the article's actual arguments are more nuanced, and that they do already try to answer some of the criticisms posted here. That's WHY the piece is as long as it is, which I realize puts off some readers. (For what it's worth, this is the "shorter" version of what I originally envisioned, which was a book on this theme that I am still considering writing at some point.) I see that a couple of the critics here say they did read the whole thing, which I appreciate, but unfortunately their comments have not engaged or noted errors in any of the specifics, so -- as interested as I am in understanding their criticisms -- I can't really say any more about them.

Other than that, the main point I would make in the article's defense has already been made above: that I'm talking about a consensus of conservative ideas, not claiming that everything ever uttered by anyone who calls him/herself a "conservative" is always wrong. I'm also saying that this basic conservative consensus is persistently wrong over time, and that this is so because conservatives of each generation rely on the same set of faulty underlying premises. Of course, there's a danger here (as a couple of other posters have noted) of circularity, of defining conservatism as "discredited ideas" and thus making the point (trivially) true by definition. Again, the article itself tries to answer that criticism. But this discussion has alerted me to the possibility that my meaning might be better expressed if the title were "Why ConservatISM is Always Wrong." If I update the piece in light of the recent election, as I'm thinking of doing, I will consider making that change.

Anyway, thanks again for everyone's input. It's really satisfying to me, since generating this kind of discussion was what the effort was all about.

Your friend,
Jeff

[Locrian]

50. welcome to DU!

Great article too....

that I'm talking about a consensus of conservative ideas, not claiming that everything ever uttered by anyone who calls him/herself a "conservative" is always wrong

And Im not sure how someone could take it the "absolute" way unless they just want to be argumentative...

[Jefferson_Smith]

57. Thanks, Locrian. (nt)

[TrogL]

55. You've failed to make certain distinctions

...and fallen into some logical fallacies, primarily tarring with a large brush (which you've already admitted to) and in the process created a certain number of straw men.

I will admit that I haven't read the entire article line by line primarily because it's so dense it's giving me a headache. I do believe, however, I've gotten the jist of it.

First off, you've failed to make the distinction between conservatism and authoritarianism (see link below) and prescribed authoritarianism more towards the libertarian crowd, which isn't where it belongs (and you also have to remember that the Libertarian Party is actually authoritarian in makeup).

You've also failed to distinguish between classical conservatism (in the mould of C. S. Lewis and C.K. Chesterton) and the current brand of "conservatism" which has about as much to do with conservatism as "born again Christianity" has to do with the teachings of the dude from Galilee/Bethlehem. You're lumping the former in with the latter.

Perhaps an example might serve.

In my industry (computers and systems analysis), we have a way of thinking called "old school" which probably translates as "traditional conservatism". We tend not to embrace newer technologies until they've had a shakedown, we tend towards following industry standards, and we tend towards understanding the underlying technologies and manipulating them at the lowest level (eg. command-line) vs. blindly following the "click the GUI along with me" video.

My former boss, however, has a different form of thinking. He will NOT allow any technology newer than his last level of expertise (which is 15 years out of date) unless he stumbles across something brand-shiny-new touting to solve all his problems in one fell swoop, which he then insists be jury-rigged into the existing infrastructure, whether it fits or not. Whether it works or not, he claims it is working, has always worked and will always continute to work, even as it comes crashing down. That's the new "conservative".

Hence, I'm going to use the word "authoritarians", specifically referring to the follower type, not the leaders. I wish you had made more mention of them living in their own little world, their constructed reality, and how terrified they are of anything that changes it. I lived in that world until I bolted half a continent away. They latch onto Jerry Fallwell/Dick Cheney types as leaders (everybody, even them, knows Dubya is a sock puppet) because it reinforces their reality. They go to the churches they do exactly because they are expected NOT to think, NOT to challenge reality.

[Jefferson_Smith]

56. TrogL, you're talking about something else

The computer-industry practices you're referring to are what I would call a conservative "temperament" or "disposition." That's not political conservatism -- indeed there are plenty of political liberals and progressives, including myself, who are conservative in "micro" ways: in their lifestyles, work habits, personal-investing strategies, etc. But as the article explains, I'm talking about a particular set of approaches to macro-level issues, those large matters of politics, society, science and economics that we're called upon to consider as citizens.

I don't know that much about Chesterston or C.S. Lewis, but in general I think British Toryism, especially pre-Thatcher (and now, maybe, post-Blair), is a much better example of the conservative disposition translated into politics than we get from today's American "conservatives" -- the National Review and Weekly Standard crowds, the Bush administration, much of the Republican Party, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, etc. These people might like to think they're carrying on some venerable tradition like the one you refer to, but they're actually radical reactionaries. As another poster noted above, there are many ways in which they're not really "conserving" much or resisting change per se. To that extent, their self-description as "conservative" is a misuse of the term.

That said, I do think that there's something that the American conservative movement of today has in common with various conservatisms of the past -- or rather, six things they have in common, the "six pillars of conservative unwisdom" that I write about. I wrote in order to point out those connections, which I don't think have been fully appreciated; and I want them appreciated, because I think if people saw them more clearly they would be less susceptible to today's conservative propaganda (and progressives who saw them clearly would be more self-confident, because they'd see that the ideas they're up against are proven failures). Other writers, in other articles and books, have drawn the fine distinctions among different styles and schools of conservatism. I felt that had already been done, so I wrote to emphasize connections ("lumping") because those are what I thought had mostly been overlooked.

[lelgt60]

52. I agree...and disagree...

I don't much like weighing in on this discussion because of this single flawed premise: There is a clear definition of conservative or conservatism. Either from the people who call themselves conservative or the people who dislike it.

OTOH, most people without some axe to grind (that leaves about 4, I figure) know pretty much what someone means when they say "American Conservative". In addition, as one who sometimes feels that his positions are "conservative", if you want to truly communicate your positions to others, you wouldn't claim to be a conservative unless you pretty much held all the standard conservative positions.

In other words, STOP NITPICKING. We know what it means. We know what you think on lots of issues if you say you're a conservative. If you don't want us to mis-classify you, don't call yourself a conservative. Just call yourself independent. Which is what I do (and most people should do what I do, obviously).

And don't bitch about "labeling". How the hell are we supposed to communicate if you insist on defining every single word.

Now, to be contradictory.

Most people I know who think of themselves as conservatives, are not conservative on a variety of issues. As much as we might like to place a nice little bow around the people we hate, it isn't that simple. I think the only real solution is dump the generalizations and go after issues one by one. Being for Proposition 8 is wrong, no matter what you think about how to fix the economy.