Do conservatives love anything?

[angrycarpenter]

Other than themselves.

They say that they love this country. But they want us to turn into a global monster that dominates the world through our military.

They say that they love their families. But they fill their kids heads with hate and ignorance and teach them only how to consume.

They say that they love God. But they use god as a club to beat people over the head with, enjoying the self righteous hatred that seems to be the core of evangelical belief.

they say that they love our troops. But they want them to die to protect the bottom line.

It's easy to see what they hate. But what do they love? Can you love hatred?

[TwilightZone]

1. Money.

Money, money, money, money, and money.

Oh, and power. They love power.

[jackster]

2. you beat me to it.

money money money

oh and themselves

[bemildred]

10. Second that.

Nothing complicated about it.

[Itchinjim]

12. Yep, with Conservatives money trumps everything.

Even their three supposed big concerns, God, Family, and Country.

[yardwork]

26. That's what I was going to say!

[baldguy]

3. All their jokes involve pain & death.

Pain & death for other people.

[Echo In Light]

4. Remove the Right's need to attack and hate...

And they no longer would have a movement. Their's is a projective movement. It's fueled by that particular psychological animus. From that point, much of what the Right says is applicable to themselves. Listen to one of them, or their numerous Cato/Heritage etc pundits, and everything they ascribe to their "enemies," they themselves are most guilty of.

[Echo In Light]

14. What does the Right really love?

The National Security State ruse!!!

...keeps the War Pigs in power by feeding the War Machine. The added bonus is that it's always the excuse for rolling back civil rights a la the never-ending threat of phantom boogeymen "terrorists" (beginning with Iran/Contra, this was a crucial component to the the movie script they're selling America), and of course, "National Security" is essential for maintaining "plausible deniability."

[Jade Fox]

19. Excellent!!

Welcome to DU!

[Myrina]

5. ... they love knowing that nobody else is happy ...

... its that "We're secretly miserable so must project it onto everyone else" mentality.

[book_worm]

6. tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting any safety net for the poor

[pwb]

7. Themselves.

[applegrove]

30. Yup!

[pinto]

8. Conservatives love a boogieman.

Whether it's the red menace, liberals, 'socialized' health care, or the latest Global War on Terror (c).... They are, in fact, interchangeable in conservative ideology.

[Richard Steele]

9. No. And I really don't believe they truly love themselves, either. nm

[muffin1]

11. Lots of things

Money (obviously), power, country club dinners, yachts, diamonds, kicking people off of welfare, laughing at people with food stamps (god, I hate that), and stealing elections.:puke:

[FormerDittoHead]

13. They love Daddy, but he doesn't love them back, so they spend their lives trying to please him. n/t

[BlackVelvet04]

15. Something I find interesting.....

is when Christians are asked what's wrong with welfare and food stamps since the Bible says to feed the hungry, and what's wrong with socialized medicine when the Bible says to heal the sick and the answer is always "it should be voluntary."

But yet when it comes to the supposed Biblical principles like gays shouldn't marry or women shouldn't have abortions then it is to be mandatory adherence to those principles.

Now what kind of double standard is that?

[dysfunctional press]

16. being in control. having money and power usually facilitates that.

nt

[TomClash]

17. They love

Money
Status
Power
Themselves


Not necessarily in that order.

[shenmue]

18. Nope.

:dunce:

[porphyrian]

20. Don't go by what they say, they lie so much they convince themselves. - n/t

[Beelzebud]

21. They love to hate minority groups.

[Jade Fox]

22. Much of what they do is in response to us....

Conservatives are reactionaries--they react to that which frightens and confuses them. That's were we come in. They things we say and the things we want confuse conservatives and make them feel threatened.

Love doesn't have much to do with the Conservative world view. Their world view is mostly about the need to project uncomfortable feelings and fears on to perceived enemies, as one of the posters above said.

[LeftishBrit]

23. Their money, their status and their self-righteousness

[jhrobbins]

24. I think a lot of these answers are as simplistic as, "They hate us for

our freedoms". I actually thought that this might be a serious question and I think it deserves serioua reflection rather than handing off like Bush does. I know a lot of conservatives and the answers are not as simple as posted and I believe that for us to prevail, we have to try and really understand what conservatives love and why. Just think what the responses would have been on Freepers if the question had been asked about us - it would have been brutal and scathing (certainly more extreme than any answer here), but in no way correct.

I know a lot of you are gonna yell at me, but I really believe this is important - especially since I never want to be compared to them.

[yardwork]

27. No, the answer really is as simple as: money and power.

That's all they love. Fear is also a huge motivating factor in their behavior.

We could analyze this in great detail, but the summary response is: Money, power, and fear.

[pitohui]

38. the answer is simple because the conservative movement is simple

if you believe they're about anything other than keeping and grabbing for themselves, then you have been sadly duped, no offense

what they want to conserve is their own pocketbook and to hell w. the rest of us

they don't believe in god, except as god promotes social control, they don't believe in country, except as they can feed at the public trough

there is no use looking for a complex reason why a pig wallows in much and feeds at a trough, this is what pigs do

[gtar100]

42. You're right. These are simplistic answers

They love their kids, their parents, their husbands and wives, their dogs and cats. "Love" is a bit too much for them when it comes to other people's kids, other people in other countries - heck, even other counties. I think the problem is they don't feel a sense of responsibility towards anyone else other than themselves and their own. Their projected "love" on their country seems to me to be about what this country does for them.

I've never met a conservative who gave any serious thought about love of country. It's all about what is advantageous to them. And they don't see anything wrong with that because that's what they expect everyone else to do as well. And somehow out that everything is supposed to work itself out. And if it weren't for us meddling liberals with our "socialist" programs and our "communist" ideas, their utopia would work out just fine.

[TahitiNut]

25. Privilege. (READ what F. A. Hayek said)

"Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and power-adoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism; and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment, appeal to the young and all those others who believe that some changes are desirable if this world is to become a better place. A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some which are not available on equal terms to others." —— F. A. Hayek, 1956 Preface to "The Road to Serfdom"


I have already referred to the differences between conservatism and liberalism in the purely intellectual field, but I must return to them because the characteristic conservative attitude here not only is a serious weakness of conservatism but tends to harm any cause which allies itself with it. Conservatives feel instinctively that it is new ideas more than anything else that cause change. But, from its point of view rightly, conservatism fears new ideas because it has no distinctive principles of its own to oppose them; and, by its distrust of theory and its lack of imagination concerning anything except that which experience has already proved, it deprives itself of the weapons needed in the struggle of ideas. Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.

The difference shows itself most clearly in the different attitudes of the two traditions to the advance of knowledge. Though the liberal certainly does not regard all change as progress, he does regard the advance of knowledge as one of the chief aims of human effort and expects from it the gradual solution of such problems and difficulties as we can hope to solve. Without preferring the new merely because it is new, the liberal is aware that it is of the essence of human achievement that it produces something new; and he is prepared to come to terms with new knowledge, whether he likes its immediate effects or not.

<snip>

Connected with the conservative distrust if the new and the strange is its hostility to internationalism and its proneness to a strident nationalism. Here is another source of its weakness in the struggle of ideas. It cannot alter the fact that the ideas which are changing our civilization respect no boundaries. But refusal to acquaint one's self with new ideas merely deprives one of the power of effectively countering them when necessary. The growth of ideas is an international process, and only those who fully take part in the discussion will be able to exercise a significant influence. It is no real argument to say that an idea is un-American, or un-German, nor is a mistaken or vicious ideal better for having been conceived by one of our compatriots.

A great deal more might be said about the close connection between conservatism and nationalism, but I shall not dwell on this point because it might be felt that my personal position makes me unable to sympathize with any form of nationalism. I will merely add that it is this nationalistic bias which frequently provides the bridge from conservatism to collectivism: to think in terms of "our" industry or resource is only a short step away from demanding that these national assets be directed in the national interest. But in this respect the Continental liberalism which derives from the French Revolution is little better than conservatism. I need hardly say that nationalism of this sort is something very different from patriotism and that an aversion to nationalism is fully compatible with a deep attachment to national traditions. But the fact that I prefer and feel reverence for some of the traditions of my society need not be the cause of hostility to what is strange and different.

—— F. A. Hayek, from the essay Why I Am Not A Conservative; full text at http://www.geocities.com/ecocorner/intelarea/fah1.html

[Atman]

28. Other white conservatives

IOW, they love to hate anyone different than them.

.

[AngryAmish]

29. Feasting on the flesh of black children

It is like a sacrament for them.

[NorthernSpy]

31. rope tying; Skoal; the lasting friendships they make on Stormfront...

Except, of course, for the few who are reading this thread and are ticked off about all the turrible unfair stuff we're laying on 'em. What they love is clearly us. They wouldn't pay nearly so much attention to us otherwise.



:)

[RandomKoolzip]

32. Don't take this the wrong way, but I think this thread is really misguided.

And frankly, more than a little ugly in spirit. OF COURSE conservatives have the capacity for and to love. They're human beings, just like everyone else. Yes, I realize it's an exercise in hyperbole, but i think there's a real danger in, even in jest, suggesting that members of an opposing politcal ideology are somehow less than human - after all, dehumanizing people is what we accuse THEM of doing.

I know conservatives in real life. I have a few conservative friends. Sure, they're not the most compassionate people, but they love their families, they love the music they listen to, they love their work, their jobs, their pets, their ideals. Their definition of "love" is simply narrower than ours, that's all. Liberals tend to feel a kind of universal love, a love for not only those closest to them, but to the lowliest creatures they encounter as well. Conservatives almost (to me anyewways) seem to be people who got hurt by someone or something or maybe angry at some point early in life and decided to be fairly closed-off, emotionally, as a reaction. Yes, they're screwing up the world for the rest of us, but it's only because they're humans like us who, somewhere along the line, got the wrong idea.

Having said that, let me just add that i don't think people like that have any business running the government - they ought to be in deep deep therapy first.

[pitohui]

40. even mussolini loved his mother, even hitler did, BFHD

to say that conservatives are capable of love because they love their own, big fat fucking hairy deal, you know?

hitler wept when the lobster was boiled in hot water, so he passed a law to protect the poor pitiful lobster

he was still a shithole of a human being

conservative's wretched idea of "love" and empathy is a sick joke, the fact remains that when it comes to human beings, they love only their "own" and they want all money and power in the hands of their "own" and they can't tolerate the rest of us getting even a little

[Ishoutandscream2]

33. I may have missed it, but no one said "fetuses"

[Sadie4629]

34. Why don't you go to a conservative site and ask them yourself? n/t

[western mass]

35. Gay sex

...apparently. Not that there's anything wrong with that :)

[pitohui]

36. they love the dollar bill

anyone who thinks the republican party or their bastard step child the libertarian party is about anything except a money grab is sadly deluded

"conservatives" are all about, i've got mine, jack, and now i'm gonna gets yours too

[SalmonChantedEvening]

37. Selling n/t

[spanone]

39. war......& the profiteering

[stranger81]

41. money and themselves. [n/t]

[WillyT]

43. Yes.. They Love To Hate

:shrug:

[burythehatchet]

44. They love to possess. They think possessing is loving.

[Generic Brad]

45. They love their dictator

And if they don't have one, they will do their bets to create one.