• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

My age is

I am between

  • Total voters
    92
...And yet there's a correlation between what a liberal believes is right, and what conservatives believe is right 50 years later. You'll be hard-pressed to find a conservative who believes we should re-instate slavery. And yet when the Founding Fathers proposed to make a black person count as a fraction of a vote, it was seen as radical liberalism. Seems to suggest liberals are the force of developing morality.

Conservatives serve an important function. That function, I believe, is to pace the speed of progression in such a way as to not jolt society too hard. But ultimately, they almost always lose. And the conservatives of the next generation believe what the liberals of the former generation did.

It is understandable older people are more likely to be conservative, as the plasticity of the brain reduces. What kept them alive for 40+ years must be working, right? But if it were left at that, it would be the death of our species on an evolutionary level. Our brains are our only claim to fame. Our moral development is the only thing special about us. And it is essentially the difference between the developed world and the developing world.

Appeal to authority is a classic sign of the conservative mentality.
 
MistressNomad said:
...And yet there's a correlation between what a liberal believes is right, and what conservatives believe is right 50 years later. You'll be hard-pressed to find a conservative who believes we should re-instate slavery. And yet when the Founding Fathers proposed to make a black person count as a fraction of a vote, it was seen as radical liberalism. Seems to suggest liberals are the force of developing morality.

Conservatives serve an important function. That function, I believe, is to pace the speed of progression in such a way as to not jolt society too hard. But ultimately, they almost always lose. And the conservatives of the next generation believe what the liberals of the former generation did.

It is understandable older people are more likely to be conservative, as the plasticity of the brain reduces. What kept them alive for 40+ years must be working, right? But if it were left at that, it would be the death of our species on an evolutionary level. Our brains are our only claim to fame. Our moral development is the only thing special about us. And it is essentially the difference between the developed world and the developing world.

Appeal to authority is a classic sign of the conservative mentality.
Click to expand...

It was the slave owners in 1787 who wanted to count slaves as whole persons, but for purposes of representation and allocation of taxes. Not for voting.

The Fathers were classical liberals, and it is classical liberalism that conservatives want to conserve.
 
Last edited:
I'll be old enough to vote in one week.
 
LuckyDan said:
It was the slave owners in 1787 who wanted to count slaves as whole persons, but for purposes of representation and allocation of taxes. Not for voting.

The Fathers were classical liberals, and it is classical liberalism that conservatives want to conserve.
Click to expand...

I am using liberalism in a modern way simply for clarity - more people understand it in the modern context.

Alright. How about Jim Crow laws? Women voting? Former treatment of Native Americans? Even the way we conduct war. All of these things have been gradually driven towards change by a liberal stance in their own time. Even today, we see aspects of Jim Crow laws being re-ignited in some of the states by trying to abolish voting drives - the primary form of registration for not only youths, but also minorities - who tend to vote Democrat. And these pieces of legislation are being driven almost exclusively by Republicans (in a modern sense).

I will allow Bush one moment of brilliance: his ideas on how to deal with the illegal immigration problem. Unilaterally shot down by the rest of the GOP in favor of building a fence and the on-going demonizing of Mexicans.

I will also allow there are two factions of conservatism. Conservatives were actually the first to suggest gays should be able to marry, back in the 90's. Before conservatism and libertarianism because two very different things. For the purposes of this, I mean social and human rights conservatism/liberalism.
 
Last edited:
the fourth magic number in physics
 
MistressNomad said:
...And yet there's a correlation between what a liberal believes is right, and what conservatives believe is right 50 years later. You'll be hard-pressed to find a conservative who believes we should re-instate slavery. And yet when the Founding Fathers proposed to make a black person count as a fraction of a vote, it was seen as radical liberalism. Seems to suggest liberals are the force of developing morality.

Conservatives serve an important function. That function, I believe, is to pace the speed of progression in such a way as to not jolt society too hard. But ultimately, they almost always lose. And the conservatives of the next generation believe what the liberals of the former generation did.

It is understandable older people are more likely to be conservative, as the plasticity of the brain reduces. What kept them alive for 40+ years must be working, right? But if it were left at that, it would be the death of our species on an evolutionary level. Our brains are our only claim to fame. Our moral development is the only thing special about us. And it is essentially the difference between the developed world and the developing world.

Appeal to authority is a classic sign of the conservative mentality.
Click to expand...

Conservatives always advocate a "return" to "the good old days." The thing is, society gets better over time on average. Even if a specific point is lower than a previous point, what's needed is to move forward, or else society will limit itself.
 
MistressNomad said:
I am using liberalism in a modern way simply for clarity - more people understand it in the modern context.
Click to expand...

Simple clarity? We live in a modern context, therefore a modern context is appropriate - unless we are discussing history. Don't pander to some guy who wants to use archiac terminology to describe himself; he can wear vintage clothing at historical re-enactments - but it's not appropriate here.
 
Last edited:
I am 23. Born in Birmingham, Al on Feb. 8, 1988.
 
ecofarm said:
Simple clarity? We live in a modern context, therefore a modern context is appropriate - unless we are discussing history. Don't pander to some guy who wants to use archiac terminology to describe himself; he can wear vintage clothing at historical re-enactments - but it's not appropriate here.
Click to expand...

Heh, of course not. Which is why I explained why I'm using it. I left the explaination that using it another way is trying to wiggle out of the argument to the imagination. It goes without saying.
 
atrasicarius said:
Conservatives always advocate a "return" to "the good old days." The thing is, society gets better over time on average. Even if a specific point is lower than a previous point, what's needed is to move forward, or else society will limit itself.
Click to expand...

Exactly. There are blips on the radar, but over-all the trend is up. The "good old days" are a hallucination of an aging mind. The "good old days," as recently as 50 years ago, of race riots, legal child abuse and spousal rape, and prevalent hate crimes? Please.

What's interesting is that the brief periods where things are worse than they used to be almost always correlate with a surge of reactionary conservatism.
 
MistressNomad said:
I am using liberalism in a modern way simply for clarity - more people understand it in the modern context.

Alright. How about Jim Crow laws? Women voting? Former treatment of Native Americans? Even the way we conduct war. All of these things have been gradually driven towards change by a liberal stance in their own time. Even today, we see aspects of Jim Crow laws being re-ignited in some of the states by trying to abolish voting drives - the primary form of registration for not only youths, but also minorities - who tend to vote Democrat. And these pieces of legislation are being driven almost exclusively by Republicans (in a modern sense).

I will allow Bush one moment of brilliance: his ideas on how to deal with the illegal immigration problem. Unilaterally shot down by the rest of the GOP in favor of building a fence and the on-going demonizing of Mexicans.

I will also allow there are two factions of conservatism. Conservatives were actually the first to suggest gays should be able to marry, back in the 90's. Before conservatism and libertarianism because two very different things. For the purposes of this, I mean social and human rights conservatism/liberalism.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. It's just harder to find a classical liberal on the left, which is why I think leftist is a better descriptor.

Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats. I don't know how conservative they were.
 
LuckyDan said:
I know what you mean. It's just harder to find a classical liberal on the left, which is why I think leftist is a better descriptor.

Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats. I don't know how conservative they were.
Click to expand...

Southern Democrats were racists, so were southern republicans, the few of them that were around at that time, plain and simple. Northern Democrats weren't. It had more to do with North/South, instead of liberal/conservative.
 
Your Star said:
Southern Democrats were racists, so were southern republicans, the few of them that were around at that time, plain and simple. Northern Democrats weren't. It had more to do with North/South, instead of liberal/conservative.
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true, but it's not entirely false, either.
 
Your Star said:
Southern Democrats were racists, so were southern republicans, the few of them that were around at that time, plain and simple. Northern Democrats weren't. It had more to do with North/South, instead of liberal/conservative.
Click to expand...
There were plenty of racists in the north.
 
Im 19. Im a youngin
 
LuckyDan said:
I know what you mean. It's just harder to find a classical liberal on the left, which is why I think leftist is a better descriptor.

Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats. I don't know how conservative they were.
Click to expand...

Southern Democrats were considered conservative for their time. That's not to say that they were conservative in the modern sense. But they sure as hell weren't liberal.

Your Star said:
Southern Democrats were racists, so were southern republicans, the few of them that were around at that time, plain and simple. Northern Democrats weren't. It had more to do with North/South, instead of liberal/conservative.
Click to expand...

Not entirely true. Racists existed all around. Abe Lincoln himself was a racist. But it was the Southern Democrats who wanted to keep their "peculiar institution" alive.
 
atrasicarius said:
Conservatives always advocate a "return" to "the good old days." The thing is, society gets better over time on average. Even if a specific point is lower than a previous point, what's needed is to move forward, or else society will limit itself.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say all conservatives do that. Those are the people I would label "reactionaries."
 
LuckyDan said:
Funny post, but I actually enjoy being around young people. Increasingly I have to explain my dated cultural references to them, but for the most part I find them often witty and fun.

Oh. I'm a few months shy of 50.
Click to expand...

That was my "oh god, I'm an adult" moment. A young boy I was observing for an education class was telling me all about the videos he had watched on youtube. I actually said, "When I was your age", followed by, "...we used camcorders and played the tapes on the TV". He looked at me blankly and then asked what camcorders and tapes were.
 
I was glad to see there were 3 more old goats like me....
 
atrasicarius said:
Conservatives always advocate a "return" to "the good old days." The thing is, society gets better over time on average. Even if a specific point is lower than a previous point, what's needed is to move forward, or else society will limit itself.
Click to expand...

I hate absolutes. There are some aspects of society which would be better served to look backwards. Parental involvement in childhood education is one area that has declined significantly and could use a throwback. Then, there are some aspects of society which would be better served to look forward. To act as though every conservative is always looking back and desiring some primative point in development is not only invalid, it's weakly supported. I'm not sure I've said it before, but I'm of the mindset that (1) you can't move forward unless you understand what's behind you and (2) if you only listen to the loudest members of any group you'll never know enough about that group to have a legitimate understanding.
 
Last edited:
Young people are idealistic and gullible, easy prey for socialist. As you get older and have more life experience you become more of a skeptic and idealism gives way to reality based thinking, next thing ya know, you’re a conservative. I realize some people stay liberal forever, in my opinion they are just stubborn or refuse to face reality. It’s an interesting subject and I could go on a while but it’s getting hot early these days so I’m off to take my morning mt bike ride. Old people have to take care of their hearts ya know and before anyone says it, YES us old conservatives have hearts!
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Young people are idealistic and gullible, easy prey for socialist. As you get older and have more life experience you become more of a skeptic and idealism gives way to reality based thinking, next thing ya know, you’re a conservative. I realize some people stay liberal forever, in my opinion they are just stubborn or refuse to face reality. It’s an interesting subject and I could go on a while but it’s getting hot early these days so I’m off to take my morning mt bike ride. Old people have to take care of their hearts ya know and before anyone says it, YES us old conservatives have hearts!
Click to expand...

Sorry for being blunt, but it's THIS belief that flies in the face of reality. Liberalism and conservatism are different perspectives, and neither has a monopoly on reality or the truth. I've seen plenty of posters of all stripes on this forum who say absolutely moronic things.

It's the belief that "my side is right, your side is wrong" that is total bull****.
 
Last edited:
StillBallin75 said:
That quote is full of ****. I want to stab something every time I see it.

If my time here at DP has been any indication, i've seen both conservatives and liberals, old and young posters with absolutely no brains.
Click to expand...

I think the quote had more to do with the world in it's entirety, not individuals.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom