Cool Breeze wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:19 pm
Every one of your disadvantaged, identity driven groups (by your marxist agenda) was given civilization and freedom by the people you claim have "old values". Not the other way around. You are delusional. "Conservatives" attempt to conserve virtue and civilization, not promote degeneracy and division, like you do. Cut the bullshit.
From one race’s perspectives, the blacks being driven into slave ships were being given freedom by those with the old values? Can you comprehend the slave’s lack of gratitude?
One of my things is the arrow of progress. I often name the elements as equality, democracy and human rights. Industrialization is also an element, as is high church and low. The Reformation, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution focused on different parts of human culture. Yet, if one element was central in at one time or another, the others grew and changed too.
Let’s look at the various crises in the Anglo American sequence.
The English Civil War was between the rural royal high church faction and the urban, parliament, low church. There was an anti autocratic pro democracy element. There was an element of changing the power from rural landowning towards industrialization. There was something of a dent in the class structure of the Agricultural Age.
The US Revolution had two elements. One was against autocracy and for democracy. Taxation without representation is tyranny and all that. Beneath the surface was an anti Colonial Imperialism element. The American elites didn’t care for the colonies to be a source of raw materials and captive market. They wanted to trade freely and industrialize.
The US Civil War had a similar double set of motivations. The abolitionists wanted more equality. There was also a struggle between the agricultural elites and industrial elites. In order for the Industrial Revolution to progress, the federal government had to shake the land owner’s reluctance to expand.
In FDR’s times the crisis was doubled. The government had to regulate the economy. The Gilded Age included a number of depressions which had to be stopped. World War II was a fight mostly against autocracy, for democracy. (I know. Russia doesn’t fit that characterization.)
That is your baseline. That is your arrow of progress. Try to characterize the crises differently? The major issue of each time is confronted. It is resolved in favor of democracy, equality, human rights and industrialization. The opposite side fighting to continue existing power structures are fighting for autocracy, advantage for some supposedly superior class, oppression and perhaps for continued agricultural dominance.
Now this doesn’t imply that the current Republicans will try to bring back kings and slaves. After each crisis, the old values fade. Some battles are accepted as lost. But the Robber Barons progressively trying to enable the Industrial Revolution who were a progressive force for advance in the US Civil War become an oppressive elite trying to exploit the workers right quick. The next conflict is going to be different.
The current crisis? Trump is a wannabe autocrat? Republicans are trying to suppress the vote, disenfranchise minorities? The elites are all for cutting taxes to the rich, weakening unions, shipping jobs abroad where the labor is cheaper and the environment not protected? Equality against an elite few in charge. Democracy against autocracy. Human rights against oppression.
Now I don’t say the conservatives won’t try to outline a different perspective. However, their efforts to me are like pouring perfume on a pig. The stink changes, but it is still a stink.
There are parts of the Anglo American culture that are worth keeping, even in a crisis. Parts of conservative thought are honorable. Racism and elitism are not among those parts. Government can become too big and too corrupt. Leave anyone in charge too long and they become too accustomed to the way things have become. If you leave problems unsolved, the become worse until they force a crisis.
But attempt to characterize the crises differently. Attempt to pervert the arrow of progress. The greatest problems facing the culture are corrected. Try to say the progressive force hasn’t won repeatedly by favoring democracy, equality and human rights. Try to say the conservatives are going to win by restricting the vote, favoring the elites, and oppressing people.