What Made You A Conservative?

[Battlegrinder]

@mesonoxian , I think the root of the issue you're having with invictus and the others is that you're using different definitions for the same terms and not making that clear. I'm pretty sure when you say:

You are angry over deconstruction, but deconstruction, at least in history, is about looking for the actual truth, not the stories we've built on top of it. Looking at history as it actually was means taking account of the fact that the history that we receive doesn't always match up with reality. Even when it isn't a lie, that doesn't necessarily mean it is the whole truth.

What they hear is "I support a 1619 project style revisionist outlook that uses history as a tool in service of contemporary political aims", because that's what people who say the same sort of thing frequently do.

Particularly when you go on to stay stuff like this:

The fact that Jefferson was having sex with a person he literally owned can and should make us question his larger role, because that part is just as real, maybe more real, than all the high minded sentiments he made.

Sally Hemings changes nothing about the Declaration or Jefferson's ideals and what they mean to us today, or how those "high minded sentiments" have shaped and inspired the country. At most, she proves thst Jefferson was not some kind of saint and that he didn't live up to his own beliefs, which would be much more important if anyone actually believed that, which they don't. This is something most any history book will point out given the civil war stemmed from that conflict between ideals and reality, and the founders grapples with it at the time as well.

Put bluntly, ms hemings is far less real than those ideals, because those ideals shaped a nation and she didn't, and your vague assertions to the contrary do not convince me otherwise.


As for this bit:

The fact that literal blood was shed in the attempts of workers to resist corporate violence is a vital part of our history, especially where I live, that most people are never taught, because it doesn't fit a convenient narrative.

I'm going to have to ask you to prove this. Go call up your local school board, ask what textbooks they use and what thier curriculum is, and then let me know. Because in every history book I've ever read that covers the period, those events were discussed, and I do not believe you when you say your local schools exclude them.

I'd actually like to know more about the Appalachians resisting being debt slaves, assuming that really happened.

I would assume she was referring to stuff like the battle of Blair Mountain and the like. Which. Contrary to her claims, are taught in schools, along with related issues like company towns and other dirty moves by turn of the century corporations. However, they're not dwelled upon, because in the end they weren't very important.

 

[GoldRanger]

So black people and Native Americans aren't "the people of the nation" and we should never acknowledge unpleasant truths because it might hurt somebody's feelings.

There's an ocean of difference between acknowledging the truth of slavery or Jim Crow, and forcing the current generation of white people who had nothing to do with any of this to pay for it, whether with money (reparations) or social status.

Frankly, who in the US refuses to "acknowledge unpleasant truths"? Was slavery stricken from history lessons at school or something?

 

[FriedCFour]

And I am against there being governments.

The idea of no government is straight retarded and unfeasible, and no anarchist movement has ever once even come close to succeeding. They failed harder than the communists lol.

 

[GoldRanger]

The idea of no government is straight retarded and unfeasible, and no anarchist movement has ever once even come close to succeeding. They failed harder than the communists lol.

It's just a childish fantasy that sane people outgrow when they reach, like 18. I guess this outlook is just an irrational kneejerk reaction against nationalism, which, as everyone knows, is the dreaded boogeyman to ideologues like himself.

 

[Deleted member 88]

The labor wars in the early 20th century and the strikes and so on were IIRC covered where I went to school. Or at least the abuses of the period were.

It’s actually very easy to research them too. Labor-management conflicts in Colorado, and the Appalachians, Pinkerton agents, the occasional massacres, bombings, etc... are all easily found online, in both more partisan websites and just basic educational history websites.

This isn’t some suppressed history, it’s widely available online. And is discussed by mainstream educational sites and platforms. And is taught in schools and universities.

The Haymarket incident, the machine gunning of striking workers, the ferocious strikes in 1877, the strikes immediately following WW2, etc...

Labor history is probably one of the more popular historical sub fields today.

 

[Rocinante]

I was taught all that in rural 90s schools

 

[Deleted member 88]

The US had a period from the 1870s to around the turn of WW2(though arguably the new deal) where yes there were violent labor conflicts, people died, people were maimed, class unrest was extremely high to the point of outright “industrial war”(in some particular places it got that intense-it wasn’t so in every strike) according to some newspapers at the time.

No one denies this happened and no one has tried to suppress this information.

 

[DarthOne]

I think it's a combination of growing up with a love of history and respect for the past and those who came before me. The fact that much of the stuff being pushed by the left has been tried before and hasn't worked. And finally that everything seems to becoming more and more insane/ass-backwards.

 

[Navarro]

You can't ever get entirely out from behind your own preconceptions, but we can try, and I think that is what really valuing history, not myth or heritage, but history, actually requires.

The problem, of course, is that myth-making is a fundamental activity of the human species. Even the left-wing side of politics, for all its claims of strict materialism, has its own mythic history.

And I am against there being governments.

Have fun in Somalia.

Actually, capitalism and slavery are roughly coeval.

Unless one defines every economic system for the past 10,000 years as "capitalism" that's not true. In fact, we see that the rise of modern capitalism marked the end of serfdom in Europe and later slavery outside of Europe. The rise of anti-capitalist socialist movements in central and Eastern Europe in fact, caused the resumption of slavery there.

And prison labor was often used to fill precisely the roles slaves had been used to fill previously.

Imprisoned criminals (actual criminals, not political ones) being made to work with pay is no injustice.

No time for more explanations, I have to go lift my 16 tons.

It's infinitely fascinating how the left has gone from supposedly championing the workers as the driving force of history to bitching about how their fat asses have to work at all.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Slavery existed in medieval times during the age of feudalism, co existing with serfdom and the like. The concept of slavery-human property for labor, has existed since the dawn of civilization.

 

[Navarro]

It's just a childish fantasy that sane people outgrow when they reach, like 18. I guess this outlook is just an irrational kneejerk reaction against nationalism, which, as everyone knows, is the dreaded boogeyman to ideologues like himself.

It's not a kneejerk reaction against nationalism - it's one against anybody having the authority to tell him what to do. From my own religious POV I would call it a minor species of Luciferian pride.

 

[Deleted member 88]

The only semi successful anarchist entities were the ones in Catalonia and Makhno’s Ukraine. Both of which existed during civil wars and both were liquidated by their end.

(Also interestingly Makhno’s Ukraine had its own secret police-so much for no unjust hierarchies).

 

[Nikkolas]

Modern Anarchism was born in an age of empires, colonialism and other awful things. It makes perfect sense. It's not just egoism.

Whether or not it's feasible is another matter but reframing it as pure selfishness is uncalled for.

Speaking o which though, Proudhon had some views about he Jews. So did Marx. But you know what? Still should read them because their ideas (mainly Marx but Proudhon is important, too) shaped the world we live in.

Ideas should not be rejected, they should be overcome.

 

[DarthOne]

It's not a kneejerk reaction against nationalism - it's one against anybody having the authority to tell him what to do. From my own religious POV I would call it a minor species of Luciferian pride.

Sounds about right. Though I do think that tendency has been fed further by recent Western culture and the glorification of the 'rebel outcast' archetype seen in so much media.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Anarchism if successful would just likely lead to new state apparatuses appearing, to handle disputes between different syndicates or communes, protect against foreign or counter revolutionary attack, handle issues of commerce etc...

It would start with people in charge of these issues elected and then slowly acquiring a state like character, even if they were constantly rotated out.

Eventually-new states would form and new forms of authority. Or perhaps simply old ones. One might argue anarchism simply crashes the car to only reinvent the wheel and start driving again.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Modern Anarchism was born in an age of empires, colonialism and other awful things. It makes perfect sense. It's not just egoism.

Whether or not it's feasible is another matter but reframing it as pure selfishness is uncalled for.

Given the personalities of the self professed anarchists I've meet, the idea that the ideology might in theory have noble reasons to support will remain just that, a theory.

 

[Tryglaw]

Never listen to that kind of talk. The liberal Jews are the traitors. We had a bunch of Jews who were working with the establishment of their country to the detriment of all other Jews not so long ago, and we called them Judenrat and Kapos.

Technically, "their" country did not exist, Poland was abolished and dismantled under German occupation, unlike Western Europe where occupied countries existed with their own authorities under German auspices.

Poland however ceased to exist under occupation, western part was incorporated into Germany directly and simply became eastern part of German Reich, rest was called General Government, an autonomous part / province of Germany again ruled directly by German authorities.

 

[GoldRanger]

Technically, "their" country did not exist, Poland was abolished and dismantled under German occupation, unlike Western Europe where occupied countries existed with their own authorities under German auspices.

Poland however ceased to exist under occupation, western part was incorporated into Germany directly and simply became eastern part of German Reich, rest was called General Government, an autonomous part / province of Germany again ruled directly by German authorities.

Eh, whatever, this doesn't change the point I was trying to make.

 

[GoldRanger]

The problem, of course, is that myth-making is a fundamental activity of the human species. Even the left-wing side of politics, for all its claims of strict materialism, has its own mythic history.

George Floyd has already become one, and it's barely been half a year since his death. I think that's a good illustrative example. The left has built him up to be a hero and the ultimate victim of an evil and oppressive system, while in reality he was a violent, criminal drug addict who left his wife and kid to fend for themselves and held a pregnant woman at gunpoint while he robbed her.

 

[Tryglaw]

George Floyd has already become one, and it's barely been half a year since its death. I think that's a good illustrative example. The left has built him up to be a hero and the ultimate victim of an evil and oppressive system, while in reality he was a violent, criminal drug addict who left his wife and kid to fend for themselves and held a pregnant woman at gunpoint while he robbed her.

Standard leftist response will be: "it's not his fault, the oppressive society made him do it".

It's actually absurd, how the left claims to try to empower the "designated victims" while casually depriving them of their own agency... "You just don't know what is good for you, but don't worry, I'll be offended on your behalf...".