Quote from: Balbinus;2343812.  How is B reconciled with a desire to legislate for areas such as gay marriage or abortion (or violent video games for that matter)?  Generally, if a Conservative believes in the primacy of the individual as arbiter of what is best for them, why do so many seek to legislate for private behaviour?

If you start from the premise that an unborn child is a child, then prohibiting abortion is comparable to prohibiting infanticide.  

If you want to understand why many religious conservatives so strongly oppose gay marriage, I recommend reading Dennis Prager's Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality, which I mentioned in another thread as a good overview of the perspective.  Please note that I have a different opinion on the issue and am not endorsing or defending the article.  I'm offering it as a well articulated example of the sort of argument made.

Quote from: Balbinus;234381How do Conservatives reconcile an objection to big government with a desire to legislate for social conduct?

By allowing the legislation of social conduct at the state and local level.  Consider the phrase "community standards".

Quote from: Balbinus;234381As cultural coverage goes, it was pathetic, and it's notable that few Right wing journals seem to possess good culture sections even though many areas of culture are not necessarily left wing in approach (literature, classical music, jazz, I grant modern art is basically left wing as arguably is theatre).

You should take a look at The National Review, then.  It was one of the few magazines that had the movies Children of Men and Eyes Wide Shut reviewed by people familiar with the books the movies were based on.

Quote from: gleichman;234464Conservatives don't really like the idea of government support for anything, but do bow to the fact that certain bending of that rule is needed to allow private companies to exist enough so that Government contracts have people to bid on them.

With respect to the corporatism that Balbinus is talking about, I'd say a more accurate characterization of American conservatives is that they are by and large unaware of the extent to which Republican governments collude with corporate interests to further their mutual interests (respectively fundraising and restriction of competition).

Quote from: gleichman;234464But I need to express this is an exception. The Conservative reaction to the recent housing issues for example can be expressed as follows: "So people made bad decisions in taking loans, and loaners made bad decisions giving? It's not the Government's job to bail them out for bad decisions".

All that tough talk isn't going to stop conservatives who didn't make bad decisions from getting sucked down the financial drain that the housing bubble is leaving in its wake. The tightening of the money supply (that means no loans for small businesses) will be real. The job losses will be real. The recession will be real - for everybody.

That's why Canada has sensibly adopted some simple measures - the government will not certify mortgages of longer than 35 year duration, or with less than 5 per cent downpayment. If you'd let ideological notions about pure markets stop such sensible precautions from being enacted, you deserve the deep troughs of a boom-bust economy. Enjoy your recession.

Quote from: John Morrow;234651By allowing the legislation of social conduct at the state and local level.  Consider the phrase "community standards".

We've touched on this before, but community standards can be every bit as oppressive as federal laws, if you happen to be out of step with community norms. There's a reason lots of folks leave small towns the minute they can afford the bus ticket.

As for the argument that people who don't like local laws can just move to another county or state, I'll believe conservatives are sincere about this when I hear a conservative politician in a place like Massachusettes graciously accept coming out on the wrong side of a vote on gay marriage, and call on his supporters to do the right thing and pack up their families to move to Tennesse.

Edit: When I think of 'community standards' an image of Mildred Loving and her husband being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by the local sheriff comes to mind.

Quote from: Haffrung;234697We've touched on this before, but community standards can be every bit as oppressive as federal laws, if you happen to be out of step with community norms. There's a reason lots of folks leave small towns the minute they can afford the bus ticket.

And I think that dynamic is fine because there are also people who move into small towns for a reason.

Quote from: Haffrung;234697As for the argument that people who don't like local laws can just move to another county or state, I'll believe conservatives are sincere about this when I hear a conservative politician in a place like Massachusettes graciously accept coming out on the wrong side of a vote on gay marriage, and call on his supporters to do the right thing and pack up their families to move to Tennesse.

If a person finds gay marriage or civil unions an unbearable affront to their lives and if they are in too much of a minority to change the law to their liking, then moving someplace else would be good advice.

Quote from: gleichman;234644If you go back to the quote you listed, you'd see that it included both the loaner as well as the loanee. It's it not "F*** the poor", it's "you live with your bad decisions no matter who you are".





I would guess that you StormBringer do not believe that marketing and culture pressure of TV/Music/Movies/RPGs promoting violence, sexual immorality, etc. affects people at all, but here you claim that it causes a culture of rotating debt.

Interesting.

You are batting goose-eggs on the analogies lately.  The easy path to the American Dream (predatory loans) is the same as violence and whoring around?  Holy shit, do you live in a dream world.

Ok, riddle me this:  If marketing is so ineffective, why are there almost ten minutes of commercials for every half hour of television?  Why are ad companies trying to get the images of their clients on every visible surface possible?  I mean, it would be pretty God awful stupid to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on an industry that is incapable of providing a benefit in return.  Why, that would almost be like charity for the down and out ad-folks.

QuoteIn any case, you're asking me to prove a negative. I refuse to take the bait.

But, you set yourself up to prove a negative as a defensive move with your 'one true Scots...'  errr... 'conservative' ploy upthread.

I mean, it's almost like you don't have a fucking point other than to post an anti-communist extreme-right wing screed from the 50s and pass it off as what current Real Conservatives® in power think, except you can't name any, so it is what they should aspire to, should any turn up.

Seriously, find a place with an acceptable monarchy.  I am almost certain you will be more comfortable there.

Quote from: Haffrung;234692That's why Canada has sensibly adopted some simple measures - the government will not certify mortgages of longer than 35 year duration, or with less than 5 per cent downpayment. If you'd let ideological notions about pure markets stop such sensible precautions from being enacted, you deserve the deep troughs of a boom-bust economy. Enjoy your recession.

That would be the government interfering in business, which is the ultimate abrogation of people's freedoms.  Are you some kind of Anarcho-Syndicalist Crypto-Fascist Communist sympathyzer?  (Did I miss anyone?)

Of course, propping up these corrupt lenders is well within the purview of the government.  Without these large corporations, who would get the $150mil golden parachute?  Who would fire all the lazy workers who spend all their paycheck on booze?  These corporations are vital in keeping the American economy running; by which I mean, concentrate as much wealth in the hands of as few as possible.

Heretic.

Quote from: gleichman;234643From the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas is many ways foremost with Antonin Scalia trailing slightly. These came off the top my head.

I'll add three mentioned as possible McCain VP picks that seem to fit: Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin,  and Eric Cantor.

Quote from: John Morrow;234651If you start from the premise that an unborn child is a child, then prohibiting abortion is comparable to prohibiting infanticide.  

If you want to understand why many religious conservatives so strongly oppose gay marriage, I recommend reading Dennis Prager's Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality, which I mentioned in another thread as a good overview of the perspective.  Please note that I have a different opinion on the issue and am not endorsing or defending the article.  I'm offering it as a well articulated example of the sort of argument made.

I note you're not defending it.  I wasn't impressed by it though.  The idea that male sexuality is more threatening than female is historically speaking a fairly new one, which they seemed unaware of.  The Song of Roland was not a good example of the point they used it for, ironically there are good examples which made their use of that one all the more bizarre, much of the argument I thought morally repugnant even taking their starting positions.

To be honest, I thought it was bigotry dressed up in not particularly persuasive justifications.  And their summary of the effect of marriage in the first para, from which the rest derives, I thought arguable to be kind.

Re your first para, obviously, it's why on that one particular issue there is no possibility of compromise.  Your take on that question determines the rest to a large degree.  If the foetus is human, then to tolerate a difference of opinion is to tolerate genocide.  If it's not, well the woman plainly is and to impinge on her choices is to prioritise insensate tissue over human life.  I'm not persuaded it's actually an issue capable of real compromise.

I thought the Eyes Wide Shut review fell into a common trap of right wing reviewers actually, he is hostile to a use of profanity but it's use at that point in the film is I think artistically justified.  He doesn't really look at that, the fact of swearing is itself problematic for the reviewer.  Freddy Raphael is an overrated hack though.  Still, I thought like many right wing reviews, it told me more about the reviewer's preconceptions on going into the cinema than it did about the film, much of which I'm not persuaded he allowed himself to understand.  Possibly here, ironically, his knowledge of the book worked against him since I thought the movie fairly plainly about the threats a marriage can face, about the strengths it has and about the unknowability of the person you choose to spend your life with.  That final profanity is actually important to the film, it's not remotely gratuitous.  The reviewer is right on many points, but he gets bogged down with likelihood which in a film where it is unclear how much of what happens actually happens is rather missing the point.  

Similarly, the other review opens with a rather random rant against modern culture which I'd argue has little to do with the film, he sees a pro-life message which I don't the movie has (I don't think it speaks on that at all) but wholly misses the very obvious Iraq parallels the movie draws, he is good though on the gap between the film and the book and overall while I thought the review flawed by his need to inject politics it wasn't bad and I'd look at more by him.

Still, both suffer from the need on the right to condemn the contemporary, which uses valuable space that could have been spent looking more closely at the work in question.  That for me is why many right wing review pieces fail, they are used too much as platforms for politics than as actual analyses of art.

Quote from: Haffrung;234692With respect to the corporatism that Balbinus is talking about, I'd say a more accurate characterization of American conservatives is that they are by and large unaware of the extent to which Republican governments collude with corporate interests to further their mutual interests (respectively fundraising and restriction of competition)..

They are aware, but they don't really have much in the way of options. Vote Democratic and watch everything slide towards socialism? See the military gutted and yet more Federal control of social issues?

Lesser of two evils.

Quote from: Haffrung;234692All that tough talk isn't going to stop conservatives who didn't make bad decisions from getting sucked down the financial drain that the housing bubble is leaving in its wake. The tightening of the money supply (that means no loans for small businesses) will be real. The job losses will be real. The recession will be real - for everybody.

You seem to be of the opinion that Government can create the wealth needed to buy out the failed loan companies. It can't, it can only shift wealth and that only with a serious overhead cost.

I doubt that there would be a serious recession out of letting some of these loan companies go under. Further even given that there would be some immediate damage of any note, this would be would be offset by the opportunity of cheaper housing on the market in the short term- and the benefits by more responsible business practices brought on by the knowledge that the Government won't save you from your own stupidity as a company.

Quote from: StormBringer;234713You are batting goose-eggs on the analogies lately.  The easy path to the American Dream (predatory loans) is the same as violence and whoring around?  Holy shit, do you live in a dream world.

If you wish to give Market and Culture influence power to wreck people finincally, then you must give it power to wreck them morally.

I don't give it either, while you insist on cherry-picking the effects you need to justify your socialist beliefs.

Who here is batting goose-eggs.

Quote from: StormBringer;234713Ok, riddle me this:  If marketing is so ineffective, why are there almost ten minutes of commercials for every half hour of television?

Because people on in the market to buy what is sold, and that is a method to make your product visible to the buyer. Same as sex and violence.

It seems you think that the buyer can be reasonable on the latter, but nothing but foolish on the former. And that dispite this disconnect you're willing to give control of this element of their lives over to the government.

Such logic is stunning is at least open to be examined by any interested.

Quote from: StormBringer;234713Seriously, find a place with an acceptable monarchy.  I am almost certain you will be more comfortable there.

Do you have anything more concrete to ask or say? Or will insults be your only addition to this thread going forward?

Quote from: John Morrow;234725I'll add three mentioned as possible McCain VP picks that seem to fit: Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin,  and Eric Cantor.

I've heard of these three from National Review (mostly Sarah Palin). I didn't list them however because I haven't personally followed their careers. They are however well thought of in Conservative circles.

Quote from: Balbinus;234789Still, both suffer from the need on the right to condemn the contemporary, which uses valuable space that could have been spent looking more closely at the work in question.

As I said before, National Review is a political magazine- it's reviews are therefore of the political impact of the work more than it's art. This is the stated purpose of the magazine, and the articles within.

I will however call you on something, you're saying contemparary == Left Thinking == mainstream and good. This shows your bias rather than describing the magazine's approach.

Quote from: gleichman;234797If you wish to give Market and Culture influence power to wreck people finincally, then you must give it power to wreck them morally.

'Wreck them morally'?  You can more or less objectively measure the effects of bad economics, even on an individual level.  You can't, however, definitively say that about morality.

But I will go you one further:  I never said it couldn't cause problems with morality or ethics, that was your strawman to begin with.  I will give him some substance, however.  I do believe the advertising and marketing of naked greed has caused some problems in the West, at the least.  You can call them 'moral', but I don't think that is something set in stone.  More, it is a slide into somewhat 'self-destructive' or careless behaviours.  Case in point, the housing market.  Lenders scramble to get as many borrowers as possible due to some rather shady extant financial practices, leading to less-than-above-board deals with consumers.  Which they are more than happy to jump on, because more is better.  And the lenders certainly aren't going to advocate caution.  Pushing people to get more, more, more is going to conflict with the basic mores of a society at some level.  Elevating those who make an obscene amount of money (CEOs, entertainment stars, etc) to the status of heroes encourages everyone else to engage in whatever behaviour is necessary to achieve even a fraction of that.

Here is how I assume your average conservative thinks every conversation went:

Lender: "...now, this is a lot of money to be borrowing, and these terms are likely to become very unfavourable in the near term if the housing market has a downturn.  We can probably get you a little less money for a more stable rate-"
Customer: "No!  Money!  Give!"
L:  "I don't think this is a good time for a loan in your case.  Let me get the charts out again..."
C: "GIVE ME SOME MONEY!  DON'T CARE ABOUT BANK MUMBO-JUMBO!"
L: "Please!  You have to let me warn you about the dangers!"

Those poor, noble lenders.  Doing everything in their power to stop the brutish consumer from hurting themselves.  Everything, that is, except for accepting, and sometimes encouraging, borderline fraudulent credit applications.  It's like the Eloi and Morlocks all over again.

Certainly, not all lenders were serving up predatory loans.  Enough were to cause a problem, however.  As well, they are not alone in complicity.  Obtaining a mortgage is nothing like a straightforward or simple process.  Expecting the average consumer to keep abreast of mortgage policies and standards is a convenient dodge to shift the blame from lenders when the arcane language and Byzantine policies unsurprisingly fail to offer any protection for the consumer.  Obtaining a basic overview of mortgages in general, and your own specifically is a good idea.  But in as much as owning or even repairing a car doesn't require one to be a materials scientist or have a doctorate in engineering, purchasing a mortgage shouldn't require one to have an MBA, or bring an accountant or contract lawyer to the bank.

Were consumers gobbling up these loans?  Yeah, there was an increase in them.  Some of them were speculating on the market, and they rolled snake eyes (although it can be argued the speculators are part of the problem).  The vast majority just wanted a house, which is what this society and constant advertising pushes them towards.

The consumer is bombarded every day at every possible opportunity that they should have more stuff, that they deserve more stuff, and if they don't have more stuff soon, they will be miserable and a bad person.  Let's not pretend that 'marketing' is all about displaying a product in the hopes someone might notice.  It's aggressive, it's targeted, and it borders on psychological warfare.  You seem to think it's utterly benign, though.  Of course, you didn't posit anything regarding why companies spend hundreds of billions on advertising every year if it is as harmless as you claim.

In fact, if the constant message ploy is as useless as you think, perhaps you can explain why all the people from a given region have the same accent and speech mannerisms, and why they are difficult to get rid of.  Personal choice?

QuoteI don't give it either, while you insist on cherry-picking the effects you need to justify your socialist beliefs.

Except, as I demonstrated above, I'm not.  That would be your schtick, and in general, a political ploy on both sides of the aisle.

QuoteWho here is batting goose-eggs.

Nope, still you.

QuoteBecause people on in the market to buy what is sold, and that is a method to make your product visible to the buyer. Same as sex and violence.

"Visible to the buyer" is quite different than "advertising".  For larger companies, like Coca-Cola or Microsoft, it would be virtually impossible for them to be anything but visible.  Yet, they still spend hundreds of millions on advertising.

QuoteIt seems you think that the buyer can be reasonable on the latter, but nothing but foolish on the former. And that dispite this disconnect you're willing to give control of this element of their lives over to the government.

Such logic is stunning is at least open to be examined by any interested.

Speaking of stunning logic, what the fuck are you talking about?

Here's what you quoted from me:

"Ok, riddle me this: If marketing is so ineffective, why are there almost ten minutes of commercials for every half hour of television?"

So, I have no idea what 'former' and 'latter' you are referring to, nor what disconnect you think I am suffering from.  Aside from not drinking the moon-logic Kool-aid of your version of Conservatism.

QuoteDo you have anything more concrete to ask or say? Or will insults be your only addition to this thread going forward?

You can repeat that as often as you like, it still won't be true.  Unless you are using 'concrete' to mean 'agreeable to me'.  The fact is, you have yet to reasonably respond, or name more than about two of your One True Conservatives.

Quote from: gleichman;234801I will however call you on something, you're saying contemparary == Left Thinking == mainstream and good. This shows your bias rather than describing the magazine's approach.

:rotfl:
So, only conservatives can make a valid equivalence that their ideology is the more mainstream or better for the common weal?

I think we're done Stormbringer, for some reason you wish to acuse me of very illogical things- like somehow supporting loaners that I've already said should go out of business (which would break the cycle you suggest, even if it existed), i.e. basically ranting.

Given that we're effectively done communicating anything new, I'm ending my exchanges with you until (and if) something new does comes up.

I'm more than willing continue with questions from other people, even if they relate to the same general area Stormbringer seem's fixed on.