The Difference Between Me & You

There are a number of pretty core differences between conservatives and [progressives? liberals?].

Some, such as brain imagery, seem to seem to be explanatory, and others, such as stances on issues, preferred population densities, etc, are more observational.

I’ve wondered recently what makes it seemingly much more likely that a conservative would kill a progressive in what is essentially political violence behind the mask of a badge.

There have certainly been leftist revolts and revolutions and acts of terror, even as the scope of their missions exceeded the mandate of leftism in gruesome ways, but that has never really been the case here. Here in the good ‘ol US of A, the atrocities have always been conservative- whether it be violence toward indigenous peoples, slaves, or sovereign nations. Most recently, we have taken to starving hundreds of thousands of people so that non-government actors can claim credit for saving couch-cushion money.[All of which is in spite of our relative prosperity, or the nods toward freedom granted in the Constitution and Bill of Rights]

It’s a lot harder to get a revolution off the ground if it might cost you your Netflix sub and your pizza delivery, but it’s pretty easy to sit around while people we can’t see [without stretching] are being murdered in droves.

We’ve seen some real mobilization over the last decade of MAGA, and it’s not been without bloodshed. Why, with the exception of Ashli Babbit [sp?], has virtually all of the blood spilled been on the left side of the aisle, with all of the killers and brutalizers being on the right?

Or, to frame it disingenuously, as a good Trumper would, “Why is the left looting and rioting when we took Biden in stride and totally didn’t try to commit a coup and nearly lynch the checks notes Republican Vice President?”

My Takeaway?

Our values, or at least the abhorrent ideas we rally against, inspire people to march for them. We try to make life better, more inclusive- to make more room for joy, and to make the only tragedies the ones necessitated by irreversible human tragedy.

The values on display at a conservative rally or protest are almost exclusively harm, exclusion, or fake patriotism rooted in supremacy or xenophobia, and are most often ginned up by those with an interest in control, either to expand their wealth or for the naked lust for power.

Is This Real?

I have recently been interrogating myself over these beliefs.

Do both sides have actual, reasonable points?

Am I missing something that I didn’t see from within conservatism? [Or, having been on the inside, is there just the rot I eventually identified?]

These are my conclusions:

There is a real conflict between natural rights and collectivism. [But you have to reach a caricatured extreme of collectivism that is not a realistic risk.]

Extreme anti-gun rhetoric characterized more by “white knight” liberals is dangerous to the cause of reducing gun violence, and not just through the mechanism of destroying electoral possibilities.

We need to realize a new ideal that synthesizes personal conservatism with public progressivism. We need to fight for a better future while realizing no one is coming to save us. We need to be rugged communitarians. [Look for a future post.]

While I vehemently disagree with them, I can understand “pro-life” advocates if they are consistently strong advocates for a vastly strengthened social safety net. Alas, I’m not sure these people exist, and, if they do, they seem to vote for those who don’t make it here instead of those that do.

Beyond these few key areas that are themselves oversold [even in regard to abortion, the numbers typically go down during Democratic administrations], the conservative position is at best a product of personal greed and misinformation / misunderstanding.

Being a baseline liberal is the closest we get today to a true Constitutional conservative.

The Current Lay of the Land

We exist right now in a dangerous time domestically.

“Law enforcement” is a traditionally conservative gig all the way back to “fugitive slave patrols”. In the upper echelons, as in Hoover’s FBI, things were always borderline authoritarian / fascist. In the words of Trump, much of policing has always been dedicated to fighting “the enemies within”, with those enemies being defined by the existing oligarchy and the specific hate ideologies they used to recruit public support.

Nixon used the politicization of “law and order” and the scapegoating of Black and Hispanic people to shift our electoral politics following the signing of the Civil Rights Act. This also had the effect of sorting most racists into one political party, and tying their electoral future to locking up the support of said racists. At the same time, it further tied the idea of crime to the idea of minority status. This enhanced and re-affirmed the idea that if you wanted to crack minority heads, you joined law enforcement. [This does not imply that all law enforcement or officers are racist, but the waters they swim in certainly are in the vast majority of cases.]

In the last 30 years, there has also been an increased presence of IDF training workshops, especially for command-level police personnel. Many critics say this training has led to U.S. police forces being more likely to take an “us vs them” approach, and to identify minority groups as “enemies”, teaching brutality, shoot-first escalation, and militarized crowd control- we are allowing domestic police forces to be trained in the ways of militaristic oppression by an apartheid state.

Now, we’ve introduced an overtly fascist administration that, rather than backing away from atrocities, boldly lies in the face of video evidence, not just supporting, but promoting the worst behaviors from an already-dangerous policing force.

What you get are poorly trained [or trained second-hand in IDF worst practices] ICE squads who are much more likely to be hardcore conservatives, and are likely to view everyone not in the uniform as the “other”… Why wouldn’t they shoot people who dare to openly resist the will of the regime?

You don’t typically see right-wing protests- why would you when the federal government has taken on the conservative ethos in an openly fascist manner? We are putting racist slogans [One of ours, all of yours] on podiums at DHS after shooting a woman in cold blood.