r/askliberals

Usually when it’s either one of those words are brought up to the average individual, they tend to think that it’s unilaterally the same meaning. Yet, it’s one of those things where in result it’s not actually identical when it comes to breaking down what each of them is defined as and how they both tend to work in the political landscape of things in the U.S. and abroad overseas. So with that being said, can I have a definition please??

A lot of people who call themselves conservatives are actually reactionaries, not Burkean conservatives

This may be particularly unpopular among the modern American and Latin American right, but I think the word “conservative” has become so broad that it often describes completely different political traditions.

One of the foundational thinkers of modern political conservatism is Edmund Burke. Burkean conservatism is fundamentally concerned with institutions, historical continuity, prudence and gradual reform. It is skeptical of attempts to radically reconstruct society because institutions contain accumulated historical experience.

That is not the same thing as believing that society has morally deteriorated and therefore needs to be returned to some idealized previous social order.

The latter is much closer to reactionary politics.

This distinction matters because today “conservative” is frequently used to describe a package containing religious traditionalism, opposition to progressive social change, economic liberalism, nationalism and support for a particular political movement.

But none of those things necessarily implies the others.

A political conservative can support a welfare state.

An economic liberal can be socially progressive.

A nationalist can support extensive state intervention and industrial policy.

A religious traditionalist can oppose free-market liberalism.

And someone who wants to reverse social changes in order to restore a supposedly superior past can be reactionary without being particularly conservative in the Burkean institutional sense.

The same problem exists when people talk about “the right” as though it were a single ideology.

Center-right liberals, institutional conservatives, national conservatives, libertarians, populist radicals, reactionaries and anarcho-capitalists can all be placed somewhere on the political right while disagreeing profoundly about economics, institutions, religion, nationalism and the role of the state.

Latin America provides an especially interesting example because religious traditionalism has become deeply intertwined with political identity. Brazil historically had Catholic traditionalist and reactionary movements, while Pentecostal and later Neo-Pentecostal movements developed through different religious histories and eventually became increasingly politically influential.

These traditions can now cooperate on moral and electoral issues, but that does not mean they all originated from the same political philosophy.

I therefore think we should stop automatically translating:

religious + traditional values + right-wing = conservative.

Conservatism, religious traditionalism and reaction are overlapping concepts, but they are not synonyms.

And wanting to preserve institutions while allowing gradual reform is fundamentally different from wanting to restore an idealized social order from the past.

The first can reasonably be called conservatism.

The second has another perfectly useful political name: reactionary politics.

I don't mean to villainize anyone or stir the pot. I just want to clear my head and ask questions and everything. Im starting to question why I even bother with people in general. I clearly have issues with a lot of extreme republicans in terms of homophobia, xenophobia etc. But it really bugs me that SOME left leaning people will preach against intolerance and bigotry only to turn around and say things that boil down to "all white people are racist" "all men are bad" etc. But when you point out the hypocrisy in those statements they comeback with "you cant oppress the oppresser" or anything else to justify it. For a lack of better words I've only ever felt like 'one of the good ones' when following left leaning pages. Im just tired of holding it in SOME of yall are as close minded and prejudice as a lot of conservatives. And yes I know why some people say these things as history shows. But I still don't think its ok to judge anyone based on something they can't change or for they identity no matter who they are. Idk I might be a misanthrope but I don't know for sure. What's your opinion?

Like, of course she was a terrible choice, and her track record on Gaza was abysmal. But so was Trump; in both aspects.

Sure I 100% wish we could’ve had a better candidate to go against him, but we were stuck with him. So the idea is either her, or 4 more years of Trump. And yet there seems to be a large contingent of folks that chose to simply not vote, or vote third party or write in

So…why? Was it some kind of attempt to make things worse so everyone would be pushed even further to a breaking point, and we’d finally get a progressive wave…or something else really nuts and conspiracy sounding?

Like I’m sorry, but I genuinely cannot fathom how this made any sense. Of two bad options, instead of picking the objectively slighter better one, so many chose to just not participate.

Why?

I'll start out by saying that I fundamentally support all minority rights. Whether I agree with you or disagree with you, I fundamentally think you should be able to exist in society and practice whatever ideology you want to pursue, no matter how pleasant or distasteful I find it.

That said, I don't want to be represented in government by people who don't fundamentally agree with my ideology. If you belong to an organization which at its core fundamentally opposes things like LGBTQIA rights, women's rights or even my right to use drugs or eat certain foods.

Then I'm going to be skeptical of your pronouncements for supporting groups that participate in activities which are expressly prohibited by your organization/religion.

This is obvious when you look at figures on the right at this moment. Karoline Leavitt's giant crucifix is a very loud dog whistle to Christian Nationalists. We know what that means, we know how she feels about trans people or abortion.

I give all this lead up because I want to make it clear that I don't oppose religious people's right to exist, but as someone who was indoctrinated into religion as a child against my will, I'm very skeptical of Abrahamic religions.

Which brings me to my point. Why are people on the left currently embracing Islamic politicians? We've been burned many times now by Democrats like Fetterman. Why should we trust that someone like El-Sayed, who belongs to a corrosively conservative organization would actually support LGBTQIA rights, abortion, drug legalization?

If he did, why wouldn't he leave an organization who's sacred texts fundamentally oppose these ideas? I'd say the same about Christian or Jewish politicians. However, I realize many times you have to play the religious game to get elected in the US. I don't actually think Obama is religious for instance. But that's not happening when you're Muslim, it's not going to help you get elected, so I have to think that you actually believe in the religion and it's tenets.

Thus, how could you support the rights of individuals considered heretics by your organization? Isn't there a fundamental disconnect?

Assume the MAGA crowd adopts the belief that the earth is flat. Anyone who disagrees would be considered to be causing offense, and you could lose your job for stating that believers of that idea were wrong.

Not going with the crowd could cause you to lose your livelihood. Maybe get you expelled from school. You’d be accused of attacking others and not being inclusive

Would you publicly profess a belief that the world was flat in order to comport to social norms?

As a lifelong conservative I’ve never met anyone who calls themselves maga nor do I know what that means.

To us, maga is like Q-Anon, Groypers, and White nationalist - terms that the left invents to scare fellow leftists into voting for them, but that aren’t connected to actual conservatives

What do these terms mean? How do I know if I’m maga?

Many illegal and immoral things have been committed, do you think democrats are going to do anything about it after the fact?

I just don’t know why we constantly complain about getting into dumb wars far overseas yet both democrats and republicans support these huge military packages. Trump literally admitted it, they vote for these huge budgets because they plan to use them, what other reasons is there.

Liberals like to think that DEI doesn’t have any impact on quality of outcomes.

Would you be ok learning that your surgeon for a major procedure got through college and med school via DEI programs and not purely on merit?

That they got their current job via a DEI initiative that prioritized immutable characteristics?

There are three issues that it seems like everyone agrees on:

• No AI datacenters
• No Flock cameras
• Release all Epstein files

The fact that the Democratic party can't capitalize on this is just amazing to me.

All of the content you see flooding Reddit takes time and energy to produce.

Who do you think is behind this?

We all know how liberals look, they have septum rings, they dress a certain way and have nose piercings, some tattoos and blue or green hair or some other unnatural color.

We all see liberals, but why don't liberal politicians look like liberal voters?

Liberal politicians do not wear ripped jeans, show belly buttons, have noise piercings or tattoos, the closest we have come to a liberal politician looking liberal was John Fetterman and we all know how that turned out.

I do not want this to go off on a "trans debate" please. I am only asking if liberals think it is fair and just for a public school to limit the number of students allowed on, for example, the girl's varsity field hockey team, based on performance levels set by the coaching staff.

My take is that this is a fair policy so long as there are other intermural or co-ed, or pick up and lay activities for those students who do not make the cut.