I am not usually so... specific. I rarely zoom in... without ambiguity. And as a general rule... I am not a side-taker per se.
But.
I do not know how to say this important thing... without being unambiguous, without granular specificity, and without standing on a side.
So...
The Poisonous Fruit of the Politics of Conservatism
Generally, an 'argument' like this is presented with an 'opening' that defends an opposing position. You'll often hear someone say "to be fair" and what'll follow will be a kind of "strawman" or "steelman" reasoning that casts broad superficial nets that vaguely resemble an opposing position... the way an orange and an asteroid belt are the same and interchangeable.
I won't be doing that here.
Not because there are no 'fair' points of conservatism, but because the politics of conservatism are wobbly, plagued with "rhetorical fallacies" and frequent 'pivots' to irrationalism, and incoherent.
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Which is to say, I won't be defending what is insupportable.
That... is the opposing position: a fixed state of friction, frothing at the mouth, anchored and fueled by sanctimonious and wrongheaded snobbery, to proclaim my position as the enemy, so objectionable as to possess zero 'fair' points
Such that the first fruit of the politics of conservatism is the unmistakable consequences to public discourse, from local town halls to global town squares, when earnest swells of public engagement are met with hostile rabid refusal to allow disagreement as a normal and reasonable feature of pursuing common ground.
Because the first fruit of the politics of conservatism is to venomously deny the legitimacy of common ground; to not only double down on its outright unacceptability, if not its moral reprehensibility as undoubtedly evil, but to fanatically villainize any collaborative path to walk or collective aspiration by which to be guided or shared win to achieve... that appears to exemplify, horror of horrors, mutual reciprocity.
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This fruit is more than poisonous... it is perniciously corrosive to a plural democracy. For common ground is where cooperative solutions are... to real problems faced by real people living in the real world.
To categorically spurn common ground... regardless of why... absurdly dismisses from 'the table' every multilateral solution that is inclusive in favor of every solution that is not.
As if inclusivity itself, is offensive and loathsome and impermissible.
Such that any reason for such fruit... cannot be believed to be sublimely rooted in sincere or abundant comity or sacrosanctity... except within fantastical imaginations that make-believe oranges and asteroid belts are plainly identical in every way.
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Needless to say, this first fruit sets in motion a dismal cascade of... 100-year-heat-storms and 100-year-floods, which is to say... realities.
It refuses mutual coalitions... then blames the exhaustive litany of dysfunctions that occur as a predictable and unsurprising result, on my position as the enemy. Because everyday people believe blamers who proclaim themselves "victims", when everyday people believe falsehoods that declare themselves "truths".
Mutual coalitions are a 'safeguard' of representative government; a 'safeguard' against 'majorities' that steamroll 'minority' interests. But when they're necessary "to keep the lights on", they're not a guarantee that 'minority' interests will not subvert the utility of mutual coalitions to protect the public good... to hold a representative government hostage to 'minority' interests... including diverting resources from public institutions to pseudo-religious nationalist and supremacist causes; starving public health care in favor of private, profit-driven, "group health care" that employers may elect to sponsor as a "benefit" or deny as a "costs-savings-measure" or "conscience refusal"; juicing the shareholder value of lucrative and exploitative industries by asymmetrically favoring donors that 'grease hands' and 'line pockets' and dispense flattery in the tried-and-true language of luxurious extravagant 'largesse'; etc.
It espouses maniacal screeds and apocalyptic jeremiads that insist... 'only they see' what's really happening here; 'only they listen' to real people; 'only they keep their promises' to real 'nations' under real 'gods'; while my position as the opposition is a fraud to beguile the trusting, a pretense to bewitch the unwary, a house of candy to lead astray the innocent.
As if it is not a betrayal of the public trust... to refuse to tell the truth... about how conservatism stands behind, with, and for the mighty and "the meritorious" at the expense of everyday people and the public good and global amity; how conservatism stands behind, with, and for unconscionable apologetics of unrepentant abuse, from trust to power to people; how conservatism stands behind, with, and for a passionate disavowal of consensual reality and consensual facts, because "vibes"; etc.
It sabotages the public good with "ghost-vacancies" of essential work and 'molasses-paced' allocation of appropriated funds... that are experienced by everyday people as infinite loops of gordian hoops and actual harms. But rather than own their gleeful inaction or confess to their dissembling obfuscation... conservatives proclaim 'the real villains': boneheaded flies in their ointment. Even as that which 'obstructs' them from hiring competent and ethical essential workers and that which 'bars' them from rapidly activating vital services and promptly distributing assistance... is no one and nothing, glorious or noble.
When consensual reality is inexhaustibly 'negotiable', when consensual facts are inexhaustibly 'negotiable'... because "my vibes, my truths"... how simple is it, how easy? To witness wrongdoing... and not see wrongdoing? To believe wrongdoers... because "their vibes, their truths" validate and condone unreal "vibes" and untrue "truths"? For they promise a wish-giving representative government, blessed by a wish-giving 'god' and I... I say "a god that's a wish-giver isn't a god; it's a fantastical imagination that makes-believe an elected servant with a god-complex serves not themself first, last, forever"; etc.
Which is to say, this first fruit sets in motion a hereafter... calculated for maximal suffering, because the politics of conservatism 'takes no prisoners'.
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Such that if and when people who profess to be of my position smugly declare that "they are not conservatives"... therefore: they will "cross the aisle"; they will absolutely "work together" with conservatives; because liberals and conservatives "believe in the same people" and "truly live by the same fair and just, laws of the land" and "share deeply, the same values and visions" as voters who voted for wars and nightmares -
such that if and when people who profess to be of my position recommend policies of appeasement that are called "necessary compromises" for the people and the economy and "the good of the nation"; or endorse policies of appeasement that are called "now look, this is how the sausage is made, okay" and woe to chaos-unleashing "reforms, unnecessary and unrealistic"; or vote "yea" for policies of appeasement nakedly and unapologetically rooted in supremacism, despotism, justification -
this, this, THIS, is not how the politics of conservatism is defeated -
no -
this, this, THIS, is how the politics of conservatism become the bars to a cage that nobody, nobody, NOBODY voted for.
Epilogue
I don't know if anybody reading this is wondering... what about liberals? Is there 'a poisonous fruit of the politics of liberalism' like the poisonous fruit of the politics of conservatism?
Uhm... for what it's worth, no... it's neither deeply nor profoundly philosophically nor spiritually, destructive and cruel. On the other hand, conservatism is both.
In other words - it isn't that liberalism is 'the handout party' - any more than conservatism is the 'hand up party' - because please: campaign slogans are at best stupid; at worst they wear ignorance like a suit-of-knowledge that stuffs self-superiority and self-righteousness into vapid quips cos-playing as 'common sense wisdom'.
Rather... conservatism is to "the meritorious" go the spoils, and its politics are no kinder to everyday people than its policies. Such that everyday people who support conservatism... invariably believe themselves among "the meritorious" for whom 'the spoils' are worth the squeeze.
Which is to say - there is a throughline of sadistic justification that excludes the public and 'the many' from the promises and the blessings of a robust plural democracy - that is part and parcel to the 'platform' and 'vision' of conservatism - that liberalism opposes deeply and profoundly, philosophically and spiritually.
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Which is to say:
The "one measuring stick for us that declares our iniquities practically perfect; another measuring stick for you that declares your iniquities practically demonic" and "one set of rules and laws for us that permit our carte blanche to abuse and trespass and exploit others to and for our own ends; another set of rules and laws for you that withhold from you, humanity and fairness and compassion without exception" and "one flotilla of privileges and entitlements for us that protect and advance our platform and vision; another flotilla of infinite loops of gordian hoops and actual harms that inflict maximal suffering at the pleasure of the privileged and the whim of the entitled"... is not a cornerstone of a 'hand-up party'... so much as it is a cornerstone of supremacism, despotism, justification.
Such that if this pear-shaped shitshow should come to pass, as it has before... because blueprints of dead and gone polities aren't in our DNA still for nothing...
then two hereafters shall face us:
the one seeded by the poisonous fruit of the politics of conservatism; and
the one seeded by we the people, witnessing in real time, what is happening, as it is actually happening, and DOING SOMETHING other than nothing that changes the future set in motion by "the meritorious", to the future set in motion by everyday people sick of being 'the spoils'.
M
