The Brutality Cascade
In some competitions, the most brutal player gets to set the rules.
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David Brooks's Blog
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Mr. Brooks, please, then Reagan was no conservative, and every Republican supply-sider ("spend and spend", rather than "tax and spend") was no conservative, and certainly every conservative who has for decades lambasted the environmentalists for their daring to point out how we must throttle our waste are not conservatives.
Come on, David. I could just as well say the essence of conservatism is opaqueness and sneakyism, like trying to limit the vote and getting poor people to vote against their economic issues by sidetracking them on to collateral social issues. Like sneaking in one's rhetoric things lesser policy issues for essences.
No, I would not say that just because a large percentage of Republicans nowadays are practicing a great deal of sneakiness to get around the fact that their positions are detrimental to a growing number of Americans who suffer from the widening income gap, that the essence of conservativeness is sneakiness, legerdemain, and opaquesness. Rather it is the idea of sticking to principle and resistance change (a worthy and debatable goal especially when things are going well and steady. Change for change's sake is not a good idea.).
And I would say liberals embrace change (not such a great idea during periods of plenty and steady human and environment, good when the situation in which we live is changing).
The essence of the difference is 1. Are things ok, getting worse or getting better?, and 2. Do we need to fix something in our society or just believe that it will pass. That separates the two--not whether one side is more sneaky or one side wants it all. Conservatives can want it all, and liberals can be sneaky.
What I fear here is that thinking conservatives like you, Mr. Brooks, are unwittingly (as hard as that may be for you to believe) taking on a secondary aspect of your political philosophy like sneakiness as your modus operandi, and pulling in the liberals into suspecting that all conservatives are always sneaky, as conservatives have been pulled into the idea that liberals want it all and just change things for the sake of change.
Bull Crap, Sir.