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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: tejek who wrote (141796)1/17/2002 1:40:37 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 1584981
 
Its commonly understood that their roots come from a conservative philosophy.

What a conservative philosophy is isn't even commonly understood. As I said before the word has different meanings. You chose to define it as support for tradition and gradual evolution rather then dramatic change. By that definition Hitler was not a conservative.

In any extent any term used to discribe the philosophy and political leanings of both Hitler and Reagan is not a very useful term. I do agree that facists are often called "right wing", but the actual ideas that these "right wing" dictators push, often have less to do with the conservatives in the US believe then much of the propaganda and some of the actions of the "left wing" dictatorships have to do with the left wing of the Democratic party in the US.

If used to describe the whole world a simple line from extreme liberal to extreme conservative doesn't work. Even just using such a line to discribe US politics can be chancy but it might still server some use.

You could instead try multiple measurements. For example a point on a 3d graph with one access being support for individual liberty vs. state control (the extremes being anarchy and totalitarian government) another being suport for democracy (with an extreme being everyone votes on every issue and whatever the majority says goes with no consideration of indiviudal rights or liberty, and the other extreme being a dictatorship) and a third axis being respect for tradition vs desire for change (extreme "conservatives" (using one of the definitions for that word) would support an almost stagnant society, while extreme "progressives" would not give any consideration to tradition, culture or stability and would not mind tearing every process down and starting over any time they say a small benefit in doing so)

Another consideration would be the intensity of your fealing for each. For example I support liberty, democracy, and tradition/stability in that order. I care more about liberty then democracy and I care far more about either then tradition or traditional culture or stability. Of course if everything seemed to be falling apart stability would get more attention, but overall it is a less important value to me.

I only added the tradition/stability vs. radical change axis because it fits in with your definition of conservative. I consider this axis less important. Feel free to drop it if you want. With just the two axes its easier to plot.

Just using those two axes would you rather live in a totalitarian democracy, or a liberal dictatorship or monarchy?
Neither of these is likely of course usually places that are more free are also more democratic, I just pose the question to gage the relative level of your concern for freedom vs. democracy.

Tim
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