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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (141774)	1/16/2002 6:52:43 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1585186

Excuse me, I don't think so. Political science was one of my two majors. I know what conservatism is. Like liberal it has more then one definition. In fact they can be diametrically opposed. For example "liberal" has a meaning of limited government allowing maximum personal freedom, it also has the meaning along the lines of "a supporter of high taxes, and extensive regulation". Since you have studied political science you may know all the major definitions for both words but that still does not change the fact that they mean different things. He was radically conservative as was Franco of Spain and Stalin of Russia. Admittedly, they were conservatism run amok. He was not conservative by any of the major definitions including the one you posted. Having the state seize more power, creating concentration camps, and starting an aggressive war against major world powers does not fit in with "a disposition... to preserve what is established", nor does it support social stability or amount to gradual development. The common theme that I see between Reps in the US and right wing dictators is their efforts to minimize change and to limit public input. Of course with Hitler, et al these issues were greatly exaggerated and they tended to be reactionary. Hitler made enormous changes, he just wanted to be the one that decided what would change. As for limiting public input, that has nothing to do with conservatism but is rather naturally goes with dictatorship of any kind. "However, communism as practiced by Russia was nothing more than a conservative dictatorship imposed upon a communist model where the people had no power and no ownership in reality. " So lets see we kill the Tzar, overthrow the government, rearrange all the political and many non-political structures and traditions throughout the country, and this is "stressing established institutions and preferring gradual development". Nice try. If you mean they where resistant to the idea of changing the power structure once they where in charge then I would have to agree that they were, but almost anyone in charge is. Other definitions of conservative are even further from describing Russia's communist dictatorship. If the main thrust of your distinction between conservative and liberal is that conservatives are resistant to change then the Russian communists where not conservatives. In any case people can have directly opposing ideas and still be resistant to change. Two people being resistant to change does not indicate that there is any tie between them or that they are at all similar. Many liberals in the US are very resistant to changing certain things, many conservatives want to make a lot of changes. I agree with your definition to the extent that I don't think someone is a conservative if they have no respect for tradition or the idea of gradual development rather then abrupt government imposed change, but you definition is not adequate. Its hard to find any that is because the word "conservative" is used in so many ways. ("Liberal" is probably used in even more) Since "conservative" and even more so "liberal" have different meanings it might be worth while to use "democratic" and "republican" to deal with the ideas and philosophies of the Democratic and the Republican parties. Tim