Understanding The Conservative Mind
By Leo Gura - December 9, 2022 | 2 Comments
A deep exploration of the characteristics of the conservative worldview, its merits, and its emotional appeal
Max Gron says: Convincing people of hell, it’s as simple as everyone needing to behave themselves. As for tradition, to which modern man doesn’t listen, the way things currently are doesn’t work, we don’t and never did need religion telling us how to live our lives. As for gay sex, it’s a perversion in itself, they will tell you to shut up if you talk like a poofter. Things are absolutely disgusting the way things go on, I go by tradition, I don’t go by putting figs and brie on a pizza, or pears in pasta, or tofu in a quiche, I say no, it’s carrots perhaps or any vegetables for a vegetarian quiche, which is acceptable, but you don’t put artichokes on a quiche, even though I came up with pickles on a pizza, it’s good for pickle freaks like you who eat pickles. As for Leo I don’t know what he eats, he’s certainly not presenting gourmet cooking. This and don’t argue, use of vegetable oil is actually good for the heart, and even if it sounds wrong you should be eating tuna and deriving the oil from eating it. You should eat your ancient grains, you should eat greens, and you should go healthy with a ham and cheese quiche or preferably a vegetarian quiche, vegetarian food certainly isn’t proper to a meat dish, but it’s got yummy vegetables, you certainly can’t get an audience without presentation of delicious vegetable dishes, commercialising vegetarianism is the reason it’s becoming the norm, I’m sure in my traditionalist Madison Avenue mindset prescribing tradition, that doesn’t make it any less showy. I don’t do justice as such, and I don’t abide by strict rules, but somehow I manage to get away with it when I’m a breach of the rules, more sneaky with my approach. With my “conservative” mindset I’m certainly not going to clobber you, I don’t scare people with right and wrong, my morality is different, it’s not everyone’s lousy rules, just indistinct morality which is simple: follow the silver rule, don’t be proud, follow the ten commandments, don’t boast about today on the day of distress, be good and don’t be evil, that sort of thing, it’s that simple but your misbehaviour’s out of line. It’s not that you can choose to do everything you always wanted, you should have a partial freedom, partial liberty, not the whim of doing all that you want. You should wash dishes, clean cups, take a shower and scrub the floors, not the other way around, that’s why I’m for conservatism 100%.
DragonflySparrow says: I’ll start out with saying that I am a Millennial female and I’m a registered Independent who leans toward Libertarian-Conservatism. I am a Constitutionalist at heart. Both of my parents are conservatives and I go to church with conservatives. I have several close gay friends, two trans friends, liberal friends, and a liberal sister. I hear their perspective ALL the time from them – AND also from the media all around me. However, since I’ve basically marinated in conservatism since I was in the womb, I know what I’m talking about – and I don’t think the person giving this talk in the video has a grasp on the Conservative mind AT ALL.
He says, “The conservative mind lives to have a strict set of rules to survive” and he goes on to say conservatives primarily “use that aspect of the mind that says ‘we have to follow the rules'”…. This is NOT what runs the engine of the conservative mind, whatsoever.
The conservative mind runs on INDEPENDENCE. Period. Full stop. Conservatives don’t want to be put in a box, they want to keep their hard-earned money by not giving it away to the government, they want to be free of government intrusion, and they want to make their own decisions about their own lives. Conservatives see liberalism as a threat to that independence, because most liberals don’t mind giving their money and independence to the government. Fundamentally, liberals see big government oversite as helpful, whereas conservatives see big government oversite as a hinderance of independence. THIS is the key difference between both sides.
Most conservatives I know are (especially in this era of Pres. Biden and other Socialist Democrats) currently BUCKING the system AND the status quo — Conservatives are currently the rebels.
To be a conservative in this day and age – is to be outside of the social norm, whereas, in the recent past, liberals use to espouse those qualities. This is why we currently have “Classical Liberals” being classified as conservative: The liberals have moved SO entirely far to the left that even President John F. Kennedy’s politics — were he still alive, would be considered a Republican in this day and age. People on the left have moved SO far left, and people on the right have pretty much stayed the same or moved to center, that to liberals, even moderate and classical democrats seem conservative.
The truth is, the conservative mind works like this: We wish to preserve the things that work, preserve the things that aren’t broken, and conserve the things that don’t trample on our rights or interfere with what the US Constitution originally promised ALL the people of this nation. We want what our grandparents had, which was freedom, independence, the ability to afford a house and pay it off within their lifetime, and to do this on one income, with a family intact. This use to be called the “American Dream”.
That American Dream cannot be accomplished if everyone lives in a city and pays all their money to taxes to support a big government. Since conservatives don’t believe big government has our best interests at heart, we are against taxes without representation, just as the people at the Boston Tea Party were against it. We strive to maintain autonomy over our OWN lives, and wish for everyone else to do the same, and not shove it in our face or try to change our minds. However, liberals believe big government has citizens best interests at heart. They don’t want tolerance, they want total acceptance and agreement from every person. They want EVERYONE to tow the line and they feel hurt or offended or violated when someone doesn’t capitulate.
Conservatives see the liberal mentality as trying to reinvent the wheel. Conservative Americans desire to preserve the Constitution – because we believe the founders, regardless of their many faults, had the general foresight to think about future generations. They created the ONLY government in the WORLD where a country’s PEOPLE are able to rule themselves without a tyrant telling them they know what’s best for them. (Even Europe, with thousands of years of monarchy rule, saw what Americans had created and decided that aristocracy should be a thing of the past.) To conservatives, we are all unique individuals with the rights to decide for ourselves what is best. We don’t want a king, a president, a governor, or a blue-haired relative telling us how to live, what to say, or what to think.
Conservatives only fight back – or feel the need to speak out – when you are violating those fundamental principals of what makes us tick. Don’t mess with our children, our families, or our individual freedoms, or we will fight back, that’s just how it is.
This is another distinction: liberals don’t seem to mind giving up their freedoms or individuality, as long as it benefits what they see as the greater good. Conservatives see giving up individuality as a direct blow to the soul of who we are. We don’t like being put in a cage, we like our right to privacy, we like keeping our hard earned money (don’t like it going to too many taxes), and conservative citizens don’t like being on display. Liberals don’t seem to mind all those things, as long as it either benefits the common good or, at least, seems to.
This is why you saw so many conservatives shunning the masks and shots during the COVID pandemic, because they saw between the lines, they saw what was – and wasn’t – happening with their COVID-infected selves, families, and neighbors, and they came to their own conclusions and made up their own minds, despite the narrative. Conservatives questioned authority and questioned the narrative because it was proving to be false or “shifty” in their perspective, whereas, the liberals went along with the mandates and blindly believed “the science” — because they truly believed they were doing what was best for their community, even if it trampled the Constitution — even if it trampled their neighbor’s rights. LIBERALS were being the RULE FOLLOWERS because it went along with their world view.
We see this ‘rule following’ behavior in liberals when it comes to pronouns as well. As a conservative, and as with every single conservative I personally know, conservatives will ABSOLUTELY use your preferred pronouns face-to-face, as long as you’re polite and nice. If you’re an a-hole, conservatives will usually treat you as such, and they’ll have no problem disrespecting your pronouns to your face. On the other hand, liberals will ALWAYS respect your pronouns, no matter what, even when you’re an a-hole, and liberals will even apologize profusely, in public even, especially if you happen to get offended for them not saying your proper pronouns. But that’s just when they happen to agree with your politics.
If you happen to be a conservative, even a moderate one, you will not be given the same amount of leeway, because you’ve violated the thing that makes them tick: lock-step conformity. It is getting more and more difficult to have a civil debate with a liberal because their positions keep going radical, MOVING TO THE LEFT, farther and farther, so much so that the people who USE TO BE left of center in the early 2000s are now considered CONSERVATIVES (like Bill Maher, Robert Kennedy Jr., Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, and more).
—– Long story short ——
CONSERVATIVES:
— Hate big government oversite,
— Love having individual freedoms
– Desire to preserve the US Constitution
— Desire to have the freedom to pursue the American Dream as promised by the founders of our country, regardless of their politics, race, gender, religion or creed, and they want the same for others
— Don’t want their government OR their neighbors / teachers to tell them how to live their lives or how to manage their families.
— And ABOVE ALL, conservatives value Individuality and autonomy within a rule of civil laws that are reasonable and don’t trample said promised Constitutional rights.