So, as you guys know, I'm actually an ex conservative. I became more liberal in 2012, and shifted my ideological foundations radically, going from conservative christianity to secular humanism and liberalism. But in retrospect, I have noticed that I never fully integrated myself into liberalism, and that this is why my own political ideology has gone in a different direction than full on left wingers. While I am generally liberal and consider modern conservatism to be bankrupt, I have to admit that conservatism has had impacts on my philosophy that have caused me to diverge both from traditional liberals and leftists. And I figured that it might be useful and productive to discuss how this is the case, as it helps provide further ideological clarity to my worldview. That said, let's get into it.
Social policy
A very american perspective on rights and freedoms
I notice this most distinctly when discussing the Rammstein thing, but despite ripping on the constitution worshipping right wingers, I am still a bit of a constitution worshipper. I love our freedoms. Freedom of speech. Right to bear arms. Rights for criminals in various amendments. presumption of innocence, rule of law, equal rights for all, etc. I am very influenced by the liberal tradition of our constitution and its rights. I admit that our own legal system isnt the end all be all of everything. I'm not a strict constitutionalist like the right is. I admit there are flaws, and i tend to embrace a more liberal perspective of the spirit of the law rather than its letter (ie, living constitution vs strict constitutionalist). But...seeing other countries and how they're doing things? I have to be like, wtf Europe sometimes. Like they just dont have the free speech rights we do. They dont have the rights to bear arms. And I tend to be really going against the left over a lot of their cancel culture mob justice nonsense, in how they seem to want to hang till lindemann by his entrails simply because a woman accused him of bad things. Even though said woman didnt actually accuse him of anything apparently, and just got off for that. And I ended up having to defend that decision today. because that's how much i respect the rule of law and rights and freedoms and stuff.
For me, it's a very structural functionalist thing. I see these rules and laws having been formed in the legacy of past wrongdoings to prevent future wrongdoings, and I see their erosion to be harmful to society as a whole. These legal protections exist for a reason, and if we try to repeal them, we're screwing around, and will find out. To preserve a free society, I largely support them. Even if I am sometimes critical of exact legal structures for whatever reason and propose reforms.
Go woke, go broke
Ya know, I always had a disdain for SJWs, even as a conservative. They werent called that back then, they were called things like "feminazis" and blah blah blah. But as I get older, i can't help but feel like that the criticism against them is more than valid than I gave it credit for. let's face it, 2012 was an election cycle where these politics werent prominent. And it made it easier to come over.My own politics were influenced by atheism/secular humanism, and by libertarianism.
I never embraced all of this hyper insectionality BS, and privilege, and blah blah blah, and while there was always some aspect to it, i kinda tolerated it rather than openly embracing it. And the second it went against my priorities, I started attacking them. And I haven't been friendly with them since. And am now to the point of flat out opposing their ideology, and realizing it is illiberal and against everything I believe in. I admit they sometimes have valid points, but here's the thing, I DONT CARE. Which brings me to my next point.
Self interest is GOOD
Look, it's not bad to have empathy, it's not bad to care about others, but as I see it, all humans are self interested. Note that I didn't say evil, I dont believe, like christians, that humanity is EVIL. But we are selfish, and I dont see any reason to expect people to be otherwise. But liberals care. They love to virtue signal how much they care. And they love to portray themselves as selfless and moral. While conservatives have church, the social justice cult and democratic party often is the left's church.
And a lot of times, discipline is enforced within the left by use of stuff like telling people to check your privilege and care for others. And for me, if this goes against my own "enlightened self interest", this appeal is crap. I am a believer of the so called sociological imagination. That the personal, is the sociological. That one can connect one's personal issues to larger societal trends. And that people can recognize that by solving social issues, they help themselves. But the left just seems to expect people to be perfect little angels, be selfish, not advocate for things in their self interest, and shames them for doing so. Then they wonder why many people won't vote for them. Well THOSE people must be selfish and racist and blah blah blah. Which brings me to the next two points.
Individualism is good
One of the worst aspects of the left, from a conservative or libertarian perspective, is the focus on collectivism. One cannot deny the individual and their liberty. My ideal reality has everyone pursuing their own interests and living their lives as they want. And while I sometimes believe that a little collectivism is needed for that (see my economic policies and enlightened self interest), and that extreme individualism is bad. I cannot deny being an individualist at heart. I'm just one who sometimes realizes that "apes together strong."
Racism is a heart issue
The left is OBSESSED with racism, and as I said above, I don't really care. Racism is NOT a priority for me. And I don't even think it's realistic to solve it without extreme authoritarianism. Because racism is a heart issue. I dont support racism, I dont embrace racism, I think racism is bad. Okay? Can we get that out of the way? Bad things are bad. But how do we solve that? Eliminate peoples' free speech rights because they say bad things? Not in favor of that. Also, the left seems to demand some level of moral purity on the issue that is ridiculous. It's like fundamentalist christianity, trying to force people to believe certain things and act in ways that go against their nature when it doesn't work. Trying to use authoritarian means to correct for peoples beliefs. Trying to implement poor policies that don't solve the problem and just inflame tensions further like affirmative action.I'll come back to the pragmatism issue later on in economics, but as far as I'm concerned, if one is racist, that is a heart issue, and regulating your way out of it just leads to reduced freedoms otherwise. My belief in the rule of law trumps gains on this one issue.
Guns good
Unpopular opinion, but I believe in our second amendment. While gun violence is a problem in society, I don't support more than moderate gun control, and believe in the right to bear arms.
Immigration
To be blunt, I'm somewhat nationalist for economic reasons, and given my support for universal safety nets, I'm not for open borders and the like. i like controlled immigration, and while we shouldnt be overtly inhumane to illegal immigrants, I don't really think we should give them the full rights of citizenship either. I admit a compromise is necessary for those who are here, and my views are a lot more left on this issue than right in practice, but I still retain some elements of my right wing perspective here like immigrants shouldnt get social services, should learn english, and i'm not a fan of the birthright citizenship loophole.
As many right wingers will point out of lefties, sometimes their obsession with empathy gets the better of them here. How can you be for universal safety nets with no obligations or work requirements attached to them, while also being pro open borders or illegal immigration? That does not work. There's an obvious budgeting problem with that. You need to be more explicitly neoliberal or third way for that to work, and that doesn't influence my politics.
Oh, and btw, not long ago, this wasn't controversial, in 2016, Bernie called open borders a "koch proposal." It is.
Principles > "Pragmatism"
So this is a section I added in later on that I forgot to mention in my original release of this article, but a big thing I bring from conservatism to liberalism is my emphasis on principles over pragmatism.
Now, I admit I'm a pragmatist on economics later in this article, but this is much different than left wing "pragmatism". When I am a pragmatist, I mean it in the sense that I ask if an idea is actually possible in reality. Like, can it work, if implemented? That's the good kind of pragmatism. but often liberals (particularly DNC supporting ones) talk about so called "political pragmatism." Ie, whether we can pass something into law and whether we have the votes. I dont care. I push for what I push for, and I dont temper my expectations much to cater to "moderates" or blah blah blah.
I mean, when I was a right winger, we HATED so called "RINOs" (republicans in name only). We would do the political equivalent of tarring and feathering them and ran most of them out of elected office between the 1990s and the 2010s. "What's the matter with kansas" talks about this.
But on the left, everything is "well we dont have the votes" and "what about joe manchin?" And "we need incremental change" and blah blah blah. And as an ex conservative, it's sickening.
A lot of liberals have this weird "nice guy" type attitude of acting like republican voters line up to vote for whoever the republican nominee is and that the left needs the same discipline, except...my experience on the right is anything but this. hell, in my later conservative days, I developed a libertarian streak and supported freaking Ron Paul. I considered voting libertarian in 2008. And no one gave me crap for that. What they gave me crap for was moderating in 2011 or so and becoming more liberal. If you're a principled hardliner, the right loves that and respects that. What they hate are moderates who have no principles in their eyes.
On the left, it's the opposite. There's this weird cultish mentality that we have to fall in line and vote blue no matter who even if the candidate is a piece of crap, even if we dont like them, even if they offer nothing. The left is largely AFRAID to vote their consciences, and it actually is quite disgusting.
To be fair, I'm to a point where I am recognizing that the principled "left" is just as insane as the far right at times just about, but still, the centrists arent much better with their overemphasis on pragmatism and incrementalism. And I do support the whole "hold your politicians accountable and vote them out of office if they dont represent your values" mindset. I've just recognized, as far as leftists go, that I don't share their values. Hell, I don't share anyone's actually. I'm basically politically homeless these days. Still, I do tend to lean toward the side of supporting my actual values rather than voting for a crap candidate that I hate over one I actually like.
Economic policy
Actual Pragmatism
The big thing the right likes to pull is to act as if left wing ideas dont work. it does so by pointing out the failures of communism. "Communism is a nice theory on paper, but it doesnt work." And it's true, for as high minded as some leftists were, their ideas were failures in practice and shouldnt be repeated. And no, dont give me that "real communism has never been tried" crap. Real communism CANNOT WORK. It's a theory on paper.
The same logic is also erroneously applied to liberalism. While there are issues with liberal thinking that I'll get to in other points, liberal ideas do work, and can work. And I generally speaking run every proposal I advocate for through a "can it work" viewpoint. I literally try to plan out the policy, what it will look like, and what the consequences are before I go for it. I like to look before I leap. And this is a huge reason I've come to embrace more liberal thinking with its focus on more responsible, reformist approaches to change, rather than radical chance.
"Government doesn't do anything right"
Ronald Reagan once said the most scary words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help". Seriously, i bashed leftism enough, but let's focus on liberalism (although leftists solutions often have similar problems). Take obamacare. We had this policy that was 1200 pages long, barely did anything, and while it made some positive progress, it also was very flawed in its nature.
Like everything the left does is like this. Instead of taking the simple approach, they go for this complicated piecemeal approach. Often out of so called "pragmatism". By while my pragmatism is about "will this work", theirs is about "well can this pass congress given the current political environment?" Combined with their focus on empathy and feels, but only for selective groups of people, liberals are infamous for promoting these piecemeal policies that are overly complicated and full of bureaucracy and barely do anything.
Honestly, much like andrew yang, i believe in "modern and effective government" and that we should do things the simplest ways possible. UBI, ideally with taxes that are deducted from your paycheck as you go, so you never have to file taxes, and you get free money every month.
Btw, a lot of conservatives used to like UBI and its sister policy the NIT (its more bureaucratic and means tested cousin) because it avoided a lot of the economic pitfalls that welfare often has with work incentives and poverty traps and blah blah blah.
Real freedom for all
Ultimately, I like the idea of economic liberty. I just realize that economic liberty in a conservative paradigm is that you're free to work or starve to death. While conservatives believe in all of this theoretical liberty, they don't seem to realize that such liberty is actually unattainable, and that unfettered rights to property lead to a world in which we're all enslaved to property owners.
by implementing simple policies like UBI and healthcare, I help capitalism live up to its full potential. Unlike what leftists think, I dont hate capitalism. I dont always love it either, but i tend to have the same attitude toward it conservatives often do of democracy, it being the least bad system. Much like phillipe van parjs and his concept of real freedom for all, I believe that my policies actually INCREASE economic liberty. And provide a free market solution to capitalism's greatest ills.
I mean think of it this way, if a worker doesnt like his job, what is a better solution? Dont fix the core power imbalance but then impose band aids like minimum wages and regulations and unions and blah blah blah. Or...we can just give people money and if they decide it isnt worth working any more, they can quit? Ya know? I dont think a lot of people would tolerate crap jobs if they werent economically coerced to work bad jobs. Again, I kind of believe, you give people the money, that they'll make the proper decisions for it.
I know modern conservatives hate this. Both modern conservatives, and liberals, and even leftists, are often very paternalistic about how people should act and what they should do with their time. I believe in the individual, and I believe people should make rational decisions about that.
And before people wonder if no one would work at all if we gave people that much freedom, relax, there are economic curves for work incentives, and while as UBI and taxes increase, work incentive goes down, there is likely a point of optimal balance between one's economic freedom and economic growth.
Enlightened self interest
Unlike a lot of libs, I dont expect people to be caring for the poor and the underprivileged, etc., I just ask you to do a basic calculus and tell me if my ideas would help you. No one likes taxes, but taxes are, admittedly, the lesser evil, when the alternative is, IMO, wage slavery. Is it better to pay based on your ability to do so, or it better to be forced to work just to survive? Again, I dont expect people to be selfless, I just expect them to ask if my ideas would help them. And 8/10 times, they probably would.
Like, Im not trying to get everyone to work in a collective, I'm not trying to make people take time out of their day to do things or expend effort on issues, I just ask...would you rather work and earn whatever money you do? or would you rather pay 20% more of your check to get back $15000? If you earn under $75000, as most do, it sounds attractive. And keep in mind that scales higher in households.
Foreign policy
Enlightened self interest at work again
I'm of the opinion that most americans dont wanna focus more on foreign policy than they have to. And I dont think we should get involved in a lot of stuff we do. We shouldnt get involved in foreign wars that dont concern us or further our national interest.
At the same time though, a lot of stuff DOES impact our national interest. Do we want Russia rampaging through Europe like its the 1940s again? Do we want China to take over taiwan? Do people not realize that these things are not in our national interest, and we kinda do sorta have to do things sometimes to ensure that freedom remains free? Because we do.
Afghanistan and Iraq were a waste. But combatting russia and china, our greatest geopolitical foes, are not a waste. And to go more into that...
America is the lesser evil on the world stage
When i say enlightened interest, I dont mean "screw people over" by invading other countries because capitalism. We've done a lot of wrong in the past, and sometimes in the world today. BUT...never forget that Russia and China are worse. Those countries are powerful (but at this time not as powerful as us), they're illiberal and they're authoritarian. And if they had more sway on the world stage, that would be BAD for us. It might be a long term threat to our economic freedom, self determination, and national security. So, we have to contain them, and build relationships with other countries and maintain alliances. We need to support NATO. We need to support our allies in Asia and the pacific. We need to contain our rivals and enemies.
The anti war left is stupid
Ya know, my dad was a vietnam vet. He would come home from the war, only to get spit on in the port authority in NYC, because weirdo leftists called him a "baby killer". I despise the SJW left, but the anti war left reeks of the same obnoxious self righteousness and shoving their vlaues down others' throats as they do.
I dont care what your values are. But we should at least respect the troops. I dont think we need to go all "thank you for your service" every 5 seconds where the right engages in literal hero worship and stuff over that stuff. But yes, respect the troops. A lot of them believe they're doing the right wing. And in the case of vietnam, A LOT OF THEM DIDNT WANNA BE THERE. There was a draft in that war, ya know? And just because my dad enlisted, he did so because he recognized if he did not go in on his own terms, he would've been drafted.
The same goes with the anti war left of today that screams america bad while unapologetically spewing pro putin talking points. America isnt perfect, but were the lesser evil. And you are allowed to say the stupid BS things you do because of our freedoms. If you said this crap in russia or china against your home country there, you would be arrested. So have some respect. At least a little, huh?
Heck, let's just say that the SJW mentality of being obnoxious, self righteous, virtue signalling, and intolerant of other opinions is the most obnoxious and alienating aspect of the left, and that all it does is drive everyone right.
Conclusion
Not everything I spoke of is explicitly a conservative value. A lot of these ideas are liberal. But, they arent quite the same as modern liberalism, and are rooted in holdovers from my past conservative philosophy. As such, when I came over to the left, I quickly identified the kinds of left wing politics i DIDNT find useful or were a liability, and i corrected for them. As such, I created a new form of left politics that should be appealing to some conservatives. But...sadly...conservatives have just radicalized into illiberal fascists themselves over the past decade,a nd are so far gone fricking mike pence and mitt romney look like moderates, and constitutional conservatism is no longer a thing.And the left often picks fights with me (and i with them) over obvious philosophical differences with them.
I dont believe i am conservative. Maybe more so than a lot of liberals and leftists on certain topics, but generally, all being conservative is, is preserving the status quo and wanting change. Almost all lefties, progressives, liberals etc will, upon reaching a certain level of change, become conservative. And I would argue the reason i come off more conservative in 2023 than I did in 2013, despite not really changing my core convictions much, is because what those things mean has changed with the times, and views that were once radical now come off as weirdly conservative to some leftists and even some liberals.
Again, I dont believe my views have largely changed. I always believed this stuff, these are lessons i learned from my old conservatism and that influence my post conservative politics. I just feel more of a need to write about this stuff now, because of how far left some of the left has gotten, and how I feel the need to correct for that by laying down some basic philosophical principles that keep me grounded, so i dont make the same dumb mistakes I see other liberals and leftists making. Because these people dont seem to learn and it makes me cringe how basic these guys fallacies often are.
And that's another way to read this. Rather than how conservatism influenced my politics, one can read it as what i see as the biggest fallacies of the left. Because the whole point of these principles, was to help me avoid making the same mistakes they often did, and still do.
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