Lex Anteinternet: Easter Sunday, 2024. The Day Joe Biden lost the 2024 Election by choosing to lose it by lurching to the Progressive Left & Hurling Invectives.

Lex Anteinternet: Easter Sunday, 2024. The Day Joe Biden lost the 20...: 

Easter Sunday, 2024. The Day Joe Biden lost the 2024 Election by choosing to lose it by lurching to the Progressive Left.

Just below this post, is this one:

Hurling invectives.

That post isn't limited to the left or the right, although right now, invectives are coming more loudly from the Populist right.  They do come from the Progressive left as well.

I note that, as people may misinterpret the post below as being solely aimed at Populists.  Indeed, Populists are likely to look at it that way, as they tend to be very shallow in their political analysis. All their opponents are members of "the Radical Left", they believe. Even Conservatives who oppose them are members of the "Radical Left".

Not hardly.

The actual Radical Left is in the news today through its capture of much of the Democratic Party, which started before the Populists became as influential as they currently are in the GOP.  Indeed, as we discussed last week, the Progressives, which are not the same as the Liberals, have roots in the Democratic Party that go back at least as far as the collapse of the Progressive Party in 1912-1914.

I've often said here that Democrats don't lose elections, they throw them away.

When future historians go back and find the point at which Conservatives who were teetering on the edge of supporting Joe Biden determined to reluctantly give their votes to Donald Trump, they'll cite the issuance of this proclamation:

A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, 2024

On Transgender Day of Visibility, we honor the extraordinary courage and contributions of transgender Americans and reaffirm our Nation’s commitment to forming a more perfect Union — where all people are created equal and treated equally throughout their lives.  

I am proud that my Administration has stood for justice from the start, working to ensure that the LGBTQI+ community can live openly, in safety, with dignity and respect.  I am proud to have appointed transgender leaders to my Administration and to have ended the ban on transgender Americans serving openly in our military.  I am proud to have signed historic Executive Orders that strengthen civil rights protections in housing, employment, health care, education, the justice system, and more.  I am proud to have signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law, ensuring that every American can marry the person they love. 

Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation.  Whether serving their communities or in the military, raising families or running businesses, they help America thrive.  They deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American, including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves.  But extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families — silencing teachers; banning books; and even threatening parents, doctors, and nurses with prison for helping parents get care for their children.  These bills attack our most basic American values:  the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to make your own health care decisions, and even the right to raise your own child.  It is no surprise that the bullying and discrimination that transgender Americans face is worsening our Nation’s mental health crisis, leading half of transgender youth to consider suicide in the past year.  At the same time, an epidemic of violence against transgender women and girls, especially women and girls of color, continues to take too many lives.  Let me be clear:  All of these attacks are un-American and must end.  No one should have to be brave just to be themselves.  

At the same time, my Administration is working to stop the bullying and harassment of transgender children and their families.  The Department of Justice has taken action to push back against extreme and un-American State laws targeting transgender youth and their families and the Department of Justice is partnering with law enforcement and community groups to combat hate and violence.  My Administration is also providing dedicated emergency mental health support through our nationwide suicide and crisis lifeline — any LGBTQI+ young person in need can call “988” and press “3” to speak with a counselor trained to support them.  We are making public services more accessible for transgender Americans, including with more inclusive passports and easier access to Social Security benefits.  There is much more to do.  I continue to call on the Congress to pass the Equality Act, to codify civil rights protections for all LGBTQI+ Americans.

Today, we send a message to all transgender Americans:  You are loved.  You are heard.  You are understood.  You belong.  You are America, and my entire Administration and I have your back.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility.  I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

Defenders of this will no doubt state that Joe is just honoring the "right to be yourself".  Maybe he thinks of it that way.  Indeed, the statement is sufficiently bland enought to nearly be calculated to attempt not to really offend.

This isn't how many will take it.  Many will take it as "you are forcing me to accept a radical fraud about yourself and pretend it's okay".

And frankly, they're right.  Words actually do have meaning, and not only the spoken ones, but what they suggest.

This comes down, in a way, to the essential difference between how conservatives, liberals and progressives see the world (yes I've left populists out of this intentionally).  Only Progressives believe in the Existential Me, or the Isolated Absolute. Everyone else believes that you are part of a community.  Indeed, Progressivism is, ironically, the ultimate extension of a belief that Progressives claim to hate, that being American Individualism written large.  You can' be just what you want to be, and ignore everyone else.  

In reality, Homo sapiens are a community animal with a fixed nature, and you can't.

I'd normally be reluctant to cite Jordan Peterson, the right wing Canadian pundit, but he is a psychologist and he and a reporter have an interesting podcast episode entitled The Biggest Medical Scandal Of Our Time.  I'm not going to link it in, people can simply look it up, but it does a good job of pointing out the degree to which the entire transgender thing is simply a fraud.  Peterson spends much of the podcast being outraged, as he's a very poor interviewer, but what you'd basically learn is that in the extraordinary rare instances in which gender confusion arises, it's confusion and nothing else.  The basic proper course for minors is not to treat it, with most who are generally afflicted, according to Peterson, coming into adulthood comfortable with their genders, but being homosexuals.

I'm no doubt more radical yet, as I don't believe that transgenderism actually even exists, but is rather a psychological affliction that is limited to the Western world and expresses something else going on in our culture.  It's deeply contrary to nature, as much of our society is in general.  It's a reaction to some sort of unnatural stress, not an expression of nature.

There's utterly no reason whatsoever for the Federal Government to recognize transgenderism and the fact that it does, and that it's even crept into surgeries being allowed within the Armed Forces, is in fact evidence of how deeply woke some elements of our society have become.  There's no reason to oppress people who express this, but going the next 100 miles and pretending everything about it is okay about it is frankly going a bridge too far, and most people instinctively know this.

People have become used to various months being declared to represent the history of one group of people or another.  Originally, it was a few definable groups who deserved to have their history brought forward.  Black History Month was a good example.  March is National Women's History Month, which was as well. 

November has become Transgender Awareness Month according to some, or there's a month in November that's been declared Transgender Awareness Week.  Now we're all learning that March 31, the last day of National Women's History Month, is Transgender Day of Visibility.

Some time ago I heard a podcast by somebody, I can't recall who, who discussed how transgender mutilation of men into women goes an extra level in being an existential insult to women.  That it's a fraud is self-evident.  You cannot change your gender, you can only surgically and chemically attempt to partially mask your actual gender.  

But what hadn't occured to me is that actual women go through, due to their natures, something that men can barely understand.  To experience in your youthful prime an event in which your young healthy body suddenly starts bleeding monthly and your hormonal system subjects you to a raging hormonal cyclonic storm is something men do not experience and cannot grasp.  To take pills and subject yourself to surgical butchery doesn't mimic that in any fashion.  Women's entire bodies, after a certain point in their teens, remind them of our species elemental genetic roles.  Boys have things turn on, but not in a way that can result in them bearing another human being, and in fact monthly demanding that they do so.

To have the Oval Office recognize something that, at this point, is basically hurled in everyone's face, and which all humans know at an elemental level to be existentially wrong, is insulting.

Do declare it on Easter Sunday is an insult beyond that.

That Biden did this is tone-deaf beyond belief.  His defenders are pointing out that this day is "always Transgender Day of Visibility", which is absurd on its face, as it hasn't "always" existed.  It's new, and it's misdirected.  Noting those who fall into this self-declared group is worthwhile, but to sympathize with their plight and seek to address it honestly, rather than to verify that their condition is a dandy one. But this is what we do now since the Progressive Left has become so inserted in our society.  We honor the afflicted in their affliction rather than seek to help.

Recently, an insulting event occured at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, in which a funeral that openly insulted conservative beliefs in general and the beliefs of the Catholic Church occured.  The tone-deaf appearance by those whose duty it is to protect the beliefs of the Church were widely discussed on the Catholic Blogosphere.  This, however, is wider yet.

No matter how imperfectly understood, a major element fueling Populist rage (and there are multiple ones, not just one) and horrifying genuine conservatives is the forced demand of acceptance of certain things that actually are part of somebody's "radical left agenda".  While much of the invectives that cite that are baloney, this much is in fact true.  When Justice Kennedy and his fellow robbed travelers insisted that Obergell didn't mean the onset of a societal revolution, they were obviously wrong at the time, and they set off the inevitable counter revolution.  We noted then:

These justices have perhaps assumed too much if they've assumed that they can now act so far that Marshall would be horrified, and I'd be surprised if, long term, this decision doesn't either mark the beginning of a Cesarian court and a retreat of American democracy, or the point at which the roles of the Court began to massively erode in favor of a more Athenian democracy.

Either result is really scary.

Well here we are.

So, with Joe Biden, who supposedly is an adherent Catholic (which based on his public positions, he obviously is not), having signed a proclamation that places a day honoring something that repels conservatives and enrages Populists, and which actually does offer insult to Christian tenants in general, and which places the honoring on Easter Sunday in an election year, he's sealed his doom in the Fall.  Those defending him that this "always" occurs on this day are essentially noting that Joe was too distracted to take note, which only fuels the fire that he doesn't know what he is doing.  Never mind that Trump either doesn't know what he is doing either, his adherents already know that the Führerprinzip means he'll follow their lead, as it gets him attention. And indeed, they are already.

And this points out once again the tragedy of a moronic "two party system". There's no reason that real conservatives, or real liberals, should have to vote for these two fallen parties and their ancient, unappealing candidates.  

Indeed, there's a good argument that thinking people shouldn't.

Related threads:

A Primer, Part I. Populists ain't Conservatives, and LIberals ain't Progressives. How inaccurate terminology is warping our political perceptions.

Conservatism, Democratic Party, Economics, Liberalism, National Conservatism, People's Party, Politics, Populism, Populist Party, Progressive Party, Progressivism, Republican Party

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Agrarianism, Agriculture, An hoc pertinet ad naturam?, Commentary, Daily Living, Food, Friday Farming, Medicine, Men, nature, The roles of men and women, transgenderism, trends, Women

Hurling invectives.

This may seem like a strange thing to put up for Easter Morning, but maybe it isn't.

One of our major elected office holders in this state is a Catholic.  And yet, in spite of that, he makes vile accusations against entire classes of people constantly.  Other members of the "Freedom Caucus" claim to be Christian, but their speech sure doesn't indicate it.  One, the session before last, who claimed in her native state of Illinois that Muslims worship a different God than Christians (they don't, Allah is simply the Arabic word for "God", and while they may understand God's nature differently than we do, they worship the same God) claimed that "we are not our brother's keeper".  The hard populist right around here frequently cites to religion, even if they are not all the same religion.  

Christ could be angry, as his chasing the money changers out of the Temple indicates.  We have to wonder what will occur to a Presidential candidate, whose connection with Christianity is paper thin, will receive in the next life for hawking Bibles as part of his campaign. But for now, we can wonder how a group of people who claim to be the representatives of the culture can behave so badly.

People who do this routinely are not speaking intelligently, and in fact are attempting to distract from intelligent debate.

You should consider that when listening to public figures.

We live in an age in which intelligent debate has declined to an all-time low.  In its place, we have now what the Nazis and the Communist had, insulters who scream, while saying very little that's intelligent or worth considering. Their goal is to inspire hatred, as if love for an idea won't be forthcoming, hatred of a demonized class will do.

Politicians and figures who routinely insert words like "radical", "leftist", "fascist", "Marxist", and "Communist" into their speech are not arguing points, they're trying to inspire hatred and avoiding thought.   

For days, I've been getting emails from a figure I at least somewhat respected, and have voted for in the past, accusing the current administration of being "radical", sometimes in the most absurd ways.  One such missive asserts the Democrats are intentionally out to make things worse for Americans, which is flat out absurd.  It's constant.  The contest locally, right now, is in the GOP itself, and given that, as I'm still reluctantly registered as a Republican, I'll be struggling in regard to my vote in the primary, with the question being whether I should cast a vote at all.  I likely will, but come the general election, I'm going to weigh this behavior.

A current state office holder who is a co religious cannot speak without speaking of his opponents as "Radical leftists and liberal elites", whipping up ire towards imagined categories that simply really aren't here.  There are no Red bands roaming the prairies around Cheyenne.

For that matter, being an "elite" is a good thing.  In this context, "elite" implies highly educated and successful.  If the highly educated and successful think your position is dimwitted, it probably is.

More than one Populist, who are not Conservatives, now run around constantly accusing Governor Gordon of being a Democrat, by which they mean not a Populist. We're teetering on the brink of RINO meaning "not a fascist".  It already darned near means that the speaker is a Southern Populist with ideas that are not native to this state, and which are being spouted in an unthinking manner.

Taking it nationally, the former President, who apparently has so little grasp of political categories that he doesn't understand the difference between communism and fascism (Wharton School of Business. . . why are you respected?) recently stated “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.

A person who links all those categories together is, frankly, is either ignorant or bizarrely deluded.  People who swallow this up, are really ignorant.

Now, let's be honest.  At one time, particularly in the 60s and 70s, the far left did the same thing.  Everyone who opposed them or who wasn't with them was a "fascist".  And in more modern times, the far left progressives have done the same, often with really bizarro accusations that everyone who isn't with them is part of a widespread "white" and "male" conspiracy.  

But that's the point.  To a large degree, nobody really take the far left in the United States seriously, usually, because they are clowns.  Recently they have been successful, however, in a gender bending effort, which is helping to give rise to the Populist far right.

But both sides are anti-natural, anti-scientific, swimming in the toddler section movements.  They're unthinking.

And as we have real problems, we need real thought, now.

And at any rate, running around that your opponent must be a Communist, Marxist, Monarchist, Anarchist, Pedophile, Audiophile, Anglophile, RINO is not dignified. 

And for those who claim to be Christian, well you should reconsider your presentation. 

You might want to reconsider your personal lives also, particularly if you are one of the numerous members of the Christian Nationalist camp whom St. Paul might have a few things to address them about.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, Christian Nationalism, Christianity, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Easter, Islam, Populism, Progressivism, Republican Party, Southern Populism, Standards, the spoken word

Lex Anteinternet: Before legislating, political newcomers should try something else: listening

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Before legislating, political newcom...:   

Blog Mirror: Before legislating, political newcomers should try something else: listening

 Before legislating, political newcomers should try something else: listening

Lex Anteinternet: The Annual Protestant Meatless Friday Freak Out, Inconveniently Moving Easter for Convenience, and Oliver Cromwell, fun sucker.

Lex Anteinternet: The Annual Protestant Meatless Friday Freak Out, I...: 

The Annual Protestant Meatless Friday Freak Out, Inconveniently Moving Easter for Convenience, and Oliver Cromwell, fun sucker.

I started this post right at the start of Lent and then didn't finish it, and was going to trash it, but due to a late Lent event, I'm picking it back up.

The United States and Canada are Protestant nations. They don't really notice it as a rule, and quite a few cultural Protestants like to deny it, but if you are an adherent member of an Apostolic Christian religion, or for that matter probably if you are Jewish or Muslim, you'll definitely notice it.

One of the ways that it oddly comes up is the annual "it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that you can't eat fish on Fridays" discussion that Protestants in particular, and some very weakly evangelized lapsed Catholics, like to have.  It's ironic as some of the same people will insist that grape juice was served at The Last Supper (nope, definitely wine) or that the Bible says once you accept Jesus into your heart you can go back to sinning (nope, St. Paul in particular warns you can do that and still go to Hell).

Of course, it doesn't say that you must abstain from meat on Fridays.  It's a law of the Church, not biblically imposed. The Bible discusses fasting and gives lots of examples, and it left the office of Bishops to bind and loose.  This is a rule of the Church, which has been bound. 

It only applies to members of individual Churches.  I.e, Catholics are bound, not Lutherans, or members of make it up as you go Christian churches.  Moral laws bind everyone.  Church laws bind the members of the church.

Also, FWIW, fasting and abstention from meat go way back in Church history and used to be much stricter as a practice than it is now.  It's still much stricter in the Eastern churches.  In the East, fasting involves abstention from alcohol, eggs, dairy, fish, meat, and olive oil for the 40 days of Great Lent and Holy Week.  So the Orthodox, for example, are really down to a very bland menu at this point.

That group of people who like to claim that the Latin Rite practice was made up to support the fishing industry are really out to lunch on this one, particularly as the claim is based on a grossly misconstrued concept of what the food economy was like in the ancient world.  If you lived, for example, in a Sardinian fishing town in the Middle Ages, fish is what was for dinner every night.  The fishing industry didn't really need anyone's help to be economically viable.  And at one time the Latin Rite fast more closely resembled the Eastern one.  Claims like that are generally myths of the Reformation, created in jolly old England to justify carrying on with the Reformation when they couldn't come up with any actual good reasons to do so.

For most non-Catholics and non-Orthodox, however, this isn't in the forefront of people's minds.  Restaurants get it, as there are a lot of us, which is why fish based fare shows up this time of year darned near everywhere.  But rank and file Protestants, particularly of the Christmas/Easter variety, really don't ponder this much.  If you live in a state like Wyoming, that's really obvious, as we have very low religious observation here anyhow.  There are a lot of Catholics, but we're a minority.  Protestants who don't go to church often are no doubt the majority, followed by Protestants who go to the new "non-denominational" churches, which is to say the quasi Baptist, churches (there are no "non-denominational" churches).  They can't be expected to know Canon Law.

When you go to a function of any kind during Lent, this becomes pretty obvious.  "Here's your entrée". . will come the server, serving the beef sandwich between two slabs of beef served with beef fries.

Oh, well.

That you can't suspend this and just go to meatless on Saturday is something people don't grasp.  "You can skip it this time".  No, you can't.  Violation of the rule is a mortal sin.  That seems extreme to non-Catholics, and probably has for a long time, but by the same token we live in an era when a host of other mortal sins, the sexually and marital ones in particular, are ignored by even devout church going Protestants.  If you can convince yourself, getting married for the third or fourth time doesn't mean that you are an adulterer, you can pretty easily convince yourself that eating a hamburger on Fridays in Lent is okay this one time.  Indeed, in some odd ways, the logic isn't that much different.  They both involve appetites and excuses. 

This does make Catholics stick out, and the Orthodox even more, maybe.  In some ways, as the Catholic Church has suspended so many of these rules, the fact that there are some remaining makes Catholics stick out all the more and, in turn, the few remaining rules offend people all the more.  And that is in a way part of the point in the modern world.  It sets us apart, and it should.  Like those who appear with ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday, it's going to mark you.

This came to mind as when I got home last night, Long Suffering Spouse announced, "my mother proposed to have Easter Dinner this Friday. . ."

Eh?

Now, by way of an obvious point, we're clearly a "mixed" family.  My side of the family is all Catholic.  LSS's is all non-Catholic.

I don't know where the dinner suggestion stands right now, as LSS isn't saying, which means it must be in the air. She protested this as we have "town jobs" which means that a Friday gathering really isn't a viable option anyhow.  And one of the things about being married to a Catholic means is that the Catholicism will start to be picked up by the non-Catholic party, no matter what.

Beyond that, however, under the current rules for Latin Rite Catholics, (and I'm sure for Eastern Rite Christians as well) on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the fasting rules allow Catholics to eat only one full meal and two smaller meals which, combined, would not equal a single normal meal.  We've already seen that the Eastern Rite is fasting by this point every day. Catholics may not eat meat on these two days, or on any Friday during Lent.

Now, I'm over 60 years old, which means the fasting rules no longer apply to me.  As it is, however, that's my normal daily routine anyhow.  I never eat big breakfasts or lunch.  I used to often skip both, but thanks to my thyroid medication, I'm hungrier than I used to be.  Be that as it may, I'm not comfortable with a feast on Good Friday. That's weird, from an Apostolic Christian prospective.  "This is the day our savior was murdered. . . let's just skip ahead to the day he was raised".  

You can't really do that.

Of course, in Cromwellian influenced Protestant America, you probably can.  He wouldn't, as he didn't approve of observing things anyhow, but he so messed stuff up it's never recovered in the English speaking, non-Catholic, world.  Another reason that they've had to hide his head.

Anyhow, I love my in-laws, who are great, but this is pretty much something I'm not going to be able to do.  I can't go to a big Easter dinner on Good Friday and do something like, "wow, that ham looks great. . . I'll just have the mashed potatoes. . . thanks".  The meatless rule still applies to me, and there's probably not going to be a giant cod for an "early" Easter dinner.

That would be weird.

Also weird is that on Good Friday, I have people trying to make appointments.  Most law offices are closed on Good Friday.  But most Americans work as Oliver Cromwell was a theologically deficient fun sucker and our Puritan heritage is ruining everything. Working to the grave is one thing that our Protestant founds in this country really gave to us, and it's one of the things that's really wrong with the culture.  Now, I usually do work, but I've long looked forward to most of the office being out, and only working a partial day.  And it gives me a chance to take Holy Saturday off.

I'm going to have to handle this today.  In prior years I think I would have just said yes, to somebody wanting in, or "the office is closed".  But instead I'm going to just say, the "office is closed for Good Friday".

I'll let the Puritans ponder it.

Lex Anteinternet: Holy Week.

Lex Anteinternet: Holy Week.: 

Holy Week.

 This is Holy Week.  It commenced yesterday with Palm Sunday, which we noted  yesterday:

Palm Sunday

 

Zdzisław Jasiński Palm Sunday 1891.

From City Father:

Palm Sunday

In those countries which were spared the cultural impact of the Reformation, at least directly, at the entire week is one of celebration and observance.  In a lot of those places, people have the whole week off.  Some of Spanish and Central American friends, for example do.

Well, in the English-speaking world we've had to continue to endure the impact of Cromwell and all his fun sucking, so we'll be headed to work instead.

Lex Anteinternet: A Primer, Part I. Populists ain't Conservatives, and LIberals ain't Progressives. How inaccurate terminology is warping our political perceptions.

Lex Anteinternet: A Primer, Part I. Populists ain't Conservatives, ...:

A Primer, Part I. Populists ain't Conservatives, and LIberals ain't Progressives. How inaccurate terminology is warping our political perceptions.

Conservatives are not Populists.

Far from it.

Liberals aren't Progressives.

Liberals and Conservatives have more in common, than they do to the other categories noted above

Populists and Progressives share many common traits.

Confused?

We hope to clear that up.  But let's start with this. A lot of commentary, particularly of an uneducated type, keeps referring to Donald Trump as "a conservative", and sadly, a lot of true conservatives fall right into line with that fallacy.  Populists right now continually refer to themselves as conservatives, which is because they don't know what conservatives actually are.

They'd likely be horrified if they did.  And indeed, occasionally they are.

Donald Trump is not a conservative.  He's a populist, or is appealing to them. There's a world of difference. People who figure he stands for conservative values are deeply misguided on this point.  He doesn't.  But in the right/left thin gruel political world we live in, it's slightly understandable how people could be misguided on this linguistic point.

But it's wrong.

Let's take a look at it.  More particularly, what are conservatives, liberals, populists and progressives, the four main branches of what we have around in terms of political philosophies right now.

Let's start with this. What is a conservative?

What is a conservative?

Logo of the British Conservative Party.

At the core of their Weltanschauung, conservatives believe that human nature is essentially fixed, and that it's been fixed by an existential external.  Religious conservatives believe that the existential external is God, but not all conservatives are religious conservatives.¹   Those who aren't, like George F. Will for example, would hold that the existential external is essentially our evolution.²

Because this is the core belief of conservatives, conservatives are strong advocates for the application of Chesterton's Fence, which holds:

Chesterton's Fence:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Chesterton, The Thing. 

This is why people tend to think that what conservatives stand for is not changing anything. This isn't really true, but they are very cautious about it.  Conservatives do not have any real faith that human nature is set to improve, and therefore have a large degree of caution regarding the changing of anything that's substantial until it can be determined why that thing came into existence in the first place.

And they believe that certain things, human nature, as noted, is essentially unchanging. Given this, they hope we all do as well as we can, but they don't have any view of remaking humanity or creating Heaven on Earth.

I'll note, I am, on most things, a conservative.

In most societies overall, except in cultures that are deeply conservative, conservatives are a minority.  They may be a large minority, but they are usually a minority.  The reason for this is that conservatism is, by its nature, somewhat pessimistic.  Conservatives hope things get better, but more than that hope they don't get worse, and often hope that the better is a return to some status quo ante that was less messed up.

Conservatives are nearly always a minority, which is one of their weaknesses, but they are also generally intellectual by nature, which is part of the reason that they are a minority and are comfortable being one.  Conservatives suspect most people instinctively agree with them, but don't know why, and they're comfortable with that as a rule.

A strength and weakness of conservatives is that they are reluctant to change things until its proven they need to be.  Conservatives believe that Chesterton's fence should have a pretty strong latch, or maybe even a keyed lock on it.  That's also a strength, however, as they're much less prone than others to whims of any kind.

Because conservatives do not feel that humans are in control of their natures, conservatives tend to be somewhat pessimistic as a rule, but they also don't except a lot of humankind in general. They generally feel that people are left best to their own devices, but they are not anarchists or libertarians, as they believe that order is necessary and a good.

To give a few examples of recent, more or less, conservatives, we have the following.  Probably, William F. Buckley is the supreme example of a post World War Two conservatives.  George F. Will would be a close second. George Weigel, must less well known, would be a third.

In terms of politicians, we have, currently, Mitt Romney.  Ronald Reagan was a conservative, but imperfectly so.  Margaret Thatcher was another.  Herbert Hoover, who was a much better President than he is credited as being, was a conservative.  Winston Churchill was a conservative, as was his nemesis Éamon de Valera.

To look at some illustrative issues, in the abstract, as politicians and individuals both vary and compromise, we'll take some more or less contemporary examples, and carry them through.

Abortion.  Conservatives oppose abortion as they believe in an external, and therefore don't have the right to destroy a human life without just cause.  This view, I'd note, is not limited to religious conservatives.

Death Penalty.  As a rule, conservatives have tended to support the death penalty, as it's always existed. They are clearly capable of having their minds changed on the topic, slowly.

Gender issues.  I'm lumping this all into one category, but conservatives as a rule feel that homosexuality is a person's own business, but it shouldn't change institutions like marriage.  They don't believe transgenderism is real, as the science isn't there.

Climate Change.  Early on a lot of conservatives were skeptical on climate change, but few would outright dismiss it.  Many were cautious in accepting it, however, consistent with their general reluctance to immediately accept something new.

Economics.  As a rule, conservatives tend to be in favor of a free market, with as little government interference in the economy as possible, basically taking the view that the best economy is one in which people get to decide things for themselves and that overall, the economy is really too complicated for human micromanaging.

Immigration.  Conservatives have been for restricted immigration, believing that excessive rates damage the economy, impact national culture too rapidly, and impact sovereignty.

Defense.  Conservatives are for a strong national defense, as they support sovereignty.  Prior to World War Two they were opposed to that extending overseas, but since the war they've applied the lessons of history and are very much in favor of extending defense beyond the seas, if not necessarily always intervening in foreign wars.  Two give to contemporary examples of this:

• The Russo Ukrainian War.  Conservatives are for supplying aid, and a lot of it, to Ukraine as Russia is a demonstrated enemy of the West and if not addressed will have to be at some point.
• Hamas Israeli War.  While conservatives were actually very reluctant to support Israel in 1948 when it became independent, they've come around to it as it's the only substantial democracy in the Middle East and, accordingly, they feel it should be given the ability to defend itself.

William F. Buckley, who intellectually defined the modern conservative movement.

What, then, are liberals?

What is a liberal?

Logo of the former British Liberal Party, with its color expressing its middle of the road nature.

We don't hear much about liberals anymore.  Progressives, which we will deal with below, have sort of taken over the political "left" in recent years, and liberalism, in a modern context, has weakened, which is a tragedy.

Liberals actually hold the essential core value that conservatives do, that being that there is an existential external that has set human nature. They believe, however, that human nature can be improved, and that it requires collective effort to do that.  Unlike conservatives, who hope we all do as well as we can, liberals feel that we can all be made better.  That's the real difference between traditional conservatives and traditional liberals.

Liberals see the world much the way that conservatives do, but have a very optimistic view of human nature and are certain that it can be improved. The early GOP was a liberal party and therefore, when you consider that, Lincoln appealing to "the better angels of our mercy" makes a lot of sense.  Conservatives would appeal to angels as well, but not "ours", and for help.

Because liberals believe that human nature can be improved, they see government, and the organs of government, as vehicles that can do it.  Therefore, liberals have a lot of faith in the organs of government to basically drag the mass along into an improved state, as they see it.

Right now, however, real liberals and real conservatives are few and far between. That's because we have populists and progressives dominating the field.

In most societies, liberals are the majority.  To some extent, that's because they are optimistic, and tend to believe they can make everything better than it currently is.

Looking at our issues, we have the following.

Abortion.  Liberals generally support allowing abortion up to a certain number of weeks, although this isn't universally true. The intellectual underpinning of this is weak, but is based on the concept that by doing this they're supporting the rights of women.

Death Penalty.  Liberals are pretty uniformly opposed to the death penalty, believing that it achieves no real purpose and is inherently barbaric.

Gender issues.  Liberals, like conservatives, generally used to hold that homosexuality was a person's own matter, if they were subject to it.  They've come to support regarding homosexuality as equating with heterosexuality in recent years on the belief that this improves the living standards of everyone.

Transgenderism is a new thing, but generally liberals lean towards supporting transgender "rights" on the concept that as it seems to occur, it must be natural, and society shouldn't hurt people who express it.

Climate Change.  Liberals fully accept that this is occurring and is a grave crisis, and they want governmental action on it.

Economics.  Contrary to what people like to imagine, conservatives and liberals really have very similar views of the economy.  The difference is really at the margin in how much governmental action there should be in the economy, and what the tax rates are.  If viewed from the abstract, however, tehir views are essentially the same.

Immigration.  Liberals generally believe that all people are the same or can be the same, so they dismiss cultural issues regarding immigration.  They are for controls, but having a desire to improve things for everyone, they're generally in support of a much higher immigration rate than conservatives.

Defense.  Traditionally, contrary to what people like to imagine, liberals have been in favor of a strong defense and also have been quite interventionist.  There are exceptions, but the "improve things for everyone" viewpoint resulted, throughout the 20th Century, in a much higher inclination by liberals to intervene in foreign wars than conservatives have had.  Since Vietnam, this has been much less the case, however.

• The Russo Ukrainian War.  Liberals are very much in favor of aiding Ukraine for the same reason that conservatives are, and also as Ukraine leans towards the west in culture and values.
• Hamas Israeli War.  Most real liberals support aiding Israel, as they've always had a strong desire to support the Jewish state since the end of World War Two.

In terms, again, of recent examples, Robert Reich, who teeters on the edge of progressivism, is one.  Bill Clinton was another.  Nancy Pelosi is another example, as is Chuck Schumer.  Going back a bit further, both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were liberals.  Frankly, Richard Nixon was as well.

A controversial example would be Theodore Roosevelt.  While his breakaway political party was The Progressives, he was a pretty far left political liberal, as was his cousin Franklin Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the most clearly Liberal of American Presidents.

What is a populist?

Emblem of the former Populist, or People's Party.

This has certainly been the Age of Populism.

Populists believe that the good is determined by the collective wisdom of the masses.  So unlike conservatism and liberalism which believe that an existential external had defined what human nature is, populists believe that the collective common sense of the people defines that, and that's an existential collective internal.

Because populists believe that, it's a particularly shallow political theory and particularly subject to the storms of the time.  Populist can be, and have been, on the radical "left" and the radical "right".  Indeed, when Trump was coming up in 2016 so was Bernie Sanders, and they both appealed equally to populists.  A lot of the same people who now worship Trump, worshiped Sanders.

Right now, people confuse populism with conservatism as populism in the US stands, as it often has in the past, for an Evangelical variant of the American Civil Religion.  Protestant in its view, it basically holds a very shallow version of Christianity which is mostly focused on sex, and mostly focused on homosexual sex being bad.  Beyond that, it longs, just as it had in the mid to late 20th Century in the South, for a mythic version of American history in which everyone supposedly did really well economically and there were no problems (no drugs, no alcoholics, no mentally ill, no violence, etc.).

Populism has been an occasionally strong current in the American political stream from time to time.  There was, at the turn of the prior century, a Populist Party that existed from 1892 until 1909, and which we should note did very well in Wyoming's elections of the period.  It was, we might note, regarded as a left wing party.

Populism is only popular in a society during times of extreme economic or social distress.  Massively pessimistic in its outlook, Populist always have the belief that they are under siege and are therefore extremely given to conspiracy theories of all type.  They are, accordingly, very easy to manipulate.  They also tend to be given to ignorance, which plays into this, as they believe folk wisdom is the ultimate source of knowledge on everything.  And what it says, is that they're swimming in the shallow end of the pool, quite frankly.

The strength of populists is mass.  They tend to be numerous, when conditions give rise to them.  They also tend to be extremely strong-willed in their beliefs, even fanatically so.

Indeed, that's a weakness.

More than any other group, populists are prone to raging hatred.  As their beliefs arise from a collective mass, anyone contesting them is regarded as a lunatic enemy of the people.  Populists are, therefore, highly prone to tribalism and fanaticism

An additional weakness is that they're highly prone to being led by others.  In Weimar Germany, for example, populists sentiments were heavily reflected in the German Communist Party and the Nazi Party, with some people whipping back and forth between the two.  Rank and file Nazis were essentially populists, even if the leaders were not. The same is true of rank and file Reds during the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, as well as with the Greens.  Communism and Anarchy were mass movements as they were shallow, and made up of "common sense".

As this demonstrates, populists generally actually lack a philosophy, but don't realize it.  They "sense" or "feel" rather than think, and therefore are easily led by those who can tap into that.

A good example of how populist can be easily manipulated into something extreme.  We never "treated" viruses with soup, and we aren't treating them now with "communism".  But the anti-scientific anti-vax movement has attracted populist with the concept of a pass that looked like this, that never existed.

Because of this populists are very easily led by other movements, when a savvy leader comes along and can manipulate them.  And often, but not always, those leaders are quasi populists themselves. Both Lenin and Hitler were.  Franco was not.  Nor was Mussolini.  All were able to lead the masses.

Turning to our set of issues, we have the following.

Abortion.  This is actually hard to say as Populists vary on this to a fair degree.  They all, right now, oppose abortion, but are prepared to compromise on some vague number of weeks if for no other reason that makes it easy.

Death Penalty.  Populists are for it, as its always existed, and for its extension, as the people who get executed seem to be part of an evil "them".

Gender issues.  Populists are very much opposed to homosexuality and transgenderism as they sense its not party of the collective norm.  They share this view with Conservatives, but tend to be nasty and virulent about it, rather than thoughtful.

Climate Change.  Populists just don't believe its real.  The collective group of them doesn't, and therefore individual ones don't, evidence to the contrary aside.  As populists engage in a sort of group think, that's what they think.

Economics.  Populists say they are for a free market economy but have no real understanding of economic issues. They're for protectionism as that protects us against a foreign them.

Immigration.  Populists are radically opposed to immigration as the people who come in are part of a foreign them, and are not part of us. They believe that immigration problems are the result, in some instances, of a conspiracy.

Defense.  Populists support our troops, but appear to have the old William Jennings Bryan view of things, and he was a populist, that troops shouldn't leave our shores.  They are radically opposed to intervention in any war overseas in the belief that none of them matter to us, almost.

• The Russo Ukrainian War.  Populist oppose aiding Ukraine.  Being prone to be led around, some of them oppose the war as Donald Trump is a fan of Putin, and therefore they are too.  Others oppose it as its overseas and they don't think it matters.
• Hamas Israeli War.  Populist are oddly in favor of Israel, which is contrary to their general political alignment. This is for an odd reason, which is that a lot of populists are Evangelical Christians who have an apocalyptic view of the Jewish state, so they tend to believe that God has commanded us to support Israel.

Giving really outstanding example of populists is a bit hard to do, to some extent, as they tend to fail over time, and then be forgotten.  But there are some notable examples.  Louisiana's Huey Long was a populist.  Fr. Charles Coughlin was as well.  George Wallace was for much of his life, but he became a conservative in his final years.  

Huey P. Long, Depression Era populist.

What is a progressive.

Poster of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party.

Like populism, progressivism has existed in the United States for a long time, and perhaps just about as long as populism.

Progressives believe, like populists, that human nature is controlled by an internal existential, but in their case they radically believe that it's controlled by an internal individual existential.  So, unlike progressives who believe in a sort of mystical will of the people, progressives believe that each and every individual has a radically individual reality that's a supreme existential good.  

Progressives are convinced of radical individualism while at the same time having very low faith in people in general.

Because of their world outlook, progressives tend to share some odd traits with populists, and indeed historically they are both left wing in their political, and they tend to exist at the same time.  Progressives tend to be radically opposed to human nature, and therefore given to conspiracy theories of a type.  They tend to be anarchic in their expressed views, just as populists tend to be, but they favor autocracy in reality, just as populists ultimately tend to be.  Societies that essentially degrade to a struggle between populism and progressivism, usually spectacularly fail, with late Republican Spain and late Weimar Germany being distressing examples.

In terms of Progressives, for reasons that we'll explain below, popular examples are often associated with other movements.  Having said that, figures like Noam Chomsky, AoC, Henry Wallace, are good examples.  Much of current academia, for peculiar reasons, is made up of Progressives.  There aren't, however, any countries current governed by them, unlike Populists.  

Progressives in recent decades have tended to lurk under the surface of liberals, so they don't erupt into existence the way Populists do.  Being opportunistic, however, they've done so very much since the Obergefell decision, and then in reaction to Trump.

On our issues, we find the following:

Abortion.  Progressives are radically in favor of abortion as they are radically in favor of any one human deciding their own fate, and the fate of an unborn person doesn't matter, as they are not yet born.

Death Penalty.  Progressives are opposed to it, but mostly on a knee-jerk level. This is borrowed from the Liberals, and it's been adopted without much thinking.  Having said that, termination of a life does radically end that person's ability to decide anything, so this is overall consistent with their views.

Gender issues.  Progressives believe that this can and should be radically determined by the individuals, so basically they don't really believe that genders, science notwithstanding, really exist.

Climate Change.  Climate Change impacts everyone, so Progressives are for immediate government action to address it.

Economics.  Progressives lean towards radical economics, so concepts like Universal Basic Income and whatnot, that seem to be capable of individual use, are heavily favored. They like state intervention in the economy and society, to the extent it seems to free up anyone individual.

Immigration.  Progressives, like liberals, don't believe that culture really matters, so they're heavily opposed to restrictions of significance.

Defense.  Prior to the recent wars it would have been hard to say what a Progressive position was on defense, other than that Progressives like to use the Armed Forces as a petrie dish for social change.  Given the various world crises right now, however, things have become clearer.

• The Russo Ukrainian War.  Progressives favor aiding Ukraine as Ukraine is a western nation in culture, and Russia is not.
• Hamas Israeli War.  Progressives want the war to end, as probably everybody does, but have an odd belief that we can decree this to be so.  Younger Progressives tend to support Hamas as it seems like it involves the rights of more people than the Israeli cause does.  Not really believing in anything externally existential, the rapes and murders committed by Hamas don't really matter to them.

Robert LaFollette, Progressive of the early 20th Century.

How these categories bleed into each other, creating confusion.

In no small part due to the adoption of the French Revolution "right wing/left wing" political map, we tend to think of all political categories as existing as a scaled line, when in fact their world more closely resembles a box, or perhaps intersecting circles. This confuses people in general, including those who fit any one category.  For example, a lot of populists right now genuinely believe that they are conservatives, when in fact they are anything but.  Put another way, a lot of members of the Freedom Caucus would actually feel a lot more comfortable at a Bernie Sanders Coffee Klatch than they would at a William F. Buckley Society cocktail party, and by leagues.

To start with conservatives again, as conservatives apply Chesterton's Fence to all sorts of things as a philosophical principle, they may see populists who arise due to social stress as members of the same group.  To give an example, conservatives are rightly horrified by the gender nonsense that's going on right now, and more than that look back to male/female social roles that seem more solidly grounded in an existential other.  Populists take the same outward approach, but that's because the collective mass of them tells them that what is going on is weird.  Conservatives tend to support strong border and immigration policies as they believe in the principal of sovereignty, which has long existed, and they fear they value national culture and fear that uncontrolled immigration can damage it.  Populists tend to support the same, but because the people coming across the border are part of some mysterious other, who are almost not real people, or at least not equal people.

On other issues, however the differences begin to become more apparent.  Conservatives have always tended to support a strong national defense on sovereignty grounds, although that doesn't always take the same expression. Therefore, while conservatives of the 1930s were isolationist, they were also more than willing to build a strong Navy that projected power well beyond the United States.  In recent years, they've been strong proponents of collective security, often aggravating liberals by being willing to see authoritarian regimes as potential defense partners.  Populists are universally strict isolationist, as they feel anything beyond our borders doesn't matter.

Economically, conservatives generally tend to be fiscally restrained, but not unwilling to apply the American system where it will seem to work.  They believe in balanced finances.  Populists believe in balanced finances, but take a hyper stingy view of expenditures, virtually never seeing any expenditure as benefiting the populist mass. Therefore, funding for schools, something conservatives have long supported, becomes sort of an anathema to some populists.  Strong education in science, math and history as a conservative position degrades into limited education on the populist end, as they have watched populist raised children evolve into conservatives, liberals or progressives.

Western conservatives (but not European conservatives) had tended to be in favor of limiting government, as they basically feel, in a pessimistic sort of way, that people are generally better off figuring out things for themselves rather than having the government do it, or do things for them.  Populists are for a limited government as they hate the government, seeing it as the conspiratorial "they" that's out to destroy them and the culture they believe in.

For this reason, conservatives and populists confuse each other as being part of their ranks.  Populists continually claim they are conservatives, when in fact they are not.  Populists have been told that the Republican Party is the home of conservatives, which after 1912 it came to be, and as they believe that they are conservative, they believe anyone in the GOP who doesn't think the way they do is a Republican In Name Only.  Ironically, populists were in the Populist Party at the turn of the last century in the US, and then in the Democratic Party for decades.  What they are complaining about is the traditional positions of the Republican Party.

The same is true of liberals and progressives.

Liberals tend to be basically in favor of social liberty for the same reason that conservatives are in favor of limited government, they feel that people are best left to figure those things out for themselves and will ultimately figure the right thing out.  Progressives want to force a brave new social world view on everyone.  Liberals are more willing to use the government and government money for what they think the common good is than conservatives are, but progressives are willing to use both to force their view on what the good is on people who disagree with it.  Liberals (like many conservatives) are supportive of preservation of the common good, through public and environmental policies.  Progressives are as well, but they're more much willing to dictate an extra view on how people should generally behave.  Liberals, like conservatives, have traditionally been in favor of a strong national defense, but have been, since the Vietnam War, very careful about using it beyond our shores unless absolutely necessary.  Progressives, like populists, never see it as necessary as a rule.

Because liberals and progressives overlap, they confuse each other as being on the same scale on the left, which in fact, they're in different circles or boxes.  Liberal inability to see the distinction has been to the benefit of Progressives, who have come to increasingly dominate the Democratic Party in recent years.

Liberals and conservatives tend to have a lot in common, but not be able to realize it, in part because liberals feel they need to make camp with the progressives, and the conservatives do make camp with the progressives.

A warning

And here we get, in a way, to where we are now.

Conservatives in the modern West, and always in the English-speaking West, have democracy as a primary virtue, in spite of being aware that they're never in the majority, although the National Conservative movement, which is reactionary in the true sense of the word (it's reacting to something) is weakening that and looking to a pre Second World War model of European conservatism.

Liberals are always in favor of democracy.

Progressives and Populists really aren't quite often. Sometimes they are, but often they are not.

And Progressives and Populists only are in the forefront of politics in odd, and dangerous, times.

We are in odd and dangerous times.

Footnotes:

1.  Hindu conservatives, and there are millions, would say "gods", or some variant of it, we should note.

2. Evolutionary biology is almost an elemental fixture of conservatism.  Indeed, scientists who are evolutioanry biologist have been rebuked, in recent years, by progressives simply for stating scientific truths.