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Comment by CoffeeDregs | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. For me, the most depressing part is that I, as a Republican [not a retard "movement" conservative, but a non-Progressive [yes, I believe in Climate Change]], voted for Obama and his message of transparency. I shouldn't have "believed" in a politician, but I did.

Crazy time: liberal friends are now defending the NSA's actions... Cats and dogs are living together in peace. WTF?

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Well, it was not like Republican and Democrat parties were really apart in the first place.

One is left of centre, the other is right of centre. The both agree on the centre. They have some token issues to ramp up their followers (gay marriage on one side, religion on the other, etc), but no matter who is in power the country works more or less the same for 90% of issues.

Does anyone feel like a huge change is happening in his everyday life and the workings of the country, when the other party comes into power after some time?

One is right of center, the other is even more right of center, if you consider parties in other countries.

Yep. Brit here. We tend to laugh when we hear the Democrats described as 'Center-left'.

Actually that's true. I just used the terms they are described with in their local political scene.

Compared to our parties, both are on the right.

And it's a shame that the democratic party, from what I've read, has gotten even more on the right as times move along, even being bullish against the sixties spirit etc.

From this book (which is half light pop culture references and half decent period analysis) I've come to the conclusion that this happened in the eighties:

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Our-Future-Now-Our-Everything/pro...

Today, Richard Nixon would be booted out of the Democratic party as "too liberal". Go figure.

Crazy time: liberal friends are now defending the NSA's actions...

If Jimmy Carter can't convince them, then they really are lost.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter-edward...

not a retard "movement" conservative, but a non-Progressive

Hey, care to give some details? This is exactly one point of view I've been trying to understand without much success: why people would be non-progressive for intellectual rather than emotional reasons. I'm sincerely curious what your rationale is.

Not the original commenter, but if you are looking for the intellectual underpinning of conservatism then I'd guess Edmund Burke would be a good start. I'd summarise as 'don't tinker with things you don't fully understand' but that overly simplifies it.

This certainly depends on the individual, but for me, I start with intellectual objections to government power -- and to the implicit acceptance of massive government power found in American liberalism -- and the long record of "Progressive" programs failing to meet their goals and producing instead negative consequences. An example of both of these is Social Security.

It is easy to be contemptuous of most liberal opinions (though this is not sufficient to be opposed to Progressive ideals) as they ignore the disconnect between intention and effect. Many progressive programs are righteous in intention, but harmful in effect. An example is the minimum wage.

I sympathize with OP's position. I too voted for Obama and I now have "liberal" friends making increasingly hair-brained excuses for these mad abuses of civil liberties. They love Obama the man more than they care about his rule.

From what I've seen around here, some progressives are starting to move past the idea of minimum wage. Basic income is gaining traction now and with good reason; it's a more economically sound policy (because it doesn't distort market prices).

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