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Comment by jkn | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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