Thanksgiving and Foundational Conservatism

I thought Foundational Conservativism would entail the discipline to go five minutes without thinking about Trump.

 

Only if you believe Thanksgiving has been around longer. I'm no longer sure since science has proven that people my age suffer from the Mandela effect about such things.

 

Those with special privileges are always going to be thankful for those special privileges and characterize the progress of others towards those same benefits as outrage. Nothing ground breaking to me unless I missed something coming off of my turkey high.

 

"Without a bedrock of certain simple conservative values, like gratitude and giving thanks, there is no good soil for a more principled conservatism to take root." Surely he doesn't mean to imply these are not also the values of liberals. It seems that conservatives and liberals largely share the same values, but differ only as to their principles' e.g., the role of government in a society. The author didn't adequately explain the difference between a value, e.g., honesty, and a principle, e.g., never tell a lie.

 

We all come from somewhere and our primate brains end up with some kind of worldview or another. I think it’s worth looking more closely at the evolution of the worldviews of others. Clearly, many conservatives on here have low opinions of the liberal worldview, often describing it as a selfish effort to plunder the gains of others. And your description of conservatism here really isn’t much different, suggesting that conservatives are selfish and desire only to horde resources for themselves. Not surprisingly, data show that the two sides have a fairly distorted view of one other, which should begs us to reconsider what we think we know about them. Note this passage from the Levin post cited in phil’s article.

 

where Levin goes wrong is the bit about those with opposing view are well intentioned. While some I assume are good people, the ilk aren’t. They’re vile.

 

Interestingly, this is the point I am personally most confident in being correct. I am close with people of quite varying political persuasions, and none of them do I think is a bad person. Heck, I myself have changed political views over time.

E.g. In the last 10-15 years, I’ve become skeptical of the minimum wage. The 25 year old GatorRade would have been horrified to find someone who didn’t think we absolutely needed a minimum wage, but I see good reason to suspect that such laws actually harm low skill workers. I’m not saying that I’m 100% confident we should do away with minimum wage laws, but I am now confident that good people can inhabit both sides of this debate.

 

To live with gratitude exceeding expectations is to live a good life.

It’s a goal.

 

Now why the hell is that funny, 92gator!?! If you can’t agree on common values, you’re an extremist and unworthy as a discussion partner. Bye bye.

 

I’d guess you earned it with hard work and education. Amirite

 

A minimum wage is tantamount to price controls on labor. So technically speaking, it cannot be economically efficient (particularly for hardcore Austrian school of thought economists who see ALL govt interventions as bad). I think there are other labor protections far more important than minimum wage, but I’d still never argue to abolish it. I’d just say the federal wage obviously needs to be on the lower end of whatever the states are doing.

On the other hand, I don’t think anyone is “harmed” when the min wage is very low. The FEDERAL wage is currently $7.25. Almost laughable to think there could be someone out there willing to work in a menial labor job, but can’t find work because the $7.25 is too onerous on employers. The $7.25 minimum is so low, it’s more or less just so kids and unskilled types working in grocery stores know they aren’t being gipped (and if any are still only getting $7.25, maybe they actually are being gipped).

Now some states might be pushing wages to where employers legitimately do need to do things like cut back from 5 workers to 4. I could see some of the $15+ states causing some economic disruptions, although most of those states already had high cost of living and high income so it’s probably not a big deal. Esp when unemployment is super low. The other potential inefficiency would be if the Feds set a min wage far higher than the prevailing “unskilled labor” hourly rate in a particular geography, like if the feds went straight to $15 that would be messy in low income states with low costs of living (mostly the Deep South and Appalachia, but probably some of the heartland states too).

 

I would not be surprised if some kind of pride month or oppression awareness month pops up in November eventually. We have to be unhappy, self loathing, and thinking about our oppression all 12 months of the year.

Now that I think about it….Florida football fills the void there quite nicely.

 

No. I don't think that's quite it or entirely it. Maybe appreciation for what is.
If one has a warm house with enough to eat (could have come from hard work), one has more than a sizable chunk of the world's population. I try to be grateful for these things and the love of my family and friends (not everyone has such) and the physical ability to enjoy my environment (some lack this) and Selma Hyack

 

Well said.

 

I see an inherent incompatibility between a leftist critical social justice and Thanksgiving.

The former is obsessed with what one does not have. The former is obsessed with disparities. When you are obsessed about the things that others have that you don’t…then Thanksgiving is not the lifestyle that you are pursuing or living.