Modern Liberal's "Social Justice" Paradigm is more Narrow-Minded than Christian Conservatism: I'm Jumping Ship

1. I hate to burst your bubble, but Democrats and Republicans switched ideologies during history. So this argument is null and void. The republicans of today, were like the democrats during Lincolns days.Whi
2. The thing is. The US follows secular laws. And Secular Laws override that of religious ideology. Religion does not go above the law, and religion is no excuse to act in an unlawful manner that is detrimental to society.
3. Look, I agree with you here. But your reasoning is ABYSMAL! The Wage gap is a myth, but using anecdotes is a terrible way to debunk it.
4. This kinda conflicts with point 2, wouldnt you say?
5. Well yes, both Democrats and Republicans suck. Both are full of corruption and whatnot. Both pander to crazies. Be it moonbats on the left or wingnuts on the right. I have no respect for the Nature Woo that plagues the left just like I have no respect for the creationism, global warming denialism and Mises nonsense that pollutes the right wing. Identity politics is awful, if only because it makes one prone to accept all sorts of stupid dogma.

1. http://www.quotes.net/quote/57364 The "switch" is purely fictional. If such a radical shift took place, it would surely have been met with public criticism. We would not need to speculate. Outside of conspiracy, what other reason is there to believe that this elusive "switch" would lack such historical context?

2. But in a society in which individuals are able to practice religion freely, individuals are able to do so within the confines of the law. Was the same-sex couple legally obligated to choose a Conservative Christian baker to make their wedding cake? Were they not free to choose another baker?

3. Anecdotes with basis in reality beat non-information by default. With figures to disprove I would have felt obligated to provide my own statistics. That was not the case.

4. It does. That's the point. I'm not convicting myself of hypocrisy. I'm illustrating that while liberals impose their "secularism" on Conservative Christians, they advocate "tolerance" of Islamic culture, despite both religions essentially embodying much of the same religious philosophies that deny civil liberties. If a Muslim baker would refuse to bake a same-sex wedding cake it would be OK, because you have to be "tolerant" of that right?

5. Agreed. I think everyone can see through the self-serving nature of the Conservative vs. Liberal paradigm, the finger-pointing, blaming "gridlock" for innaction, etc. The government is bought and paid for. We're left arguing partisan politics while they eat from the same trough.

So you were once a Liberal right? Did you want people to believe "The issues are complex and you simply don't understand them". Did you believe "that only the government can bring justice." I hear these ideas from Right wingers but I never have heard from a liberal, and I've known many, that the Government is wonderful and we should put all of our faith into them. Most liberals I know and myself included dislike the government and would like to see major improvements. I don't think you were a liberal at all and I think you are using the same old false straw men arguments. Do you think those hollywood liberals just want free stuff from the gubment too?

The right is anti marijuana legalization.

The right is anti higher minimum wage.

The right is anti gay marriage and all LGBT issues.

The right is anti Unions.

The right is anti global warming science because it hurts the wealthy corporations.

The right is anti sex education.

The right is anti birth control.

The right is anti a woman's right to choose an abortion even in cases of rape.

The right is anti evolution.

The right is anti helping poor people in any way.

The right is for lower taxes for the rich.

The right is for waging war.

The right is for greed.

The right loves to put people in jail.

Take your pick. I don't love the Democrats but it sure beats what the right is spewing.

1. Of course, they would want the black to vote for them, as it is a sizeable group. The switch was very much real. The republicans of old, were descended from the Whig movements. And no, there was no conspiracy around, but rather, distain for political leaders. Causing people to well. jump ship. Using a forum might not be the best idea, but this guy highlighted it pretty well. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Democrats-used-to-be-the-conservative-party-and-Republicans-used-to-be-the-progressive-party
2. No but contemporary laws prohibit the discrimination when conducting business over things, such as sexuality, sex and race.
3. Anecdotes carry very little to no weight, period. Use of Anecdotal evidence to prove a point is generally considered to be logically fallacious. And usage of Anecdotes in any STEM field or any academic research for that matter, is unacceptable. Usage of Anecdotes is one thing that seperates real science from pseudoscience.

Replies in bold.

Minimum wage as it is now still qualifies one to receive government tax payer funded welfare. Yes I think the employer is responsible for paying a livable wage and I don't think you and I should subsidize it.

Without Unions we would not have the forty hour work weak, livable wages, any kind of reasonable safety in industrial jobs, pensions, health care... The list really goes on and on. Read up on what was going on at the time Unions were formed. Even nonunion jobs have benefitted from the union movement.

The religious right is a huge force in the rightwing and when you vote for a Republican you vote for their interests as well.

Got any sources to back up your claims?

Conservatives shrinking Christian base is likely because of their expanded classical progressive base. Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Women's Rights have all been granted as per the law. At this point, what is the driving force behind the current progressive paradigm? At what point do they start creating injustice through entitlements?

You want minimum wage raised? Say goodbye to a lot of jobs and hello automated cash registered and self-delivery robots

Unions had their purpose in the times of the great depression and WWII, but they're now the leading cause of companies forcing to outsource jobs.

The far right is far from religious they worship money more than actually follow Christian values, also there is a growing number of atheist that are in Right wing politics.

Livable wage defined as? If I'm a highschool student working part-time at McDonald's, do I need $15 an hour to "live"?

Unions serve as a model of how labor institutions and politics have become corrupt over time.

When you vote Democrat, you vote for alot of things that aren't in your best interests as an individual.

@Maroxad: Yeah plenty. Walmart employees qualify for welfare.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/#3710c9bb7cd8

Unions

http://www.history.com/topics/labor

Religious right

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/182210/highly-religious-conservative-republicans.aspx

This is after a quick half assed google search quest. I was rather taken aback that you even asked for it.

What about the other ten points I made?

Welfare isn't a benefit monetary value that you either get or you don't. It is a collective of benefits that vary by state, are dependent on income along with living expenses, number of dependents and other factors.

Income is only one variable taken into account when determining one's eligibility. Also, "qualifying" for wellfare in the form of medicaid is different than getting section 8 housing, food stamps, medicaid, and a variety of other programs that vary by state.

Livable wage is defined as "livable" Many adults work these jobs and conservatives don't believe in a minimum wage at all. Should we give them welfare like we do now, let them starve, or expect the richest people in the world who own Walmart to pay their workers? It's the least they could do for making such a huge fortune on the workers backs I would think. Not to mention being one of the big reasons there are no good paying jobs left in this country and everything outsourced to China.

Anti Union sentiment has been perpetuated by companies that don't like them and people have bought the con. It's not in the companies interest so they have demonized them and scared people.

I know for a fact voting Republican is directly against my interests. The company I work for would pay me minimum wage for my skilled labor if they could. Republican politicians are working overtime to help them do just that.

And none of that should come into play for a person who WORKS a full time job. If you work you ought not be poor.

Subsidized Benefits and A Minimum Wage Increase are in direct conflict.

When you push someone's earning outside of the threshold of receiving Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP, etc, you create a whole new set of problems for them.

• They have to pay $250+ a month for benefits for themselves
• They can't use them because of the high deductible.
• Medications that used to be free with medicaid now become an expense.
• If they lose SNAP as a result of their new income, that becomes a new expense as well

Pretty much all buying power that would theoretically be gained by a minimum wage increase is mitigated by a loss of subsidized benefits and increased complications associated with having to change PCP's, budget around doctor / hospital visits, etc.

Says the Wizard of Oz. See my previous post on scenarios that occur when you push someone outside of the state human services / welfare threshold.

Liberals think everything they do is right and equal, without even putting much thought into whether or not that is the case. They don't think about whether they are hypocrites, or whether the things they strongly support will have negative ramifications and cause complicated legal issues later on down the line. Most importantly, liberals don't care a whole lot about ethics. If they can do it, they will - it doesn't occur to them that maybe they should have integrity at all times and respect the boundaries of nature - they will destroy it all with science.

1. No, they never switched. Once the republicans passed the legislation giving African-Americans the right to vote, the democrats lured them to the polls with false promises like they continue to do today.

2. You shouldn't be able to deny anyone service is my response. That being said, I still understand that my stance undermines people's religious freedoms, if their beliefs involve discriminatory practices. It's consistency that I'm looking for. If it were a Muslim baker, can we say that he would be asked to not discriminate? Would the same-sex couple be told that they were discriminating against the Muslim artisan because of the majority of non-Muslim bakers? Which minority would take precedence in this situation? You must either choose religious freedom, or civil rights. You really can't have both.

3. Like I said, a lot of the "wage-gap" data completely ignores situations where women choose to function differently in society than men. The situations described regarding "less likely to be hired" and "white / black" wages are purely speculative and ignore scenarios in which someone is paid more at a job because they've been doing it longer and are subject to annual raises. Do black women tend to leave jobs more often than their white male/female counterparts? The bottom line is that there are too many variables here to form any set of complete data. A man/woman hourly wage differential would be illegal and would surely not evade headlines for long.

4. By arguing that ANY speech, regardless of how it may be perceived, somehow validates Radical Islamic Extremism or violent protests is completely undermining one's right to free speech. It implies that by simply expressing your opinion you're inciting violence, so you shouldn't do it.

Behaving violently because of something someone said would never be excusable behavior outside of the liberal paradigm. The self-flagellating belief that we somehow deserve terrorism is absurd. Ted Cruz is far more intimidating in terms of Islamic immigration, and civil liberties in general, yet he evades such criticism and protests.

5. The blame game is the political arena as it currently exists. The reality is that the government enjoys a deadlocked congress where they don't have to do anything, and whenever they do decide to obamacare us, they can simply point fingers at one another and get re-elected to repeat the process with more lobbyist money in their wallets.

In highschool (2001-05), I was soooo "Bush is a nazi!!" being a white male leads to a certain level of stupid entitlement. Luckily, after highschool, I evolved, and realized that if Bush and neocons were real far right, that does not mean I have to be ultra left. Talking to other people shatters a lot of illusions like this.

Liberals are not unconcerned with ethics. When you look at the spectrum, right and left, both are concerned about the same things. But where conservatives focus more on upholding traditions and a disgust based in religion, liberals are overly concerned with social justice and safety far too much.

A balanced approach is what is needed. Both sides let momentum sweep them into being so incredibly insular and intolerant of anyone else's opinions.

We are not a very educated public here in the USA. We are taught what to think, rather than how to think for ourselves. We want our own opinions to run free, and want everyone else' in cages, when the world can be appreciated without suppressing other viewpoints.

I'm not saying that there aren't SOME actions by "social justice warriors" that are worthy of getting outraged about. And I'm all for people pointing out LEGITIMATE examples in which "social justice" or "tolerance" or "political correctness" end up in some really messed up shit.

My problem is that the VAST majority of what I'm hearing about these "social justice warriors" and "political correctness" is just a load of hot garbage. Like, when a company (such as Microsoft) does something, then someone complains, then the company apologizes, and suddenly that's an example of political correctness and SJW's ruining society. Stuff like that is just business as usual. And when that business-as-usual stuff makes up the majority of the complaints that I'm hearing about SJW's and political correctness, it's MUCH easier to just dismiss the whole issue as the angry rantings of some neckbeards who throw a goddamn tantrum every time they get some criticism or otherwise don't get what they want.

Sort of like how racism TOTALLY exists. But if you hear someone who complains about racism at every possible opportunity, you're gonna tune that dude out. The cashier seemed a little bit rude? "It's because she is a racist and she doesn't like me because I'm black." Right, it's not as if she just treats EVERYONE that way because she sucks at her job, or is just having a really freaking bad day and accidentally let some resentment get through. She's got to be deliberately being rude because you're black. I've heard people complain about racism because they were in a store and a goddamn employee asked them if they needed help with anything. I mean, Jesus. It's like it's not even possible that the employee just plain wanted to help a customer find what they need so that they can buy stuff, the employee has to be "following me around because they think I'm gonna steal stuff because I'm black." I've totally known people like that, and I'd wager that a good 70% of the complaints about PC and SJW's that I hear come off EXACTLY th same way.

Point being: people need to learn to pick their battles better if they don't want others to just zone out and ignore everything they say. If the current focus on "social justice" is damaging, then can we please focus on the examples that are actually damaging and ignore the shit that's just "people complain because people are kind of stupid and complaining is fun"? Trying to make EVERYTHING an example of social justice gone wrong is just as bad as trying to make EVERYTHING an example of how we need more social justice. Lumping the trivial inconsequential shit in with the important shit just degrades the basic point. People get so sick about hearing about trivial stupid bullshit complaints that they ignore the complaints that actually have merits. If you're constantly blaming everything on the wolves, then OF COURSE people are gonna ignore your ass when you actually get attacked by wolves and then you go calling for help. They're obviously gonna just assume that you're just pulling the same old shit that you always do.

Ok, so you have just absolutely proven you don't know what you are talking about and are just copying and pasting arguments.

Have you ever heard of Strom Thurmond? Look up his political career, in particular his party alliances and the years which he served with each party.

The Words "Conservative" and "Progressive" aren't just arbitrary labels. They are words with meaning.

Had Lincoln been a "Conservative" he would have wanted to "conserve" the countries current ideals of his time, and been pro slavery.

As it was he was against Slavery, and thus wanted to "Progress" the country to a point that Slavery was no longer legal.

Maybe you are playing a Hardcore Republican gimmick because you think it's funny, maybe it's because you are trolling and think it makes people mad.

As it is, you are proving yourself ignorant, and your transparent copy/paste tactics do not help your cause.

You're a very poor troll.

Good, that is 3 more legit sources than the other guy. :)

About the other 10 points, I didntm ention them because either I agree or because they were too small to comment on.

1. There is overwhelming evidence that Marijuana legalization is good for society, and I cant find any evidence saying that hte contrary you support holds true. Since I found out about the root of the criminalization of Weed, I can't say there is a shred in my body that is for mariuana being illegal.
2. Same goes for LGBT rights. Last time I checked, Same Sex Marriage lead to a rise in employment and an overall economic boost. This is the reason I support Same Sex Marriage.
3. Again, no contest here. Global Warming is accepted by the vast majority of scientists, and more importantly, scientific research. There is also no denial about the global warming denialism in the republican party. Though this can vary to certain degrees. A more common view I see nowadays is "We cant stop polluting because theo hters pollute as well, our standards of living will drop too much". Which is utter bull, considering the fact that The US pollutes nearly 4 times as much as my country. And the standards of living are very much compareable. Heck my neighbouring countries have higher standards of living.
4. Again, uncontested. There is a lot of evidence to support that anti-abortion policies, dont do much of a favor to society. Or are even that effective at stopping abortions. Alley abortions are way worse, and legalizing abortions is as far as I am concerned, a lesser evil. I am pro-abortion.
5. Studies have repeatedly shown that putting homeless in homes is cheaper than leaving them on the streets. And with the "fiscial responsibility" dogma, going on with the right. I dont think the majority of republicans support doing what is fiscially a more viable move.
6. What republicans are for is lower taxes in general. Be it for the rich or poor.
7. Sadly the military industrial complex is quite the issue with the right wing. But lets not pretend that the democrats are much better here. In fact, Donald Trump is arguably less dangerous than Hillary Clinton. With the difference being a might and will. Trump might go to war, but Hillary WILL go to war.
8. The big of greed is too vague to comment on.
9. The Prison Industrial Complex at work here. Rehabilitation and prevention of crime seems to be more effective, but I am not even sure if the right wants to jail more people. I recall hearing somewhere that even amongst the right, people are getting fed up of the current situation.

@Maroxad: I appreciate the thoughtful responses.

6. Republicans do say they are for lower taxes for everyone. I may be cynical but I get the impression that the main motive for them is protecting their cronies and those people aren't poor. The fact however is that republicans raise taxes just like democrats do.

7. Trump's recent comments about being slow to detonate nukes worries me. He doesn't seem to know that we have a policy in place to use nukes defensively only after they have been fired on us. At that point you wouldn't be slow to push the button but rather quick. I'm on my phone so can't link to the story but it's on politico, check it out.

8. That wasn't much of a point on my part but I'm always reminded of the republican yuppies of the 80's saying, "greed is good". Reagan popularized that sentiment. Ayn Rand was a big promoter of the concept before him.

... Reading comprehension I said the poorest states, there are of course blue states that rank poorer, but by and large the bottom rung has been dominated by deep red south states for a very long time.. And this is more a direct criticism of the party that claims they value "personal responsibility".. One would think that the party that values personal responsibility wouldn't make up the majority of the poorest and worse off states in the union..

Probably better to fight for somebody who is barely treated better than the family dog than things like banning clapping or banning the word bossy, or kicking gay males out of rights groups.

We're already seeing gay males getting turned on. Maybe republicans will be smart enough to scoop up that demographic.

No, Trump has a lot of problems and Cruz is a Christian nut on top of being an idiot.

Still I would pick them over the other two....I've been on the fence on a few issues, but the most important subject to me has always been scientific advancement in this country. With the Right's "anti-evolution/global warming' rhetoric, it was an easy choice, but now I'm seeing the left attack science as well, possibly much more so with their "healthy at any weight, men and women are the same, all races are the same, and ect." or just blatently ignoring scientifically produced data, like statistics on Muslims in this country calling for sharia law or violence against non-Muslims, but all that just gets swept under the rug.

When the left is worst than the right on that issue, why would I side with them?

This sounds like the no Scotsman logical fallacy. There is a noticeable trend among feminists regarding censorship and suppression of data.

Actually, they were arguably "just arbitrary labels" in the political paradigm of Lincoln's Republican Party in which the term was vaguely defined. The term "progressive" wasn't even on the political spectrum until the 20th century. There's also no historical consistency involving the definition of "conservative" politics during the civil-war era. Lincoln claimed that slavery itself was a "Radical" institution, providing that the institution was in direct conflict with what the Founding Fathers had intended as per the literal interpretation of the US Constitution.

• Conservative Republicans (former Whigs) claimed to be "conservative"
• Lincoln (Former Whig), claimed his Moderate Republican Party to be "conservative."
• Southern Democrats also claimed to be "conservative"

Except multiple studies have concluded that there is no wage gap and that women make the same amount as men when you take into account;

- men work more hours

- men are in the work force for longer

- men work more dangerous jobs

- men work better paying jobs like those in technology

There are many many studies confirming this.

This. Liberals insist that society functions as a machine in which you can simply extract data and come up with social injustices with complete disregard to how people choose to live their lives.

I second this.

That being said, I think it's a deeper issue than left vs. right. Certain groups have been so good at lying on a massive scale about it, that everybody believes it.

This is why it's always important to get as much information about something on any subject before making assumptions. People just believe this at face value without doing any research on the topic.

It was Hitler after all that said "People are more likely to believe a big lie, than a small one." There's a reason they're nicknamed Feminazis....

The "Women make 78 cents on the dollar" people trot forward is nothing but a skewing of the numbers at hand. Men are typically in higher earning positions like CEO's, GM's, COO's etc. Women are in social work more than men, yet these jobs are not on the higher tier, wage wise. This is then distorted into showing that if a woman got the same job as a man, she would make 78-80 cents that a man would make, and it is just plain false.

Is there discrimination in the labor force? Probably, but I'm sick of people on both sides of the aisle being so willing to go so far as sacrificing honesty in order to push an agenda, even if the agenda is right. It's like Republicans hating abortion, and teaching abstinence only sex ed, which leads to more abortions and teen pregnancies.

Simple logic says if I run a business and I can legally pay a women less per hour than a man, I'm not hiring men anymore.

@still_vicious: fair enough; I didn't think there was a logical reason to abandon the democratic party in favor of the republican--I've always viewed Republicans/conservatives as either contrarians, idiots, or born/indoctrinated into it-- but I suppose when you have very specific concerns and you weigh them like that, well...anyway.

There's more to the world than science, and most of that can be done A.) privately, and B.) outside the US. I'd even argue that is a pretty silly reason to abandon a candidate/party, but at least you have a reason other than "free stuff" or "'Merica". Not really sure what you are talking about as far as science goes; I read the science portion of Google News every day and I hardly ever see any of what you are describing.

And yeah, I think you are just factoring in the vocal minority when it comes to the annoying traits of democrats (SJWs, PC police, New Wave feminists, etc). Hell, the other day someone told me that I can't tell a black person "Good work" or "Good job" because it might be condescending. **** that noise. Or whatever, maybe this means I don't need to give employees of color a raise now? Because it'd be politically incorrect (God I miss that show...) to do so.

I think you're making a huge mistake, and you will regret, but the nice thing about voting is it only happens every 4 years and you can change your mind.

Again little man, you copying and pasting arguments isn't proving anything.

Your bullet points completely contradict the opening post.

You are in over your head. Abandon ship and save face.

There was no partisan "conservative" vs. "progressive" paradigm in the civil war that is comparable to what we know today. By pointing out that everyone claimed to be a conservative I don't see any contradiction to the fact that NO ONE was claiming to be "progressive". You took modern terms and applied them to an historical context to which they had no meaning.

When liberal protesters shut down Conservative events on campuses because it's what they consider "hate speech", we no longer live in the paradigm of conservative vs. liberal. We live in a paradigm of Liberal vs. Liberty.

@Johnny-n-Roger: That actually sounds like a damn good example of freedom of speech/right to assembly. When your cause is "just", the laws should work as they're written; and in this case, they did! People protested, and the fascists and jerks stopped their event.

I imagine when, deep down in your heart, you know what you are doing is wrong, people yelling at you is all it takes for you to do the right thing.

This technique would work for conservatives, too, if the people that protest on their behalf didn't punch folks or belong to the KKK.

The problem is that "hate speech" is subjective, and SJW's find anything they disagree with to be hateful. When I say "conservatives" you automatically throw out the fascist and KKK cards. I expect no less.

The paradox in the example I provided is that by shutting down an event in protest is actually infringing upon others right to assembly. You're first amendment right takes precedence over someone else's because your opinion is that what they're saying is "hate speech"?

Not at all; and they shut down because they gave in, surrendered, not because they had to (unless I am missing something here, i.e. the police arrested them).

People spoke, of one point of view.
Other People listened, of an opposing view, and decided against a course of action.

As for automatically throwing out things: of course I do! We are known by the company we keep. So if I have to be known [partially] because of the Gun-Hating-No-First-Place-Trophy-We-All-Get-Trophies-Even-The-Loser crybabies company that goes with my party, well, you get to be known by your misfits.

I mean yeah it pisses me off that my kids can't take cupcakes to school for their birthday like I did, or they have to give out Valentine's Day cards to everyone so no one get's their feelings hurt, or that getting into a fight is, for some reason, something a 10 year old get's put in handcuffs for; I support a conservatives right to yell at me for that, and I might even back down if the event I want to hold is about that subject...so I'm going to do the same except for conservatives.

Shapiro Protests

Segregation is now a civil right?

Milo's OPINIONS Make Others Feel Unsafe

Freedom of Speech should not trump Freedom of Religion.....but who decides? Are SJW's like Judge Dredd?

It's easy to side with a "minority", but in all of these cases if you would reverse the roles, you'd be violating civil rights laws.

The Left Wing-Right wing stuff has existed since at least the French Revolution. Progressive is a relatively new term for the left wingers. Some swapped terms because certain people continuously demonized the term liberal. Abraham Lincoln directly used the term conservative, to describe the slaveholders. And described their ideology.

The fact is, while what both goals both wings want has changed over time, partisian politics is nothing new.

There is a reason for that all races are the same bit...

Scientific Racism is generally considered to be pseudoscience, and that is why it was discredited. Because it failed to meet scientific standards, not some left wing conspiracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

While there is some genetic variation, and some people of different ancestries (races if you will), are more likely to fare better against various diseases. Trying to pin one race as superior to another, is far to prone to fall under confirmation biases and not meet the scientific criteria.

I also dont think you understand what the No True Scotsman fallacy is. What he is saying is that not all feminists do were for the banning of clapping. NOT that those who are trying to ban clapping arent feminists. There is a huge difference between no true scotsman and what he said.

Edit: That said, I do find that denying the difference of men and women to be silly. Some woman was offended because I said men due to certain growth spurts during puberty are naturally stronger than women. While also stating that an athletic woman will be stronger than a non-athletic man.

This isn't really that much of a problem... I mean it'll happen, I do agree with that, but what I mean is we'll find other things to do with the people who've lost their job. Literally the same thing has happened over and over again in history. The clearest example would be the industrial revolution, where so many people became obsolete in their workplace due to technological advances.

The tertiary sector is so big and diverse right now that if this were to happen the effect would only be present a few years tops.

I never asserted that partisan politics were something new. I simply demonstrated the absurdity in insisting that modern political ideologies like "progressive" and "conservative" can be accurately applied to historical contexts.

While politics have always been partisan in nature, the paradigm has shifted dramatically through the years, as have the definition of the terms "conservative", "liberal", and "progressive".

In the US, it was originally Federalism vs. Democratic Republicans. More simply put, Strong Federal Government vs. Strong State Government. Both parties advocated policies that they mutually considered "conservative". There was no "conservative" vs. "something else". The focal point of politics was the 10th amendment up to and including the civil-war era Republicans.

"But you say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new..."

-Abraham Lincoln February 27, 1860

Lincoln asserted that Slavery was "something new", as it did not adhere to the rights of man granted as per the US Constitution. Slavery wasn't new, yet Lincoln framed the narrative in a way that made it appear as if post-Constitutional slavery was Unconstitutional, seeing as it undermined the Federal Government's ability to protect civil liberties of its citizens. and that he was "conservative" by adhering to the basic principles of the Founding Fathers. You can debate this to no end, but this is a valid argument, as is that preservation of the 10th amendment was also a "conservative" belief. You essentially have two parties with self-proclaimed "conservative" interests that directly oppose one another.

I disagree. Unemployment figures aren't indicative of "job participation rate".

Bureau of Labor and Statistics

You're no longer considered "unemployed" after about 6 months, as its somehow assumed that you've given up looking for a job. The steady decline in the more indicative "job participation rate" more accurately depicts a steady trends of jobs that are lost never coming back.

In fact, participation rate is now lower than it was post 2009 economic crisis.

There's actually quite a bit of data to suggest that there are deep rooted genetic differences. Look up "adoption intelligence study" or studies on Diabetes and genetic resistance to it.

I've never understood how people who get into college easier and for less money can complain about lack of access to education.

Sounds purely like laziness to me.