Why do we call it conservatism, I know we are not really conserving anything. It just seems like a weird name to me, almost just like a place holder.

According to conservative philosophy, the government that governs least governs best and local control knows what's best for the community. That's the theory. But in practice, Republicans regularly use state legislators and governors to control local governments and prevent them from being too liberal. Doesn't this go against conservative philosophy?

What do you think about Nationalism and the various types of Nationalism. Civic Nationalism, Economic Nationalism, Cultural Nationalism, Ethnic Nationalism, etc. Is Nationalism bad, are only some forms of Nationalism good?

The Supreme Court as shaped by Trump currently consists of : six Catholics, two Protestants, and one Jewish person.

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/391649/religion-supreme-court-justices.aspx

Additionally, core tenets of the Trump platform are from Catholicism, such as the abortion position.

But as of 2023, only 22% of the US population is Catholic, with an additional 44% being Protestant or other Christian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States?wprov=sfti1

With Trump/R party pushing the Heritage foundation plans modeled on hierarchical Catholic religion we will likely end up with a minority religion controlling our country.

Is this acceptable?

One of the biggest problems I have had with the Republican and conservative movement is the constant veiled threats about rising up with their guns and watering the tree of Liberty with the blood of patriots. These attacks have always been aimed directly at Democrat and leftist politicians when they are accused of being tyrants. If you truly feel this way and are willing to take up arms against leftist politicians prove to us that this is not partisan hackery and that you would also do the same to Republicans or Trump. What would be a bridge too far for Trump to cross that would cause you to take up arms and demand he be removed from office? One of the most chilling things about the Trump administration is the Republicans refusal to tell him no. They have supported him in everything and they have shielded him from all political costs and impeachments. Leftists are terrified of this because it so far has shown that you are not willing to hold him accountable. Where is the line for you?

It is common belief that conservatives/republicans are better for the economy than democrats, and their voters tend to rank it as their biggest concern.

Yet in the past 50 years, democrats have had a record of creating job growth, managing the deficit better and overall higher GDP growth. It appears to me that most economic indicators are in their favor.

So why do you perceive conservatives as being better for the economy?

Other than gun rights, what else has the party done for American rights? I’ve heard generalized freedom of speech, but never heard any actual examples. And what else, for the people, not just for business?

I personally think it goes against freedom of religion and separation of church and state, but I want to know what both religious and non-religious conservatives think of it since legislation is being passed in several states not mandating this.

Edit: apparently I can't reply to comments because my account is only 9 months old, sorry

My wife is from Philippines. She came here legally on a fiance visa. We got married, we have a daughter. She's not a citizen yet but is eligible to apply in November. Bottom line is this, I keep seeing all this stuff about Trump doing a mass deportation that would end up being concentration camps. I believe that Trump and many of his supporters ultimately don't like immigrants. Especially dark skinned ones with accents. Trump's anti immigrant rhetoric like "immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation" only adds to that. I know illegal immigrants are the first enemy but I can see legal non citizen immigrants being a close second. Needless to say this stuff scares me to death. I can't bear the thought of watching my wife being taken away and thrown into a camp. It's truly awful. The anxiety I feel in my gut about Trump winning and invoking some modern version of Nazi Germany here against people like my wife and my family is terrifying. I'm really hoping that reaching out to some conservatives can help calm my fears.

I’m willing to admit Trump did a pretty good job on economic policy responding to COVID, obviously the collapse of the global supply chain had nothing to do with him. Just like the resulting economic problems didn’t have anything to do with Biden/Democrats. America has actually recovered better than any other country.

I was on the SAVE plan and on track for public service loan forgiveness but due to recent republican attempts to block the SAVE plan my loans were put into forbearance indefinitely. I was wondering what the opposition really was or what the conservative solution to our student loan problem is?

In Melania Trump’s upcoming memoir, she wrote the following:

“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.”

“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”

“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”

Abortion is an extremely important issue this election and Donald Trump often verbalizes how proud he is that he was able to overturn Roe v. Wade. What are your thoughts on Mrs. Trump’s left leaning views on abortion and how do you think it will impact her husband’s campaign, if at all? Do you think Melania promoting abortion rights a month before the election is a bad move?

Or what's one area (or two) or an exception that you'd like to see more funding and support for, even if you are generally or even staunchly fiscally conservative?

I've seen people say things that the land the United States got was stolen from Mexico and that it was about slavery and that the Americans agreed to follow the Mexican laws.

Western Conservatives have had conflicting policy on China from the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the modern day. We helped them modernize their country since then up until the fall of the ROC and their retreat to Taiwan (where they still exist today -for now)

Starting with some common facts to ground the question:

• The bureau of labor statistics reports CPI inflation as 2.5% today, down from a peak of 9.1% in August 2022: https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-by-category-line-chart.htm

• The causes of this inflation are not fully agreed on (especially with respect to impact per cause), but generally, inflation has been a global phenomenon because of supply-chain disruptions and increased demand for durable goods. 2021 covid-era price shocks to food and energy also impacted inflation: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2023/beyond-bls/what-caused-the-high-inflation-during-the-covid-19-period.htm

• I have found some conservative outlets that argue inflation was caused mostly by government spending, to be fair: https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/the-road-inflation-how-unprecedented-federal-spending-spree-created

Okay, now that that’s out of the way: I am a layperson, but every single time I read surveys of economists, they near-unanimously prefer Kamala Harris over Donald trump when it comes to inflation.

For example, a recent FT/Booth survey shows 70% of macroeconomists believed trump’s policies would lead to more inflation over Harris, whereas only 3% thought the reverse: https://econbrowser.com/archives/2024/09/ft-booth-survey-of-macroeconomists-whose-platform-is-more-inflationary-deficit-expanding

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has tried estimating a potential trump term’s inflation impact by analyzing his policy proposals on tariffs, immigration, and bullying the fed, and they came up with a ballpark figure of 6-9% inflation (which honestly sounds TOO high to me to be an accurate estimate): https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/how-much-would-trumps-plans-deportations-tariffs-and-fed-damage-us

It just seems like many of Trump’s policy proposals would cause more inflation.

1. Deporting millions of people would cause large reductions in labor force
2. Tariffs would only increase the price of imported goods
3. Trump has historically bullied the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates out of political convenience

Now I’m not saying Harris is a saint, but inflation truly is much lower than it was halfway through the Biden term, so that is commendable. How can anyone argue that if this continues, inflation will skyrocket when it has been empirically dropping for the past year (while managing unemployment as well).

Anyway that’s it for my rant, would love to hear your thoughts respectfully

I believe all drugs should be legalized. If you disagree, why is that?

For context, I'm writing this during some downtime at work. I work at a safe-use site, which includes both safe injection and safe inhalation areas.

Recently, we were informed that, in addition to xylazine (which is estimated to be present in about 5% of the local drug supply), a new veterinary tranquilizer has entered about 30% of the supply. (It starts with an "M," but I can’t recall the name since it was mentioned in an oral presentation.) I’ve treated many opioid overdoses and currently work two jobs with the homeless population. When people ask what I do, I say I work in mental health—because it's true. It's amazing to me that this isn’t discussed more uniformly, considering the vast majority of my clients have at least one, and often more than one, major mental health diagnosis. To clarify, I’m referring to conditions like schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder, in addition to substance use disorder, which essentially applies to all my clients.

As a resident of British Columbia, I can speak to what full canabis legalization looks like. BC's weed stores are more like Apple stores than traditional beer and wine shops.

That’s not to say weed legalization is without its debates. For instance, we often argue about which level of government should receive the tax revenue.

But I’m honestly curious. I want to hear the strongest version of the argument. Why do you support drug prohibition? What about keeping the drug supply underground, or other interpretations of this policy, do you favor?

I promise you (and myself) that I genuinely want to understand the best version of this idea.

Thanks in advance for your contributions.

Most Republicans I know are totally fine with gay marriage since the supreme court ruling back in 2015 even though it wasnt popular then. If changing the law helped the culture move along towards more acceptance to these people, what kind of law do you think would help people come around for those in the transgender community?

There are 100 people electing their mayor. -45 people think A is best for the job, and C is second best (okay), they hate B. -40 people think B is best, and C is second best (okay), and they hate B. -15 people think C is best, and B is second best, they dislike A.

Who should win this election and why? What system would you prefer for electing the mayor?

1. Why do some democrats view globalism better than nationalism? Isn’t nationalism what politics and politicians defend? How can nationalism be a negative view?
2. Why do some democrats hold abortion as their #1 voting policy, especially after it’s now a states issue? I can’t wrap my brain around putting abortion over war, economy, federal debt, etc.

I am bisexual and my ideology is more prone conservative.Will I be like ‘chicken for kfc’?

I hear the argument “communism/socialism has never worked” in conversation sometimes, and I really want to know what it means for a government system to work, in your opinion. I’m not here to argue the merits of capitalism, communism or socialism, but rather to know from an axiomatic perspective what it means for a government to be a success.

I'm sure there are liberal men who prefer eating meat and would not like to eat anything else and are quite vocal about it, but every "real men eat meat and not a salad!" I've encountered have been on the conservative side. It's specifically this connection to manliness I'm curious about.

I would like to see the best quotes in favor of the government.

I have seen some of them. If one is to interpret them literally, it would seem that the American revolution was led by a lot of sinners. Wouldn't the quotes entail that the "no taxation without representation" was unjust - that the colonists should have rendered unto George III what is George III's?

Genuinely curious and would like to hear what you think!

Does she actually have any influence on the presidential candidate or his campaign or is her mere presence around Trump unfairly scrutinized?

Edit: I meant to upload this to a different subreddit, but I’ll keep it here for now.

Do you guys feel he adequately represents Republican views? How would you even classify his views in the right wing sphere?

STAR voting

Score Then Automatic Runoff functions by rating a list of candidates from 0-5 stars, you **may mark multiple candidates with the same score**. For single winner votes like presidency you **Score** by adding up the total number of stars for each candidate and the top 2 candidates with the most stars move on to the next stage.

Next, go one by one on each ballet and that ballet will go to whichever candidate was scored higher on their ballet. 1 person 1 vote. If you have the same amount of stars for both remaining candidates, it goes to neither because you don't have a preference.

more info here, as well as variations of it for different purposes:

https://www.starvoting.org/

cool [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4FXLQoLDBA) that simulates different voting systems and their effects

Approval voting

Very simple, you are given a ballet with a list of candidates and you mark as many as you want that you are okay with becoming president. Whichever candidate the highest percentage of people approved of, wins.

Comparing

Approval is much simpler implement and teach people how to use, but STAR is better for voter satisfaction and allows you to express more accurate opinions.

One of the main benefits that both these systems provide is that it doesn't force the 2 option 1v1 elections that have prevaled for so long now. There isn't any risk of throwing away your vote by approving or highly rating a 3rd party candidate.

here is a visual representation of STAR compared to other voting systems like Ranked choice

https://youtu.be/-4FXLQoLDBA