If one needs to understand how dumbed-down this movement has become one only needs to look at its forebears and look to today's "conservatives." We will look at one of the intellectual forebears, de Maistre, and then look at your modern "conservative" voter, which blends both libertarianism and neoconservatism.

Old Conservatism: "We must understand that the radicalism of revolution is an outcry against Heaven itself, since it is the equivolance of the first rebellion of Satan against God. The French Revolution is something purely Satanic, denying both sovereignty and religion. Since the Gallican Church was the cornerstone of the Catholic system it is not surprising the revolutionaries struck the citadel of Christendom. This revolution has desecrated the national schools of France, overthrown the ideals of a patriarchal system, created an immoral climate like out of Dante's Inferno, and desecrated the old system of politics."

New Conservatism: "Woohoo support Israel! Woohoo support guns! We must understand that free market capitalism is the only successful economic system. We must force mankind to embrace free market capitalism and democracy. We must not interfere at all with the market-forces but must support laissez-faire economics. We must support business, especially big corporations. We must try to win over the women vote by forgetting that a woman belongs in the home. We must in fact support strong women and force other societies to support feminism. We also must forget about social issues but on the contrary let everyone "do their own thing" especially when it comes to abortion, drugs, and ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity. We must acknowledge that democratic capitalism is the best form of government and that America is the best nation on Earth."

This is so stupid I'm not sure at first how to respond.

First off, it's not 'equivolance'.  That would mean 'equally wished' if it existed as an English word.  It doesn't.  Equivalence is what you want.

Next, you appear to be conflating different concepts, Catholic monarchist thought with American neoconservative thought.  If you take two unrelated things, call them 'old' and 'new' versions of the same thing, you can attempt to show a change in the thing.

Your technique, in point of fact, is exactly what Catholic trads and fundamentalists think Darwinists do.  Take two different animals, put them in a timeline as ancestor and progeny, and claim an evolutionary change.

So, yeah, you fail in a huge way.  I've been watching some of your ultra-opinionated posts, and I've come to the conclusion you know next to nothing.  About anything.  

So, I think I'll hector you a bit.

I know things that happen in real life, something intellectuals like yourself can never grasp from reading books all day. Your post is so arrogant, so elitist, it is hard to describe. You look down on people who don't have the same educational credentials you do, nor the same knowledge of books.

So you know next to nothing, about anything, when it comes to the real world. You are in fact from what I see, very anti-Christian yourself, believing in evolution, having the usual intellectual arrogance, etc. It is folks like you which created the anti-intellectual climate of today and why people see a B.S. degree as "bullshit" and a PhD as "piled high and deep." Oh and by the way a real man is not a real man at all unless he is as gifted athletically as he is acedemically. :wink:

Whether one is trying to characterize either movement I mentioned as "conservative" it is a pure fact that the thoughts about conserving tradition, disgust of revolution, and keeping the old ways would be the definition of that word, so the Catholic conservatives against the French Revolution were trying to conserve society beforehand. This has developed into quite a new meaning under American neoconservatism and libertarianism.

I know things that happen in real life, something intellectuals like yourself can never grasp from reading books all day.

I'm glad you identify me as an intellectual.  I'll tell the guys at work, they'll be amused.  

Anyway, I'm sure I said some equally stupid things when I was a teenager, so as long as you're in your teens, you don't really have a problem.  

You are in your teens, right?  

Perhaps a better way to start a discussion of the U.S. political conservative movement is to phrase it as a contrast between "paleo-conservatives" and "neo-conservatives".  

Perhaps a better way to start a discussion is to have at least some grasp of the topic.  

The better you narrow down a topic, the better to nail it.  

If narrowed, and easier to nail, it would be easier and shorter to discuss without jumping all over the place.

What is your definition of free market bitdude? If you mean laissez-faire then you would, if you got your wish get to experience life as it was in D ickens's time, that is to say 4 & 5 year old children put down coal mines, 12 hour days 6 days a week, 14 people to a room & after all this a wage barely sufficient to keep alive. I know it wasn't like that for everyone, but the fact that it was so for anyone shows the intrinsic injustice of such a system. There must be some regulation, for example the dirty trick of a big operation deliberately underselling & taking losses in order to put smaller competitors out of business ought to be punished with immediate arrest & imprisonment in a labour camp for a minimum of 7 years. There's nothing wrong with honest competition which obeys the Law of the Holy Gospel, but when businessmen become criminals they ought to be treated as such.

Perhaps a better way to start a discussion is to have at least some grasp of the topic.

This, alas, is far too ambitious a standard for Internet purposes. Perhaps geneticists and microbiologists succeed in policing their discussion sites and listservs to the extent that frauds and phonies are eliminated, but the Web's prime attraction for most other people is that it allows them to flaunt their ignorance and to bully and harangue their betters to an extent that Thrasymachus or Cromwell never even dreamed possible.

We need a free market. Or does everyone here need the government to wipe [his] nose every time something bad happens?

I had written you off as just another perpetual little-boy loser hereabouts, but I've begun to see that I was quite wrong to do so. There's hope for you or anyone else that can grasp such a critical first principle as the one you state above (admittedly a bit crudely). Put otherwise, you clearly don't want to be a bratty kid forever.

You are eighteen or so, aren't you? If you aren't, when you get to be that age, try to find yourself a trustworthy mentor—someone who can give your thinking and reading and reflection guidance and perspective—because it would behoove you to embark on a guided but intense immersion in classical thought and literature (i.e., primarily the ancient Greeks but the Romans, too). Sadly, however, the very nature of contemporary life makes it terribly hard for the young to wake up to the fact that they would be far better off devoting a substantial portion of their day to smoking, drinking, and binge eating than to hanging out on the Internet.

Quote

The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially cared for and protected by the government.

 - Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII 1891

Nice try, but BitDudeX can't be stopped so easily. He is the kind of strong minded young Catholic for whom contradicting Leo XIII and St. Thomas in one post is merely a warm-up to extended bouts of glitch art and headbanging.