Civic duty is a conservative belief. Rome was built on it. Its greatest heroes were men like Horatio. I don’t think we would see the Romans as woke.
First it was melting pot then it became salad. The last thing they want, but the Founders did want it, was anything resembling something we could call an American identity.
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Classical conservatism blends fiscal responsibility with social values. You are not opposite; you’ve created your own definition.
You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m here to tell you first-hand that the social stuff is deeply intertwined with the economic stuff. Decline can happen quicker than you might think, and the fiscal ramifications are enormous.
The social stuff is, taken as a whole, the biggest reason why the normal town with very low crime and very good schools I moved to 15 years ago now has worst-in-the-nation schools, diminishing opportunities, shootings every week and a dystopian urban hellscape of addiction and despair that businesses run from like the plague.
I’m not exaggerating at all here. It is now an expensive dump with a shortage of nearly every useful professional you might want to work with. I haven’t seen a doctor (only NP’s) in about five years and we can’t staff hospitals, police, factories, the Chipotle, you-name-it
We’re no longer having a theoretical discussion about how these policies might play out. What I described has happened here in Maine’s second largest city, with social issues at the forefront of every major public policy battle at the state and local level for at least two decades now.
Democrats and the stay out of social issues Republicans all got us here, and it sucks. There’s nothing good about it.
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And it’s preceded by a loss of values.
A change in values is always necessary for a change in public policy. Maine values social freedom, and we have it in spades.
Which is why you’re correct to see a connection between social values and government policy.
I think you’re being selective about Roman factoids.
We had hippies, ravers, goths, now trannies. Same shit, different generation.
What town? And what else has changed, politically?
I don’t think we’re going to agree on any of this. I never claimed to be a conservative (at least, I didn’t intend to if I did), and I’m not trying to identify as one. If my views are actually more left-leaning, that’s okay with me. I just don’t think they generally are. I’ve stated that I don’t want the government to enforce anything beyond decent, standard morals (don’t kill, don’t harm others, etc.). Everything else comes from families and communities, which fare better with less government dependence. What is that?
What am I describing that involves big government?
Long-haired stoners and people who wear black makeup is not the same as people who surgically change genders. I’m not getting into a trans debate here, but you can’t really deny that the latter is, for good or for bad, a much more serious social event.
I’m referring to one’s own ancestry and culture. Not early American history.
Lewiston, Maine. We had one of the lowest crime rates in the nation for a city of 40k when I moved here. We’re now basically in last place in nearly every way you can rank American cities of 40k.
Unfettered immigration, easily-abused social welfare programs, de-facto legal drugs, de-facto legal street prostitution and woke activism in our judiciary and prosecutors would probably be the main drivers of a middle class town being transformed into a shithole I don’t want to live in anymore.
There’s no mystical forces at play here, just lots of policy enactments that artificially incentivized a WHOLE BUNCH of people to move here to not work. We went whole-hog on progressive policies and the results are in-hand.
There have been no great loss of employers in the area. No natural disasters. No plagues. The town’s population is almost exactly the same as it was 15 years ago. Immigrants keep getting pumped in by non-profiteers working with state and feds while all of the normal people with careers leave one family at a time, meaning fewer professionals of all kids to service the same number of people. The ones we have are often here short-term to launch their teaching or healthcare career because we’ll hire anyone around here now. Many of the people teaching in our public schools lack credentials beyond a HS diploma.
Our current politicians intend to further transform Lewiston into a “service city”, propped up by outside money and outside people. I guess we’ll be New England’s dumping ground for mentally ill drug addicts, sex offenders and human traffickers.
I sure as shit ain’t retiring here or anywhere near here. Other than woods and water, my kid’s tuna fishing career is the only thing still attractive about Maine.
So am I.
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Wow. I’m actually surprised the state allows that.
Maine allows all kinds of stuff and reality always has its own say. In my town, you can kill a guy with a rock in the park about 100 feet from the police station in broad daylight. You can do it with many witnesses and only serve a year or so in the pen after the whole situation gets properly explained, but only if the right optics are present. I could go on and on with crazy examples. I’m no longer amazed by what Maine allows.
We can allow lower standards for teachers as we do, or we can have even larger classroom sizes than the already large classes that can’t be controlled. If there were applicants, I’m sure they would be hired. There aren’t.
Meanwhile, our spend per student is among the highest of all public schools in the nation at around 22k per student. The bloated budget was just passed when the superintendent and city council president coordinated transportation to the polling location for an astonishing number of people who were willing to sign an affidavit saying they lived in town. The one-question up-or-down budget vote had hundreds of new voters turn up who required voting guides in over a dozen different languages.
Democrat policy treats people like they’re interchangeable widgets, expected to comply with their vision for a better future. Their wild policies all assume that people will continue doing things like developing useful skills and raising children who go on to do the same.
Meanwhile, in reality, the skill composition of the 40k people who live in my town is vastly different than the 40k people who lived in my town when I moved here. The government and nonprofit pipeline that has directed people here for about two decades keeps getting opened up even wider, and I expect more decline for the city will be in the future.
You could amend the state constitution to make healthcare and educated educators a “right”, and it wouldn’t magically result in more nurses, doctors and teachers who want to live in the area and practice their profession long-term.
That’s what happens when there’s as many or more total people but not as many people do the things they used to do. It’s not rocket science. Maine has literally been paying people to only consume, not produce, and there haven’t been many boogeymen Republicans driving policy here lately.
My city council stands with Gaza and this week’s focus has been talking themselves into removing zoning restrictions so low-barrier homeless shelters can be placed near schools, parks, residential areas, basically anywhere except two commercial and waterfront districts they say need “protecting”.
If you ask “From what?”, you’ll be accused of stigmatizing homelessness. It is a completely bonkers clown show in Woke City, USA.
The Fascists looked up to Ancient Rome, and they were not woke either.
I would imagine easily abused social welfare programs (probably in tandem with unfettered immigration) is the driver leading to low income types of crime. Driven by woke activism of course, which is unfortunate but doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Drugs aren’t the reason, unless “de-facto” still involves a criminal element, and likely prostitution follows the same.
Regarding crime around drugs anyways, an analysis was done in early legalized places. Of course it shows a drop in drug crimes but more importantly other crime rates are unchanged to earlier assertions (I believe by Zecarlo) and your position here.
Your towns problem is the liberal fiscal policies being enacted. Whether you have a dispreference for drug legalization, or prostitution, is your personal bend, which is great and you have a vote, but this is where my original stance comes in to play. I don’t give two shots of my neighbor wants to smoke weed while I drink bourbon, and honestly if two willing adults want to exchange money for sex it’s none of my business. Just don’t come for my pockets.
Edit: meant to post Changes in arrests following decriminalization of low-level drug possession in Oregon and Washington - PubMed
You might want to look into addiction rates in Portugal. Everything comes with a price.
The woke mind virus has followed Stephen King. These rejects ruin everything they touch
Pennywise the clown has sinister influence on that orange bastard Trump.
Again though, not my problem or responsibility to think for another.