So - as I was pulling weeds this AM, I was trying to ponder something - "good" conservative ideas...

[NRaleighLiberal]

In preparation for the inevitable debates with friends and family leading up to Nov. I have to say I didn't really come up with any (then again, I am biased, I suppose) - but any help here? Seriously, are there what we could call good (I am not looking for great!) conservative/Repub ideas (and I mean since the 1940s or so)? About things that benefit all, not just the wealthy?

[Uncle Joe]

1. In the automobile of ideas, *Conservatives aren't the accelerator, they're the brake

and sometimes reverse.

Their ideas will almost always be to slow things down or recapture nostalgia.

I believe if liberals or moderates wish to influence Conservatives, the most effective approach is to hearken back to recapturing the best and most fair polices ie: tax rates for the wealthy and booming economy of the old days and use that against the plutocrats and their puppets crying for more tax breaks for the 1% today.

*I'm speaking of conscientious Conservatives.

Thanks for the thread, NRaleighLiberal.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. chirp...chirp...crickets.

[HappyMe]

3. I probably would have to

be smoking weed to come up with something. Even then.......

[denverbill]

4. Well, I would say I agree with them 'generally' on fiscal conservatism.

Balanced budgets, living within our means, etc.

However, I don't accept that as a 'conservative' idea, though they would claim it.

And I completely disagree with their means of achieving it.

And of course I would implement National Health Care as a money saving measure, because even though it would increase taxes, it would save all of us a ton of money. And as a fiscal conservative, I want to save money.

[tk2kewl]

15. balanced budgets... that's a laugh

[broiles]

5. Why not ask the people you're debating if they know of any?

[Sheepshank]

6. Just yesterday, I finally came up with a real one....

I didn't realize that Olympic medal winners also got cash winnings. I personally like the idea of that being tax free. Rubio is introducing a bill to do just that...make it tax free.

It's no good asking me why I think there should be no taxes on this money vs earning, winnings etc...I just went with a gut feeling being all wrapped up in the Olumpics and such

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. I was reading the other day that the President signed

a chunk of bills into law that named Post Offices, so how about congratulating them on getting all of that legislation through before they allow the USPS to go bankrupt over the 75 year pre-funded pension ordeal?

[Xyzse]

8. They emphasized

Personal Responsibility in Health. Granted, a lot of them suck at it, but I think it is a good thing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. The federal interstate system

The EPA

A few others during the nixon administration

He did strengthen regulations pertaining to the FDA.

Nixon also worked on getting programs that preceded him, such as food stamps (a product of WWII and the number of men who did not qualify for military service due to the depression, you chew on that one), and Medicaid.

Ford really had no time.

And Reagan, I can't think of much with Reagan. Partly I was too busy studying the past and dealing directly with the consequences of his policy in central America. But I am sure he did something, even if by mistake.

Senior, and it cost him the election, was the last republican to try to explain why you tax people. He had a couple domestic initiatives that were important, involving schools. He also understood the importance of things like EPA and NIH and fought back early attacks on them.

Hell, shrub even did something good, falls in the category of one hand, but funding aids care in Africa indirectly benefits all of us.

Yup, you are biased.



You go farther back from the 1940s, the progressive era saw the rise of the national park sysem, and the first try at the apple for some kind of national health care system, alas progressives were in both parties, and very different ideologically than modern progressives think. Thi is part of the problem, the word is the same, but the ideology is not...

[Blue Meany]

10. I think Jack Kemp came up with a few ideas when he was Sec. of Housing & Urban Development:

Including trailers in the Fed. home mortgage programs was one. He argued that many Americans would never be able to afford a house, but should be able to own a home.

If you are talking "conservative" vs. Republican ideas:

1) Getting the govt. out of our personal lives.

2) Fiscal responsibility.

3) Legalizing marijuana, gay marriage, etc.

4) Not bailing out the banks.

Etc.

[Marinedem]

11. Gun rights.

[hifiguy]

12. Those who call themselves "conservatives" today

are nothing of the sort, as Andrew Sullivan (a traditional conservative) points out often and loudly. They are regressives and reactionaries and there are many neo-fascists in their ranks. A true conservative accepts that societal change and evolution are inevitable but seeks to retain that which has been useful in the past. For instance, Ike and Jerry Ford were conservative in the old - and true - sense of the word. None of today's crackpots are conservatives.

The loonies, mouth breathers, teabaggers and neanderthals that make up the modern "conservative" movement are right-wing radicals that owe far more to Mussolini and Franco than to the Anglo-American conservative tradition. Ike would be unceremoniously kicked out of today's Repig party in a nanosecond, Ford too. Truly, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

I'm a Scandinavian-style democratic socialist, but I know enough about conservatism to see that the fringe John Birchers and Ayn Rand acolytes are anything but conservatives.

[Curtland1015]

13. Romneycare?

[coalition_unwilling]

14. Are your friends and family Republican? If so, they are not 'conservative' the way

the term has been used historically. They are 'reactionary' or even 'fascist' (depending on the virulence of their views). The Republican Party stopped being about conservative values after 1964, imho, and turned reactionary or even fascist.

So not sure exactly what you are asking for. There are no good reactionary ideas, nor are the fascists much help on the ideological front.

Right now, imo, the Democratic Party is the 'conservative' party, seeking slow incremental change. That transformation occurred after 1980, thanks to the effects of Reagan.

[NRaleighLiberal]

16. just came in for lunch - thanks to all for the above so far - I will read/do some responding later

today.

This type of thread seems to bring out the best in DU - collaboration to help each other answer questions and learn. I do appreciate it...later!

[TrogL]

17. Define "conservative"