Quote:
Originally Posted by Adder
One side is critical of the status quo and wants change. The other side seeks to rationalize the status quo and thus must either deny that inequity exists or justify it.
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That's a fair distillation of a lot of it. But the tent you describe there has so many subcategories under it.
There's a huge rift emerging between the law n' order people and the justice reform people. Nothing is more conservative than stopping civil forfeiture, but in trying to do that, the libertarian wing of conservatives has discovered, "Hey, we're also jailing the shit out of minorities... which is both wrong and a waste of money." This position infuriates the law n' order ("tough on crime") conservatives because, as you note, it upsets the status quo structure in which they use the justice system to control minorities.
ETA: The other problem conservatives have is populism. Populism seeks to upend a status quo in which the top 20% of society enjoys the greatest gains and the other 80% fight for what's left. This gores a lot of conservatives. Moderate Democrats have the same problem. It's highly amusing to hear one's well heeled left leaning friends argue for overthrow of almost everything in the status quo... except anything which would imperil their positions. They claim to hate people like Bernie for being unrealistic. What they really hate is that Bernie has populist leanings which hint at protectionism.
I'll happily say to anyone that I don't like protectionism because it would cost me money (it has already) and I don't think it works. If it worked, if I could gain from it, I'd be for it. Liberals pretend to hate protectionism for a variety of noble reasons, but I suspect most of them hate it for the same practical and selfish reasons I dislike it.
Affluent folks from both parties talk a lot about reform, but when their livelihood becomes imperiled, they find endless reasons to preserve the portion of the status quo that keeps them fat and happy. It'd be nice if they ceased that bullshit. I include myself in this group. I can be bought. I should be better than that, but I'm not. But I'm at least above bullshitting about it.
