Can anyone give any example of a positive contribution that conservatives

[T Wolf]

make to this country, or the world?

Or, are they a totally-negative influence that needs to be permanently removed from society?

Not flame-bait -- an honest question.

[Perry Logan]

1. The history of conservatism is a history of catastrophes. Check out this list...

The political right:

Opposed tariffs to protect American manufacturing.
Supported "nullification," which said that states didn't have to enforce federal laws they didn't like.
Supported repeal of the Missouri Compromise so as to allow slavery in places like Nebraska and the deserts of New Mexico.
Opposed the transcontinental railroad, because it might encourage small farmers who owned no slaves to settle in western territories.
Opposed freedom of speech for Southern opponents of slavery.
Declared contrary to Jefferson's dictum that all men are created equal that the black man has no rights the white man is bound to respect.
This was the holding of Dred Scott v. Sandford, perhaps the single worst opinion in the history of the US Supreme Court.
Supported destruction of the union rather than allow Congress to so much as restrict slavery to places where it already existed.
Opposed the earliest civil rights legislation to enforce the 14th and 15th amendments.
Obstructed, intimidated and harassed newly freed slaves who attempted to exercise their Federal civil rights, including the right to vote.
Opposed preserving the union.
Supported a mono-metal currency standard. This policy led to a deflation that began shortly after 1873, and lasted for a generation, condemning southern and western farmers to poverty that lasted until the New Deal.

Supported the violent suppression of early efforts of industrial workers to unionize.
Opposed anti-trust legislation.
Opposed child labor laws.
Opposed universal free public education. Some of them still do.
Opposed literacy for African-American citizens, in particular.
Supported the legal theory of separate but equal.
Supported the establishment of Jim Crow in the south.
Opposed state laws guaranteeing minimum wages and restricting working hours for industrial workers.
Opposed the right to vote for women. Supported prohibition.
Opposed the League of Nations and continue to oppose US participation in the United Nations.
Were involved in countless financial and government scandals, including, manipulation of stock prices during the CivilWar, rampant cronyism and nepotism during the Grant administration, the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s, Watergate, the Savings and Loan crisis, the present no bid contracts for Halliburton the former employer of the Vice President and many, many more.
Opposed agricultural subsidies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Rural Electrification, and almost all of the rest of the New Deal.
Opposed Social Security. (What a bunch of assholes!) Opposed the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing the eight hour work day and overtime pay.
Opposed the National Labor Relations Act guaranteeing workers the right to collectively bargain.
Opposed US entry into World War II to fight fascism.
Traded with the Nazis during the war.
Noteworthy cheap-labor conservatives trading with the enemy included Henry Ford and one Prescott Bush, father and grandfather to two Presidents.
Opposed the GI Bill of Rights. Opposed creation of the United Nations.
Opposed the Marshall Plan.
Opposed FHA Mortgages.
Opposed the creation of Interstate Highways.
These had to be billed as the National Defense Interstate Highway System to get some of them to go along with it.
Opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Opposed the Civil Rights of 1964.
Opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Opposed Medicare.
Opposed food safety laws Opposed food labeling laws Opposed workplace safety laws Opposed the Freedom of Information Act Opposed the Morrill Land Act Grant (which created the big state universities--University of Michigan, University of Texas) Supported both overt and covert intervention, leading to the creation of right-wing dictatorships in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba , Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, the Phillippines, Indonesia and many others.
Supported the war in Vietnam including bombing them back to the stone age.
Supported covert and illegal air strikes against Cambodia.
Supported domestic surveillance of opponents of the war, civil right supporters and other dissidents who believed in things like equality and democracy.
Opposed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
Opposed the Equal Rights Amendment.
Opposed seatbelts and airbags Supported shifting the tax burden from the top to the middle, and the creation of massive deficits for the purpose of bankrupting the Federal Government.
Opposed the act creating family leave unpaid mind you.
Opposed and continue to oppose National Health Insurance.
Opposes environmental laws.

[melody]

2. Genuine conservatives or neocons? n/t

[T Wolf]

3. Either. And is there really any substantive difference?

I would assert that they are simply different degrees of the same obscenity that has plagued humanity forever.

[melody]

5. Definitely a difference

Firstly, and properly, "conservative" and "liberal" are adjectives. If someone is conservative, they are ... if they aren't, they aren't. All thinking people embrace a mixture of conservative and liberal ideas (in fact, most concepts are liberal or conservative based upon how you look at them).

Something isn't something because we call it by that name ... something is what it is because it has "liberal" or "conservative" attributes.

A "conservative" is merely someone who mistook the map for the territory. Just so, there are plenty of people I know who call themselves "liberal" who aren't.

[Armstead]

7. Great answer

Most people and societies are a mix of liberal and conservative attributes. The trick is finding a balance that works.

[melody]

10. well said n/t

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

11. Yes they are different

I have family who are *genuine* conservatives they hate Bush and the Neocons..

[izzie]

4. Just what they say they are conservatives

Sometimes it is good to think a while before you get rid of old things and ways. One always should try and conserve the good and drag it into modern days. By slowing things down we sometimes have time to think more what we are doing. I do not think we are fighting Conservative but laissez faire capitalists. It is not the same group of people or thinking, or I do not think they are.

[Demeter]

6. Compost?

And lots of rebellious Liberal offspring!

[RandomKoolzip]

8. They'll, of course, say 'The defeat of Communism."

And, of course, they'll say "it's not the government's job to contribute to the world."

Just WHAT the government's "job" is, in the minds of conservatives, is never really explained. All they know is that they both HATE "government" and LOVE being elected/bribed into becoming part of it.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

13. My family give me insight into this

"Just WHAT the government's "job" is, in the minds of conservatives, is never really explained."

I asked this at my last family reunion of my Brother who said

'to do the minimal amount of regulation required to maintain social order at the federal level and to let states decide what they want from there'

Again my Bro is conservative, not a neocon...

[RandomKoolzip]

14. So why do so many of them want to get into national politics?

So they can vote, lobby, and harangue themselves out of their own jobs? Get appointed to some position where they can do a deliberately ineffective job so that they can prove they were right about the ineffectiveness of government all along?

And, of course, everyone has different notions of "social order," too. Most republicans seem to think a social lockdown, severely abridging most civil rights - but a free-for-all with regard to weaponry and financial exploitation - is a dandy definition of "social order."

So, like, how does your brother view the expansion of "homeland security" under Bush 2?

[Renew Deal]

9. There is no such thing as conservatism.

So the answer is nothing these days.

[rucky]

12. The "Do Not Call" list?

I know I keep coming back to it, but it's their only achievement on record.