[dylan604]

> As the old saying goes, one becomes more Right/Conservative/Republican(?) the older they get.

Once again, I'm breaking molds. The older I get, the more liberal I get, at least with the current leanings of today's "conservative" party. Banning books is atrocious to me. Dictating women's health is insulting. Allowing businesses to be considered a person flabbergasts me. Knowingly denying scientific evidence on pollution is not only insulting to me but future generations. The list continues to go on that I honestly do not understand how just because one gets older they are supposed to suddenly think these things are okay.

[Dalewyn]

It makes sense if you don't use politically-motivated "definitions".

Conservative is defined[1] as:

>a: tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions

>b: marked by moderation or caution

>c: marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners

Liber/libre is the origin for words like liberal and liberty, meaning freedom. Liberal is defined[2] as:

>2 a: marked by generosity

>4: not literal or strict

>a: one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative

[2]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberal

While they might seem at odds (one observes tradition, the other does not necessarily), they are not mutually exclusive and there is significant political overlap in espousing moderation/caution and freedom ("generosity", "not strict", "open-minded"). Small government is the most obvious form of this overlap.

Conservatism for political contexts can thus be defined as a desire to exercise a minimum (and ideally no) enforcement of powers in order to protect and guarantee people's freedoms, and a general desire to oppose change unless a change can be demonstrably warranted.

As for the saying, the older we get the harder we are set in how we live and conduct ourselves. A man builds stronger and stronger ideals and an identity that defines what is good and evil as far as he is concerned. We become more conservative as we grow older.

[quantified]

Then conservatism is b.s. You'd think environmental conservation would be extremely conservative as it keeps things the way they are. But nope. The party of "individual freedom" is also the party of "don't let people do what they want in bed with consenting adults". It's a fairly arbitrary mix of policy positions adopted on each side, some in line with the principles and some contrary to.

[roenxi]

> I honestly do not understand how just because one gets older they are supposed to suddenly think these things are okay.

Well I don't think it is that they "become OK"; I suspect the effect is that at some point over the course of 40 years most people have the click moment where they start earning some money, realise that the politicians are willing to talk about what is in the news but not what actually matters, and start aligning based on economic incentives.

Picking on the US, the government makes up 40% of the economy, and it appears that an entire generation of capital formation just happened in China rather than in the Americas. All the stuff you listed is a concern, but I think there is a pretty good argument that the entire Trump phenomenon is the backlash against decades of fumbled economic policy that the corporate media has not effectively grappled.