Welcome to YUROP
The Ultimate Eurozone of Culture, Chaos, and Continental Excellence
A glorious gathering place to celebrate (and lovingly roast) the lands, peoples, quirks, and contradictions of Her Most Magnificent Europa. From the fjords to the Med, the steppes to the Atlantic spray, this is a shrine to everything that makes Europe gloriously weird, wonderfully diverse, and occasionally passive-aggressive in 24 languages.
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πͺπΊ The progressive Union of Peace (and paperwork)
π§ The freest of health care
π· The finest of foods
π³οΈβπ The liberalest of liberties
π The proud non-members and honorary cousins
πΆ And the eternal dance of unity, confusion, and cultural banter.
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Leave your stereotypes at the border control and enjoy the ride.
Welfare is a given in Europe. Now, ask him what he thinks about _ Putin, immigration, role of Bruxelles and the EU commision, AfD. Now, don't do that, but to give you an idea, most far right parties are using the healthcare card with nationalistic tones.
I was talking to a Polish friend about Polish politics. He said in Poland, like in the US, they had both conservative and liberal parties - but that the topics for debate were different. In Poland, the conservatives agreed with the liberals on things like healthcare funding, supporting higher education, and funding transit projects. All these things were non-issues in Polish politics.
"Well," says I, "Then I'm confused. If the conservatives and liberals agree on all those things, then what makes them different? What makes the conservatives, conservative?"
"Ah, you see," he says, "They're racist. That's the whole thing - they're just racist."
Ah, you see," he says, "They're racist. That's the whole thing - they're just racist."
That's fundamentally the same everywhere, much the same in Australia but to an extent only part of the story
Gets fuzzier around womens, LBQTI rights, lot of religious shit baggery there, as there is in Poland, Hungary etc
They don't want universal healthcare in the US because brown skinned people might use it.
I'm convinced the reason the US doesn't have universal anything is because "but the blacks would get it."
That's honestly it. Right wing Americans don't want other people to get access to things. They think rights are a pie. If 'they' get a slice, I'll end up with less of it. Rather it's actually a bakery... You pay into it and you just get pie.
No they want to grow the pie, but just for themselves.
They want the whole pie to themselves.
The idea of sharing is the problem. Conservatism is an "All for me" mentality.
Historically, yes. But in 2026, if you think that you better hide it. Even in MAGA crowds, although there it can be less well hidden.
In eastern Europe there isn't really centuries of troubled race relations to look back at, so you might just hear "all blacks out".
Now it's hidden as consumer choice or something.
Or actually everyone else is discriminating against whites somehow, or vague "cultural identity" which is definitely about being white, but they have the one brown person as their spokesperson so they can deny it. Dog whistles will probably be everywhere, but if one in specific is pointed out it was "a mistake".
There's a few tricks, and enough racists kicking around they get used a lot. But yeah, you'll never see the actual thing come out completely in any public forum, or even causally with other white people who might not be in the club.
"Healthcare funding, supporting higher education, and funding transit projects [unless you're a foreigner]"
Now ask him if Christianity should play an official role in the German government. Or if he objects to people practicing cultures other than German in Germany. Both of those would be radically far-right in North America, but are pretty standard in Europe.
What's going on here is that people tend to arrange themselves along a left-to-right line, but where exactly in the multidimensional space of viewpoints that line cuts through varies dramatically between times and places. It even inverts - your Prussian conservative would have taken a much dimmer view of free markets than a contemporary to their political left.
You're full of shit. Those things are very far right in Europe.
Also, remind me what's written on the american Dollar, or what the north american anglosphere has to say about Quebec's secularism?
In god we trust was added by the American right during the frenzy of the 1950's, with the argument was that it doesn't specify which god, so it's okay. Like, there are factions there, and to a degree in Canada that want to make it official, but they're kind of radical.
Separation of church and state is in the US constitution, even if they've always thought of themselves as a Christian nation. This is because it was founded by the day's radical left. Meanwhile, the German conservative might vote CDU.
or what the north american anglosphere has to say about Quebecβs secularism?
Nobody has a bad word to say about the quiet revolution, actually.
There was a bill written about Muslims and hijabs specifically, which was unpopular and deemed illegal. And then a bunch of similar bills but with "no oversized crosses" added on. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
Which goes back to the thing about multiculturalism. In Anglo Canada the mainstream debate literally is whether less integration is always better (postnationalism), or if there's some kind of common Canadian identity that you should have even if you're Muslim and speak Arabic at home.
My mental model of the right-left dichotomy:
Anything more complex and the labels hit their limits.
I don't know. I mean, it's pretty easy to find uncontroversial evil people on the left as well. Jim Jones had some pioneering takes on racial harmony, and did not get along with the right of his day. Or cynical people on the left - ask Lemmy about if climate change is going to kill all humans in the next few decades.
The term itself comes from the French revolution, with the revolutionaries sitting on the left. Since then, you've had ship of Theseus things happen where a classical liberal might end up on the right, because they follow a chain of intellectual forerunners tracing back to someone opposing the French revolution. In other cases some kind of analogy is made, like the Japanese wartime government being right-wing because many of the dynamics were shared with the European right of the day. Or how Cato the Elder was "conservative" because he promoted a traditional way of life, even if that tradition was being bi and not reading.
All in all, left and right might be great names, because they're directions that always exist but depend completely on where you're standing.
I think a better one is acceptance of change.
Sometimes change is good, sometimes the world is not ready. I think this aligns closely with "cynical" and "naΓ―ve" but just makes it more abstract.
Prost!
That's because "conservative" isn't an ideology, and it never has been. Conservativism has two core beliefs: "conservatives" refers to a specific group of people defined by common traits, and those are the good people. Each tranche of conservatives defines their own identity, and then they define whatever they want as "conservative values."
This German guy on the train probably is very conservative. He is not more progressive than an American conservative. He has simply defined his group of conservatives to include the people who benefit from universal healthcare. He sees the value to his own group, and so he supports it.
I really don't think this is an accurate description of what an average ageing conservative German is.
Conservative means what it means - people who want to conserve rather than change, and are comfortable with how things are and, in their opinion, have always been. It's a naΓ―ve world view based on a lacking understanding of how society changes. The people who hold it tend to be of privileged groups who can afford to be blind to injustice. That doesn't mean they are fans of it - their privilege has just left them with a blind spot, and when injustice is pointed out to them they tend to blame those showing it to them for creating it in the first place. Again, they are not brilliant people, but they're generally not evil, just a bit dumb.
When American self-proclaimed conservatives storm the Capitol building and make an active effort to fuck up their country as much as humanly possible they are not conservative in the same way some GΓΌnther riding the Deutsche Bahn is conservative. Similarly, I'm not a socialist in the same way Pol Pot was a socialist.
American fascists have intentionally stripped the word "conservative" of meaning, and if we accept their narrative we allow them to make us dumber.
I'm not saying CDU and CSU are brilliant parties, but the fundamental idea of German conservitivism is not the idea of "conservatives" as a select group of people for which society should work. If anything this is a description of populism.
Itβs a naΓ―ve world view based on a lacking understanding of how society changes
Or they dislike how things have changed. Like the Ron Paul types who think medical costs, housing bubbles, university prices, etc.. are due to government interference and control of the money supply. Theres a lot of believers in austrian economics as well, and they arent unsympathetic to the poor, they just believe the good things in society are due to technological progress and overwhelmingly more bad things due to government involvement.
Which isnt illogical or crazy, its very probable. Its also very probably we need more government intervention. In the end there are far too many variables to be definitive, and our economy isnt flexible enough to even change, as every tweak rewards one group and punishes another. Which I think is why we have bailouts after every recession, attempting to quell changes to the status quo and existing wealth distribution, which then leads to further moral hazard.
I'd also say many people think we can simply take money from the wealthy and distribute it with no side effects, without taking into account the velocity of money or interest rates. If you taxed the rich 90% and distributed it you'd obviously have massive inflation, rising interest rates, and people with a mortgage would default like they did during the Volcker shock. We arent on the gold standard, fiat moneys value is dynamic, the wealthy are only nominally wealthy given the current velocity of money.
I feel like this is a good attempt at a description of what conservatism is, but I'd like to share my own - conservatism is the natural political philosophy of people living in danger and scarcity.
Hence -
And of course, the conservative response is driven by belief, not reality. So if someone believes that the world is dangerous and their way of life is precarious, they will quickly adopt conservative attitudes. So it doesn't matter if you yourself are actually safe and your way of life is quite robust - if you get sucked into a fearmongering news cycle, you can become conservative.
Interesting thoughts. Though I'd be curious whether its just an ebb and flow of economic cycles that change peoples political leanings. Such as growing debts and a debt crisis from a progressive governments leading to the pendulum swinging right, and then a period of muted growth and feelings of inequality lead to the pendulum swinging left. Not counting modern republicans as conservatives here of course.
What happened in the 60s and 70s to turn a large number of "great society" voters towards Reaganomics?
They'd also be able to express how they believe an immigrant doesn't deserve healthcare. Either that they deserve the healthcare of their homecountry, or that they aren't a part of 'everyone', be that German, or otherwise.
Without any congitive dissonance.
Another take is that they believe in inherit hierarchy that must be conserved.
In this situation, being German is very high on the ladder, so even if they accept immigrants, they would only do so because there are plenty of foreigners that would be lower.
Itβs less about where you draw the exclusion line, and more about that their entire worldview is a pyramid in which only a few groups can have a good life if that is built on the shoulders of a larger, lower group.
This is why itβs not about healthcare, itβs about equality. Even if you convince them that everyone deserves healthcare, they would automatically believe that since they are in the top group, they have to get a better kind of healthcare.
This is also why they would never see someone that is fully integrated as true Germans, cause even within the top group, there is a structure.
And of course, their worse fear is being in the bottom group.
Conservatism is an ideology, and has been one since the time of the French Revolution.
Given that this is Germany, I think you'd get a pretty conservative answer if you were to ask him if we should support the genocide in Palestine. But then, if you'd ask this to Die Linke members early on in the genocide you'd get the same answers, so not sure what this says about the conservative. Germans and genocide, name a more iconic duo.
Okay so out to the people here, am I a conservative based on the following information?
Things I like: Free healthcare, pro-choice, strong military, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, properly vetted immigration, freedom of speech/religion/belief SO LONG AS it doesn't hurt/oppress anyone, free trade, higher taxes on wealthier people irrespective of whether their wealth is cash or assets, SENSIBLE gun control, investment in education/science, capital punishment in very rare circumstances, lower taxes if possible, environmentally conscious decisions, nuclear power.
I have always considered myself a conservative, though I have been voting Liberal. I just can't stand that little shit stain running the Conservative party in my country.
If they have you convinced that's conservative, they've fooled you.
Why do you consider yourself a conservative if you don't actually support the goals of the conservative movement?
There is a reason "liberals" are strawmanned as wanting free open borders to let in rapists and drug dealers, and then to actively protect the rapists and drug dealers in lawless sanctuary cities.
It's often the only thing left for "conservatives" to find viscerally disagreeable.
INB4 someone chimes in saying: "I DO want no borders and no restrictions whatsoever".
Progressive.
Labels are useless as their meanings keep changing across time and contexts, and as soon as you adapt one for yourself people will either resent you for your choice of label or for not being holy enough (you're a progressive but you believe people should be allowed to own guns and you honestly think free trade isn't killing the planet and you believe in death penalty? Blah blah blah).
It's more useful to think in terms of ideological cleavages. On the scale of authoritarianism to personal freedoms you believe in LGBTQ+ and women's rights to control their own bodies. Properly vetted immigration could mean many things but is generally indicative of being on the right. Believing in death penalty and emphasizong strong military further pushes you to the right on this scale. Sounds like somewhere centre right on that dimension.
Along the economic dimension you believe in taxing the rich and providing universal welfare, placing you left of centre. "Lower taxes if possible" I guess then goes for low income folks, and is very much in line with taxing the rich in a society like the US - the "if possible" is key, as it seems you're willing to prioritize the wellbeing of your neighbours. Investment in education and science is also left on this dimension.
Another useful dimension is secular/religious, where you appear to be pretty secular. I guess that explains your opinions about abortion and LGBTQ+ in spite of being more on the authoritarian spectrum, as the religious parts of conservativism seems less important to you.
If the word "conservative" hadn't been ruined I'd say you're closer to a conservative than a progressive. But in the political climate of current-day America I guess you're a dangerous far-left radical.
Centrist
Luckily for the rest of the world noone cares what would count as far radical left in dumbfuckistan.