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The Telegraph illustrates what "conservative" used to mean [1]
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Date: 2023-03-16
The UK’s Telegraph, which is right-leaning for the UK has an interesting article about heat pumps with conservative take worth considering (if not necessarily agreeing with):
www.telegraph.co.uk/…
This is the old school of conservatism: acknowledge the reality of a social problem, point out the potential drawbacks of the current favored government solution,and suggest looking at an alternative. That kind of content-focused critique is useful because it surfaces actual problems that can be solved either by taking a different course of action or modulating the current course of action. In engineering we value this kind of open debate because it gets you to a solution faster.
The author and/or Bosch may turn out to be wrong about the demerits of electric heat pump heating and very likely are pollyannaish about hydrogen. And as in engineering, all too often that “let’s look at alternatives” point of view can serve as an excuse for inaction. But looking at whether heat pumps are really the best solution for decarbonizing homes is a discussion worth having there, as it is on our side of the pond.
I’m certainly not here to defend American paleoconservatism, rife as it was with racism, paranoia and red-baiting, and irrationally devoted to the free-market fairy (I mean really, how many abuses does that free market fairy have to deliver before conservatives finally break up with it?).
I do however think that there needs to be room in the political debates for “this government approach won’t work the way you think it will”. In some areas we progressives have made room for that debate ourselves. As an example, I credit DK with helping guide progressives towards much more open debates about foreign policy and US military power.
On other issues, it’s much harder to have that discussion. Is it really a good idea to drop the “woman” from “pregnant woman” in favor of “pregnant people”? Pregnancy and “woman” have been deeply linked concepts for most of human existence, and reflect elements of living as a woman (i.e. interrelated gender and sexual identities) that actually shape the lives of the vast majority of women who live now. I say all this as someone who thinks people outside the “traditional” formats of gender and sexuality absolutely must be included and have full participation in a just society. I just have serious, honest doubts about whether changing all the lexicon around gender is truly the best way to go about it.
This to me is why we need a serious, open-minded conservative party. It is quite likely that the solutions progressives favor now have some serious drawbacks. In the interest of progress, we need a way to look at and discuss those drawbacks.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/16/2158559/-The-Telegraph-illustrates-what-conservative-used-to-mean
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