Thank you.
Those are definitely the ideals that I was raised on.
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Conservatism, by definition, is holding onto the past and traditions, shunning the new and unknown.
Like many other words in use today, it has been poisoned by its abuse and misuse to construe things that have little or nothing to do with its real meaning.
In politics today, it generally means right of centre, but not ultra right. The UK conservatives being a good example, but everything is drifting to the right.
Labour in the UK, the “left”,traditionally, is about where Conservatives were in the 70s and 80s. New Labour has left its socialist roots well behind and is “soft” Conservative today, whilst the Conservatives have drifted to nationalist views.
The US is much the same. There is no real left any more, you have right of centre Democrats and far right Republicans., then the ultra-right beyond them.
I’d say that in Germany, the CDU/CSU is almost as close to traditional conservatism that we have, AfD is ultra right, the rest more centre of left of centre, with the Linke the far left.
The diversity in German politics makes it impossible to compare directly with the US or the UK.
What I hate is the automatic assumption, that if I say something against what you hold dear (general you, not somebody specific from this thread), then I am automatically your enemy and automatically belong to the “other side”.
We see this with computing as well as in politics. If I say something bad about Windows, I am automatically a Mac fanboy. Yet if I say something against the Mac in the next sentence, I’ll be castigated by the Mac fanboys and denounced as a Windows fanboy.
As it happens, I use Windows, Mac and Linux, as well as iPhone and Android and, when one of them does something stupid, if the companies or groups behind them make a bad decision, I’ll point that out. That is, usually, constructive criticism and being open minded, but so many people assimilate themselves with their favourite company or product, that they feel any critiscism of that product, whether it is grounded or not, is a personal attack on them.
I’ve never understood this thinking. As a fan of a product or company you should be the first on the barricades, when they do something wrong.
The same should hold for politics. Just look at the mask scandal in the CDU/CSU This week. The party didn’t try and protect them or hush it up, the people involved were left out in the cold and pretty much forced to resign, the party went on the offensive and stated that profiting off the pandemic is unacceptable, anyone who has done so should resign and all other members of Parliament in the party must sign a declaration, that they were not involved in any profiteering.
In America, I very much doubt that a politician would be expelled for taking lobbying money or campaign funds for securing a deal with the government for a friend or company.
The UK certainly hasn’t, with several contracts handed out to good friends with no experience in the relevant fields - supplying masks and running the test and trace program, for example. None of the politicians have been forced to resign. 20-30 years ago, they would have been out on their ears, the press would have had a field day, but it gets a bit of traction on social media, but the mainstream press ignored it, going after a royal “scandal” instead of the government wasting billions of pounds.
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Oh, and welcome to the forums. 
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I wonder whether @Leo would consider adding a Politics sub-forum in the General Discussion section of this board? Upsides: whenever a discussion turns from mostly tech to too political, it could be directed+closed/moved there. That way most people who hate politics can see less of it if they don’t check out that particular sub-forum if the forum could be configured to keep posts there off the start page.
Might not be his or TWiTs wheelhouse, but then again, many, many panels turn political through their individual episode, too. Plus, politics should not be a bad thing. Politics is not about politicians, but about people. If it is considered a bad thing, it’s being done wrong. Let’s make this better.
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I probably shouldn’t have questioned @ExperiencedNovice but when you START your post with a political call out such as “I am a conservative” and call yourself “Doug Ford” you know what your goals are, and they were not just “all about the tech.” But I agree, that in general, the discussions here should tend toward remaining all about the tech at the risk of driving people away if it gets too deeply in the political weeds.
With regards to Facebook birthdays, I tried an experiment where I would change my birthdate in Facebook every couple of months. It was interesting watching those that wished me happy birthday every time versus those that realised something screwy was going on.
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That would be a great idea, but I don’t think it will happen. The reason being that inevitably you would get to the point where civil discussions wouldn’t be going on. I wouldn’t want a political forum here. My point was about trying to look at things from an unbiased nature. I really like how you talked about the Windows Mac tribes. That is very similar. People can be nuanced and like more than one thing or can be critical of the tribe they are in. There is a very good book by Sebastian Junger called Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging about why we as humans gravitate towards “tribes”. If you have time I definitely recommend it.
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I was starting out my post that way so that people could understand where my point of view would be coming from. I have no ulterior motives, despite what you might think. Again, my goal was to call attention to the fact that journalist who are supposed to look at things through an unbiased point of view, were not. That is all. And yes, my name is Doug Ford. My full name is Douglas Allen Ford. I do not know if you are in Canada or not, but I am no relation to the Doug Ford in Canadian politics. That is what I am assuming you meant by " and you call yourself “Doug Ford”.
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Well, I would pity you if you were not a conservative. The Canadian Doug Ford is about as big of an idiot as they come… but in that regard he compares well to the former president.
You couldn’t be farther from the truth in regards to US politics. The Democrats are moving to the far left. Some of them even call themselves socialists now. There is no way John F. Kennedy would be a Democrat today. There are policies that Bernie Sanders was alone on in the Obama years that almost every Democrat supports today. Maybe the Republicans are moving more to the right as well. It’s harder for me to see that as clearly because that’s the side I’m on.
The trumplicans forced the pendulum that way.
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When I had facebook, I used that as a way to see who really gave a crap about me. Never used my real birthday. Smh. So many happy birthdays from people that supposedly knew me well and cared about me.
Off topic: I do not like getting text saying “happy ((insert holiday of the month))” and not even mention my name. All they did was send a mass message to their contact list. Once, I replied with a thank you, knowing it was a mass message, and got a reply from the original sender “who this?” 
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Until you understand why Trump was elected in the first place this discussion is pointless. Especially if think the right drove the Democrats to socialism.
Leo wouldn’t consider adding a politics sub form. He wants this community to be about tech and not politics. There are plenty of other places to talk politics.
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