(Part 2) Top products from r/askaconservative

>Because unfortunately, conservative values build nations and liberal values tear them down

Give us one example, please.

> The job of the government is recorded in the Constitution.

Yes, but as Scalia wrote in his book, it's a matter of interpretation. It's a very informative book. I recommend you read it.

> Both sides have an agenda and that agenda is to inflate the well being of their supporters so that those supporters will continue to put them in power.

I agree. Who are the supporters and how do we take them down? Trump has made them all members of his cabinet.

This is devolving and becoming unhelpful to everyone. Tediously citing sources for every opinion is not helpful and often overburdens a social platform such as reddit. I'll finish off my thoughts here, but will leave you the last word if you want it.

• I listed infrastructure -- which would include utilities -- for you. We agree on utilities.
  
• The budget (https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=BUDGET&browsePath=Fiscal+Year+2018&isCollapsed=false&leafLevelBrowse=false&isDocumentResults=true&ycord=0) is 4 trillion dollars. Of that, the following i have stated would cost precious little:
  
  

• Military - 574.5B
  
• Energy - 28B
  
• DOJ - 27.7B
  
• Transportation - 16.2B
  
• TOTAL: 646.4B
  
  So, you see, that would be 16% of our current 4T budget. This is what I meant by the term "precious little".
  
  You seem to value citing papers, studies, and even an online course. I'll list some here to support my earlier claims.
  
  
• https://mises.org/library/myth-efficient-government-service
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465060730
  
• https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-herzog/why-83-of-us-government-m_b_173617.html
  
  

I’ll give you my favorite: The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

It’s a must read in my opinion. Long, but well worth it. Don’t waste your time with other books on the subject like “End the Fed” by Ron Paul. This book blows it out and is very comprehensive. It’s read like a story also, which makes it easy to read.

Also, take your pick from Mark Levin. I’d recommend picking any single one of his books that interest you.

A1:

I believe this is correct, but the part that complicates this matter is interstate commerce. There is a difference between a state dictating its regulations regarding health insurance companies and entirely preventing individual citizens from being a customer of an out-of-state insurance company that does not have the same regulations. The way I see it, it's the difference between being forced to work in the state in which you live and having the opportunity to, say, live in New Jersey and work in NYC.

A2:

Insurance companies would flock to states with the least amount of regulation, but that doesn't mean that only the lowest-covered plans with the lowest prices will be bought. It depends on what people want.

Let's say there's a state with no insurance regulations. Now, a company can offer a plan that includes pregnancy services, or it can offer a plan that does not include pregnancy services, based on the age and sex of the consumer. Obviously, the former would be more expensive, but it is up to the consumer to decide.

The issue is if you have regulations that dictate that every insurance company and plan must offer pregnancy services, that's an unnecessary cost to a husband and wife in their 50s.

B/C:

Yes, it would be very unpopular to offer a service for free to a specific group while forcing all others to pay for it, and then right the ship by having individuals be responsible for their own payments in order to increase efficiency and lower overall cost.

Regarding Canada, yes, it has "free" health care, but in socialized industries, either costs are high due to inefficiency or shortages are inevitable. So, when you see that costs are lower per capita in socialized health systems such as the one in Canada, there also exist absurd wait times because of said shortage. The average wait time in Canada is 47 weeks for neurosurgery, 38 weeks for orthopaedic surgery, 28.5 weeks for eye surgery, and 26 weeks for plastic surgery. The shortest wait time for a specialist is that for oncological services, and even that is a full month - quite a period when every treatment counts in the fight against cancer. (Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/healthcare-wait-times-hit-20-weeks-in-2016-report-1.3171718)

In addition to long wait times, health care shortages manifest as a shortage of capital and health care equipment. The US has at best a mockery of a market health care system. Yet, in 1992, compared per capita to Canada, we had 8x more MRI machines (Washington state had more MRI machines than all of Canada), 7x more radiation therapy units for cancer treatment, 6x more lithotripsy units, and 3x more open-heart surgery units (Source: Patient Power, by John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave). We've become more centrally planned since then regarding health care, yet still have 5x more MRI machines and 3x more CT scanners per capita (Source: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649).

Think about the fact that despite Canadians' "free" access to care, people are still choosing to go to another country to pay for medical services that would be free in their own country.
We all want lower costs, but the way to lower them is not to deny care for those who either legitimately need or are willing to pay for it. It is to decrease overconsumption on others' dime and increase supply and competition.

Of course, part of increasing supply includes increasing the number of doctors, but so long as the United States places caps on the number of residency positions available for medical school graduates, there won't be a significant increase in the supply of PCPs and specialists, at least for the near future.

Just to point out, many Conservatives would disagree that Austrian Economics and Ayn Rand's Objectivism are even remotely Conservative (this is more related to the Libertarian branch of the Republican Party and is more correctly labeled "Libertarianism"). That said, I hope that you don't leave your studies with the notion that Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand necessarily represent Conservatism, because they most certainly don't (but to be fair, they are Right-Wing).

I like that Russel Kirk was on your reading list. Since you've read The Conservative Mind, I'm sure that you've read about Edmund Burke. I'd recommend Reflections on the Revolution in France. Another good book you may want to check out is The North American High Tory Tradition by Ron Dart. These works represent Traditional Conservativism, of which Russel Kirk was included.

A few books

Reflections on the Revolution in France by Burke

The Law by Frédéric Bastiat

The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirke

The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek

The Righteous Mind by Haidt, not a conservative and not really a conservative book but interesting research by a social psychologist researching morality and it's impact on political opinions.

For websites, magazines, blogs

National Review not quite as good nor as influential as it once was in decades past but still worthwhile.

Instapundit blog by libertarian law professor Glenn Reynolds. Usually links to articles posted elsewhere with a bit of commentary.

I like the The American Interest. Walter Russell Mead is a self declared liberal editing a self declared centrist publication. But much of his writing consists of a critique of what he calls the "blue social model". At this point I think he's well on his way down the road to becoming a (moderate) conservative but just can't bring himself to call himself one.

> In a small community - say a village of 350 people - I would say 'Yes, we are all in this together and our collective success or failure is intertwined with one another and we must all contribute to helping each other by specializing in different things which together allow the best functioning society.

This is one of the many arguments for federalism, its why services should be supplied by states and local communities, the states can act as laboratories and people can move in and out of areas they favor.

> Capitalism measures success by the amount of money we have

No, capitalism doesnt measure anything, it is simply the economic system that allows individuals to exchange their goods or services as they see fit.

Dont anthropomorphize an economic system. Capitalism allows for taco bell to sell taco's at 2 for 99 cents and a Jackson Pollock artwork for a few hundred million dollars, it doesnt measure success.

I measure my personal success different than you do, it has nothing to do with an economic system.

> is a very difficult one when we get into details and I am unresolved in where I stand on it (where is the line drawn? Cue a reference to 'death panels'...).

All the more reason why putting a bureaucrat who does not care about you or even know you exist in charge of your health is such a bad idea.

> I am of the belief that our entire nation is stronger when we are looking out for each other.

I agree, but having the government forcing people at the point of a gun erodes the voluntary individual responsibility we have with each other. Looking out for eachother doesnt mean forcing one group of people to pay for another.

It is certainly not society's job to fill in the gaps where you have failed. It is your job to pick yourself up.

If you are actually genuine with your questions and actually want to learn I strongly recommend reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-Economy/dp/0465022529) I think it would help a lot with your understanding of economics.

Few would say that America isn't a part of Western Civilization, for the past half-century we've been at its helm, but we are certainly unique among the West in many respects. See here.

You may find this book interesting.

Is this the book you're talking about?

Ahem.

Don't have to. There's a whole book on the topic.

I don't think there is a copy of the book online. Here are reviews at Amazon.

Liberty and Tyranny, by Mark Levin.

Tomas Sowell is in my opinion the most eloquent conservative writer. I read a lot of his work that's published on the internet. The only book of his I've read personally is ["Economic Facts and Fallacies"] (http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Facts-Fallacies-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465022030). It puts together some good arguments on controversial economic issues.

From Russel Kirk's "Ten Conservative Principles" in the sidebar:

> Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.

One of the most fascinating books I've ever read is A Conflict of Visions by conservative economist Thomas Sowell. The main thesis is that the differences in conservatives and liberals beliefs boil down to a philosophical dispute about human nature. On the whole conservatives adhere to the "tragic" view of an inherently imperfect, greedy, violent mankind with impulses that need to be constrained by social institutions, social norms, and moral values. The stereotypical liberal, on the other hand, has an "unconstrained" and optimistic view of humanity in which human nature can be changed by an ideal arrangement of social structures they're always striving for. Highly recommended.

That book and those studies have been debunked so fucking hard over the years for having a cultural bias i cant believe you are actually citing it here. The tests would show people at tennis courts with pictures of A.) Tennis Rackets B.) Basketball C.) Baseball bat and ask which belongs. Obviously a middle class white kid will know to choose A. but what does a poor black kid who has never seen a tennis court choose.

Shit science from a shit scientist.