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Comment by Georgelemental | Hacker News Reader

No, that's libertarianism. Libertarianism and conservatism often overlap, especially in the US (which has a long tradition of limited gov't to conserve), but are not the same thing.

As a self-identified conservative, if I had to give as short a summary as possible of what it means to me: we (US, other developed nations) have a pretty good thing going. The least well off 10% here live better lives than the top 10% of a large number of places. That didn't happen by magic or accident, it happened because the people who preceded ud, over centuries of history, made some very good choices. We should figure out what they did right, and then keep doing it.

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> The least well off 10% here live better lives than the top 10% of a large number of places.

You're absolutely blind if you think that. Tell me, in what place do the top 10% live worse life than the bottom 10% in the USA? Keep in mind, the bottom decile of income in the USA is $10k/year - think about how a person that earns that lives.

> the bottom decile of income in the USA is $10k/year

That's before taxes and transfers. It's much more than that once you account for them.

Meanwhile, around 50% of the world's households make less than $10,000/yr: https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo...

1. Now try to figure out how well people can live on $10k a year in most places.

2. We're talking about comparing with the top 10%. Try to follow the context before replying.

>> We should figure out what they did right, and then keep doing it.

Slavery, settler colonialism modulo a bit of indigenous genocide, toppling democracies and supporting dictators all over the place, exploiting the natural world until it cried "mommy" and then keeping at it until we now have a gigantic environmental and climate crisis, and let's not forget investing more than anyone else on the world's most powerful military which was then used to invade agrarian societies armed with their grandparents' hand-me-down pea-shooters, and of course dropping two atom bombs and killing a couple hundred civilians in one of the worst atrocities of the worst war in history just to show who's boss.

etc etc etc.

Edit: as a matter of fact, the US did get something very right that everyone else keeps getting wrong: it invested in human capital by keeping its borders relatively open during at least some periods of time, so that people could keep coming in that eventually became the most dynamic sections of society. Very few others have done that, and almost nobody got it as right as the US. And yet, it is the "conservatives" today in the US that try their damnedest to kick the door shut against the windfall of human capital that keeps dropping in their lap, even as they keep outsourcing the US' most productive industries to one of its biggest competitors, China. That's not conservative, it's reactionary and completely idiotic to boot.

>and of course dropping two atom bombs and killing a couple hundred civilians in one of the worst atrocities of the worst war in history just to show who's boss.

It'd be helpful if you read about historical events before adopting an opinion on them:

https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-Invasion/...

I read the blurb on the page you linked me to and I don't understand why you say that. Could you please clarify why you linked me to that book so I don't have to guess?

It’s quite easy to get a summary of a book. Open minds create futures.

Giangreco's book explains why what you said isn't correct.

I said a few things, as you quoted from my comment:

>and of course dropping two atom bombs and killing a couple hundred civilians in one of the worst atrocities of the worst war in history just to show who's boss.

Is the book saying that:

a) two atom bombs were not dropped,

b) that they didn't kill a couple hundred civilians,

c) that it wasn't one of the worst atrocities in WWII,

d) that WWII was not one of the worst wars in history, or

e) that it didn't show how's boss?

or all of the above? To be honest I can't see any of the points above discussed in the summary of the book on Amazon. Explain?

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