Talk:Conservative values

Should be something regarding the importance of faith/religion here. Also, family.--RossC 10:49, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Come on would you, there is no way you can say that Conservative Values cure mental illness, I'm deleteing it. 15:01, TinkyWinky 15:02, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I meant the statement, not the article, anyway I just did, revert it if you like, but that won't make the lack of refs any less conspicuous. TinkyWinky 15:04, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Maybe you'd want to tell me how you can make such bizzare claims without a proper source. Go see the CP commandment about references. TinkyWinky 15:07, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Your spelling is atrocious, and no one said that conservative values "cure" mental illness. But they help.--Aschlafly 15:08, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Perhaps I should utilise less colloquial vernaculars from my native idiom henceforth, Mr. Schlafly. You have only slightly diminished the gravity of your claims (yes you authored this article). Claiming that conservative values "help" mental illness is still a sufficiently serious claim to warrant a demand for references. TinkyWinky 15:14, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

This isn't funny any more, I will get rid of that statement for the sake of accuracy if someone does not find sources. You are breaking the commandment about sourcing statements. You're sysops. Set a good e*ample MichaelC 16:10, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Andy, in that new list, "mental disorders" at the end is somewhat redundant, given that most everything else in the list meets that description. Perhaps you might say "other mental disorders". More importantly, just like on the addiction page, you should cite the research that you're referring to in drawing those conclusions. I did some searching but couldn't find anything; however, I imagine that you must have something that you haven't had the chance to add to the article yet. Murray 22:38, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm not sure that addiction, anxiety and depression are classified as "mental disorders," but I'm make your change. As to support, we've seen some already in a few news items on the front page about correlations between mental problems or stress and political views. This entry is new today and I welcome citations, and will add some myself. Thanks.--Aschlafly 23:35, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm sure they are, they're all in the DSM (addiction = dependence). Unless you meant, as far as anxiety and depression are concerned, symptoms that don't meet diagnostic criteria. As to support, I will look forward to your citations. As I mentioned I searched but did not find any research on the topic, supportive or otherwise. Murray 23:56, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

How about "to help us understand the benefits of traditional family values"? WilliamH 23:52, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I don't think "conservative values" are synonymous with "traditional family values," although there is some overlap. Someone from a divorced home, or abandoned altogether (as famous conservative orphans were), can just as easily benefit from conservative values.--Aschlafly 00:02, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

I agree, I actually meant to add it in the part at the bottom, where it lists some of the results for embracing conservative values. Basically to say that one of the good things it does is lead us to other good things (if possible). WilliamH 00:17, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

A Change maybe

This "giving primacy to God's creation and God's law in judging all worldly matters" Should perhaps be removed as not all conservatives are christian/deists. AdenJ 06:24, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Christians are not the only ones who give primacy to God's laws.--Aschlafly 20:34, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

But they are the only ones with faith, right? How can we reconcile this?AliceBG 20:37, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Indeed that is true but not all conservatives do and some liberals are christians AdenJ 21:07, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Citations

There are still no citations for the claims about conservative values "defending against" addiction, etc. The one cite (and really the study itself should be cited, rather than The Economist) only speaks to stress, and only includes white Protestants, so is probably not particularly representative of either group (conservatives or, especially, liberals). Murray 20:55, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Sigh...I suppose I should let it go at this point but none of those citations actually provide any evidence about the points they're attached to. The first 2 are merely assertions. Stress does not equal anxiety. A person's self-report of whether they have good mental health, regardless of its reliability, tells us little about serious mental illness, a phrase which refers to such disorders as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Murray 21:58, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Murray, you seemed determined to deny any correlation. Do you really think there is no correlation at all'? Mormons and Muslims prohibit alcohol and ... guess what? There is less incidence of alcoholism among those groups. Please do tell us you deny that also.--Aschlafly 22:41, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

When have I denied any correlation Andy? I would guess there is a very modest correlation that is the effect of religiosity (ie, control for that and your correlation will disappear). That is not the point, as a reading of my comments would make clear. You made a number of assertions that should be cited. I looked for citations for all of them and found nothing. Articles in an encyclopedia should be properly sourced, should they not? As I pointed out above, none of the citations that are included support the points they're attached to. That's not appropriate, in my view. Murray 11:01, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

See Also- Andy Schlafly

This looks like it was added by banned vandal DeanSa, perhaps as parody?

http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Conservative_values&diff=445782&oldid=445781

At the very least it should probably be changed to 'Andrew Schlafly'. FernoKlump 19:18, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

I don't mean to be a pain

I know you guys get your fair share of moaning against you, but I felt someone had to say something here. Do you really believe that conservatives are always right and liberals are always wrong? No set of ideas can hold the answer to everything. Its kind of sad that people choose to box themselves into corners, but this is perhaps indicative, that after been online for over a year, Conservapedia still has only a dozen or so contributors. Have you no shame, or sense of humiliation?

Wow, JEdgar, you are clueless. Try to figure out how to sign your edits first. And, yes, those who seek the truth are right far more often then those who don't.--Aschlafly 17:08, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

But Andy, you'd DON'T 'seek the truth'. You've decided you've already FOUND it, in full. --Gulik 17:25, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Wow, Gulik, you can even read minds! Now insist on last wordism as liberals do.--Aschlafly 17:30, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Its a bit juvenile to mock someone who doesn't know who to use this wiki software. And of course, resulting to mockery, an example of 'Liberal Style' according to this site. I've never seen hypocrisy at this fantastical level. Liberals don't seek the truth? So what do they do? Lie and 'ignore the truth'? Why would they do that? Is it possible for you to understand that two educated people can come to different conclusions on the way the government should be run and what should and what shouldn't be banned?

To sign your posts, do '--~~~~'. --Gulik 17:25, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

To Improve Credibility

Hello everyone. Seems like my modifications haven't been warmly welcomed, so I figured I'd strike up discussion as to why I think my edits are perfectly valid. I'll start with the list that conservative values are effective against:

There's no study, research, or form of evidence to show conservative values deter obesity (to my knowledge, and no decent reference was given in the article). There are many examples of obese conservatives, such as Republican entertainer Rush Limbaugh, to counter the single example given, Mike Huckabee. Therefore, I omitted it under the first commandment: Everything you post must be true and verifiable. The reference for anxiety linked to a premium article by The Economist, impossible to read without subscribing to the service, and therefore lacks as a reliable source for the public. Actually, now that I think about it, that doesn't really negate the points the article makes... I suppose I'll concede this one, but I do wish to emphasize that having further reference from one or more public sources would be in the best interest of verification.

Moving on, I went ahead and improved upon the other points, such as addiction, law-breaking, and added an example reference for wastefulness (CAGW). On the topic of mental health and happiness, I changed the references, so instead of links to WorldNetDaily and FOX News (which, let's face it, some people do not consider credible), the references linked directly to the data supporting the claims (Pew Research and Gallup). I doubt a liberal is going to argue against Gallup, though they would easily dismiss WorldNetDaily. In other words, I cut out the middle man to make the article appear, on its face, more credible across a broader spectrum of ideologies, even though the WorldNetDaily and FOX articles would eventually guide a user to the data anyway. More of a PR thing than anything else, but it also didn't hurt.

One thing I did outright omit was the following:

Conservative values are also helpful in recognizing and combating deceit. A conservative understands the many incentives by others to engage in deceit, and the political power that can result from such deceit. A conservative is often not surprised by the deception that fools others.

My reason for this is that while one may or may not argue this statement to be true, it's not really a value. I could see it being in the Conservative article or something, but I really feel it's irrelevant to conservative values. It's more like a conservative trait.

As far as this line is concerned:

• recognizing the media for its bias, bullying, deception.

This also seems more like a trait. After all, the Founding Fathers believed in the importance of the media for Government to function in a way that benefited the people. Ergo, it's not so much a value as it is an observation of today's media practices. Anyway, continuing down the list of modifications... I have no idea why I omitted this:

• emphasizing humility and open-mindedness instead of arrogant certainty about one's own views

It was like midnight or something when I made the edits. That's my bad. :P Another thing I changed was to combine wo similar points:

• emphasizing self-restraint against hurtful activities
• self-control as opposed to a self-indulgent search for instant gratification of desires

Into one:

• emphasizing self-restraint against hurtful activities or self-indulgence for instant gratification of desires

Since they're both related under the self-restraint/control concept. Having them separate seemed kind of redundant. As for my last change, I just reworded:

Conservative values are useful and powerful in combating common human weaknesses:

To:

Conservative values, when applied, can be useful in combating common human weaknesses:

Just to emphasize that these values do, in fact, have to be applied, though at the end of the day, the two sentences pretty much mean the same flippin' thing. Woo! So, while I self-reflected to make this discussion, I reversed my position on two points, but I hold my ground on the rest. :P Your guys' thoughts? -- Kazu 20:33, 12 May 2009 (EDT)