Failed Conservative Values: Dona Ridgeway on Authoritarianism

Written by: Edwin Rutsch on Jun 24, 2008 12:59 PM EDT

 Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens --and real diseases are useful material.
Susan Sontag

Donna Ridgeway is a blogger living in the Santa Cruz, California area. She was raised republican and was in the military, but then started questioning.   She says the Failed Conservative Value is authoritarianism, it's a lose lose situation because if the authoritarian fails, everything fails. However she sees a lot of problems with progressives as well. There's a lot of egos with progressives and herding cats is hard.

Failed Conservative Values: Dona Ridgeway - it's Authoritarianism

 My name is Donna Ridgeway.  I live in the Santa Cruz area.  I’m a blogger.  I go by the name of Momma Donna on all my sites.

Conservative values to me are one of conservation.  We are conserving and learning from the past, planning for the future, and living in the present.  That’s a good conservative to me.

Edwin:  And that would be what present conservatives are?

 Donna:  Well, I’m not sure where a present conservative is.  I think there are a lot of people that cloak themselves in that kind of multi-colored coat, but they each have their own flavor of conservatism.  From what I can see now, they are spreading into the military conservative -- strength, power, progress through power, Pax Americana. 

Economic conservatism, which I believe in, which is a good thing to go for, and then social conservatism, which I think are a bunch of really not very knowledgeable people.  They aren’t really into going out and finding out new facts about life.

 No authority is higher than reality.  Peter Nivio Zarlenga

Edwin:  And what are their values, the social conservatives?

 Donna:  Again, there are many flavors of it, and it all depends on what group they are powerful in.  Basically, I think it has a lot to do with power over women’s bodies.  For some reason, they just have an absolute anal fixation on power over women’s productive parts. 

Not men.  They never concern themselves with sperm, which to me is very unusual, since it takes two.  They are always concerned about women and the egg -- what happens to the egg.  Who handles the egg.  Where it goes.  Everything.

They believe that their way is Daddy knows Best.  And if anything fails, that’s because you didn’t follow my plan.  You didn’t follow through. 

It’s all in perception.  Once you have authority over something, that means that you have to be completely responsible and accountable for it.  It – whatever you have authority over – has no power of its own.  All the power rests in the authoritarian.  If the authoritarian fails, everything fails.  It’s a lose-lose situation.

Believe it or not, I was raised Republican.  First of all, my father, he was a good Goldwater Republican.  We had many talks about it.  I felt the need as a good soldier, daughter, to be a Republican.

When I grew up, I went into the service, and I was very, very conservative.  And all of a sudden, I started learning.  I started becoming an adult.  I started questioning things.  I started looking out into the world. 

Slowly, I went toward the Democratic Party.  And I registered with the Democratic Party, and I thought it was a pretty good plan.  And two or three years ago, when the Democratic Leaders Council took over the running of the Democratic Party, I felt they had nothing more for me.  They were just like the Republican Party.  So I went independent.

Edwin:  How about the progressive movement?  What do you feel about them?

 Donna:  I watched it.  I walked across the United States with the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986.  We were probably on the cutting edge of progressive at that time, although it was never called progressive.  We were called a bunch of weirdoes walking across the United States.

I’m kind of disappointed in the progressive movement right now.  They are very scattered.  There are still egos involved.  It’s very localized.  I call it the big fish and the little pond syndrome.

The ideas are wonderful, but there is no cohesiveness to it.  Herding cats is hard.  Consensus is hard.  Once they get past this ego-bound consensus-building kind of thing, maybe it will show light into the mainstream

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality. 
Theodor W. Adorno 

  

Definition Authoritarian and Decidership

 - a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

- A form of government distinguished by absolute power in the executive branch of a state and little legislative or judicial control over the executive branch; the power rests generally on coercive force, rather than on the popular assembly.

- favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom.

- exercising complete or almost complete control over the will of another or of others:

- a person who favors or acts according to authoritarian principles.

Authoritarianism at Wikipedia
Authoritarianism describes a form of social control characterized by strict obedience to the authority of a state or organization, often maintaining and enforcing control through the use of oppressive measure. Authoritarian regimes are generally considered to be highly hierarchical.

In an authoritarian form of government, citizens are subject to state authority in many aspects of their lives, including many matters that other political philosophies would see as erosion of civil liberties and freedom.............

Some Questions for Discussion:
   - Is authoritarianism a Failed Conservative Value?

   - What are your thoughts  and questions about authoritarianism?

   - Why does authoritarianism fail?

   - Do you have any stories or experiences with conservative authoritarianism?

   - What are examples of conservative authoritarianism?

  - Conservatives  accuse progressives of being authoritarian because they want to use the power of the government to change things. How do you answer that accusation?

Failed Conservative Values
Assist us  in systematically building the arguments and telling the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing  articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project. 

See more Progressive Values Stories:

Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
http://ProgressiveSpirit.com 
and Study Group

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