Comments on: Taiwan gets a little bit more modern

By: Jade Oc

Jade Oc — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:41:30 +0000

Yes, I know what you mean, which is why I referred to the age of the LDP via the Seiyukai. Of course the two are connected – they’d need to be Conservative to vote for the Seiyukai, and conservative to keep doing do (so if they weren’t Conservative enough to vote for the Seiyukai in the first place they obviously wouldn’t keep doing so). I was basically wondering why the people of Kyoto vote for the commies when there are older parties – though perhaps the name changes of the others confuse them….

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:59:16 +0000

I mean conservative in the sense of temperament and tradition rather than left/right political leaning. As in, they are so conservative that they continue to vote for the long-failed Communists even when everyone else has moved on, because they’ve been voting for them for decades.

By: Jade Oc

Jade Oc — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:55:41 +0000

Hmm. Not knowing much about Kyoto politics, of course, but the LDp has its roots in the Seiyukai, and that has its roots in Japan’s first PM, so that strikes me as the conservative fallback. Mind you, the Seiyukai were the party of the landowners rather than the urban bourgeoisie, and perhaps the influx of manual workers into Kyoto, plus the universities, made it a hotbed of Communist thought and support.

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:47:19 +0000

Jade, on that note I had a professor once explain to me that the reason people in Kyoto still vote Communist is due to their inherent conservatism. It takes a moment of thought to wrap your head around: “this LDP is just a fad!”

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:42:48 +0000

By that definition, everybody has a little conservative in them. And for that matter, by the counterpoint definition of a liberal as someone who wants to irrationally change something that works for the sake of change itself, everybody also has a little liberal in them.

By: Aceface

Aceface — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:22:48 +0000

Tell that to the” Dankai”babyboomers here,Jade.

By: Jade Oc

Jade Oc — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:36:23 +0000

I once read that it is the ageing hippies that are the “true” conservatives as they have not changed their ideas to meet the times…..

By: Curzon

Curzon — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:34:26 +0000

“I may not exactly be in the habit of buying freshly slaughtered whole chickens at the market (or, for that matter, cooking) I am still mildly and inexplicably saddened at the fact that I will no longer have the opportunity should I once again live in Taiwan.”

And that, my friend, is how one becomes a conservative: irrational sadness in response to changes in tradition. Welcome aboard.