I think a large problem is... Manus, you don't even know what a conservative is.

For example... the Nazi's weren't conservatives.

Never mind the various Socalist and Communist guerillia groups... and well... of course Stalin is up there in that list.  Most people from central and south america would disagree that liberals are less prone to violence. 

oOf course you already know this but... it just doesn't fit your world views so you ignore it.  It gets old.  If you actually want to argue something, it's much more effective to do so in a manner that will actually be well... useful, and not make you look like an idealouge.

Otherwise, like most of your threads, people largely don't take you seriously.  Not even liberals.

The whole Bill O'Reily/Keith Olberman sticht works a lot better on TV.

So you understand the chart, the x axis address economic issues and the y axis addresses social issues.

Lets ask Webster what a conservative is:

Conservative - disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

Conservatives include communists, fascists, Republicans, Democrats, you name it, who want to limit change and preserve and/or restore traditional values.  On the table you provided, social conservatives occupy the authoritarian axis, that includes Thatcher, Stalin, and Hitler.  Not suprisingly Republicans also occupy the authoritarian category as do Democrats, though to a lesser extent.

Thus, Thatcher was a social conservative and economic liberal, while Hitler and Stalin were not economic liberals.  To be more specific, social conservatism is dangerous, while social and economic liberals are not (the combination of the two being libertarian).

And yes, the Nazis were conservatives, they wanted to restore German and Christian traditions, including the restoral of the German Reich (Nazi Germany being the Third Reich), and hatred towards Jews and other minority groups, among others.  Also, Nazis wanted to limit progressive change and, once they obtain power, wanted to prevent their being removed from power.

It's rather silly to call one who wants to radically change the government a conservative.

Regardless... you can't call someone who is authortarian yet not fiscally conservative a conservative.

Which is what that chart is showing actually.  Authortarianism... NOT being Conservative or Liberal socially.

Which is actually quite the mixed bag for our politicans currently.  Democrats are more authoritarian then Republicans on plenty of issues.

It's rather hard to argue Stalin WASN'T left wing in fact.  Since afterall the first stage of communism was a very brutal and authortarian regime.

Nor is it easy to argue that numerous guerillia groups in south america aren't liberal... or tons of guerillia groups... in plenty of places.  For example.  Chechnian sepratists.

Or in general if you want to use the Authortarian scale... there is always anrachist groups.

There is no real correlation like you would wish there is.

Social engineering is more dangerous, but you don't seem to bitch about it half as much.

Here's the same analysis method used for the 2008 US Presidential election.  Notice how conservatives (Republicans) are more authoritarian than than liberals (Democrats), Ron Paul being the only Republican outlier.

Conservatives want to radically change the government BACK to the way it was in the past, or the way they viewed the past, hence conservatism.  Also, this change limits the freedom of other individuals, including gays and non-Christians, so its socially conservative in that sense as well.

Authoritarianism is being socially conservative.  It includes every type of social issue of authoritarian decisions upon others, from Republicans not wanting to allow gays to visit their partners to Communists who want to keep the people from electing its leaders.  On the other hand, liberals promote personal freedoms.

They're not solid arguments either, but rather only make you look petty while trying to make your point.

As for your whole second paragraph, you're just exhibiting a selective memory, choosing to ignore threats and violence against conservatives.  You've invented a world for yourself where you and your ilk are infallible and have never done anything wrong.  You believe yourself to be a victim, demonize everyone who disagrees with you, and refuse to see logic when it is presented to you.

Here's some logic, let's see if you can follow it:  You claim that it is a majority of conservatives who commit acts of violence against liberals.  There are around 300 million people living in the US, and according to the most recent Gallup poll I could find approximately 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservative.  By your logic and doing the math, that means that there should be around more than 60 million (majority of those 40%) who systematically commit atrocities against liberals.  Funny, I must have missed the news reports of all those attacks.

Face it, the only people engaging in violent acts are fringe radicals who do not represent the values of either the rank and file of the movement/ideology, or its leadership.  You would not look at a few isolated crimes commited by a few black people and conclude that all black people are violent, would you?  Of course not, to do so would be racist.  For some reason though you have no problem reaching that exact conclusion in a nearly identical situation.

This reminds me of the 9/11 attacks when thousands of Palestinians were celebrating in the streets.  Those people weren't terrorists, but they came out to support Osama bin Laden.  Thats dangerous.  Know think of American conservatives, Republican President George Bush said that atheists shouldn't be citizens, if that isn't mainstream then I dont know what is.  Thats dangerous.

A vast majority of political acts of violence are done by conservatives.  Thats a fact.  Radical Islamic terrorists are conservative, the Christian militia that wanted to kill police officers for Jesus are conservative, the Tea Party and the Muslims website posting personal addresses so other could harm their enemies are conservative. 

As I stated above, there is only a small portion of conservatives who are willing to commit acts of violence, just as there is a small portion of Muslims who are willing to commit acts of violence (which I could reach by creating a statistic from the total population of conservative Muslims and the number of Islamic terrorists and coming out with a very low percentage of violence).  But that doesn't make their beliefs any less dangerous for society.

@Manus -

When you take the George HW Bush quote - and equate it to Saudi and Iranian ideologies, I must ask....If George H Bush took that stance, what became of it? Comparatively, when a leader takes such a stance in Iran or Saudi Arabia, what happens?

In the former, nothing happened. In the latter, everything happened. You know, we do live in a country that we have the freedom of speech. Its something that (apparently) you don't like when someone makes a statement contrary to your set of beliefs.

This thread started out talking about US conservatives, now you want move the goalposts and bring in radical islamists?  Whatever man, if that's what you need to do to feel secure in your belief.  Though, per your definition of conservative i.e. those seeking to maintain the status quo, todays Republicans/Libertarians don't even qualify since there are more than a few things about this administration/government that we want to change.  Unless of course you want to revise how you define conservatism, but now matter how you define it you'll find that you can't simply lump Republicans and Radical Islamists together ideologically.  To even attempt to do so is absurd.

As for my second highlighting, that's not what you said above, in fact it's exactly opposite what you said above.  I've taken the liberty of highlighting it in green in my quote stack so you can find it more easily.

edited for spelling.

Yeah uh...

A) Authoritarian =/= conservatism as has already been proven.

B) Authortitarian doesn't even correlate with this kind of violence.  There are tons of terrorist grooups that aren't Authoritarian, which you keep ignoring... because you know I'm right

C) Notice how the Republicans are all WELL below any kind of "dangerous" level of Authoritarianism.

D) There are just as many Authortiarian Democrat fringe groups ad republican ones... that's why they're you know... fringe groups.

E) There are plenty of threats and statements made by actual liberals.

Your whole arguement has been nothing but a poorly constructed house of cards from the get go.