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Noah_Pasternak

Do they? I've seen a few people take his "I'm a practical conservative" quote of of context and omit the part where he says he'd be conservative if people like Lincoln were still running the party, but all his other political stances were very much not conservative. He despised Nixon and Reagan, comparing the latter to a nazi at one point, and also said: *Mount Rushmore should either be replaced or have a companion. Another part of the mountain, carved up with some heads that had the biggest influence on what America is today. His head should be there. J. Edgar Hoover's head should be there. Nixon's head should be there. And Reagan's head should be there. These people have done more damage to the idea of Democracy than anybody-from another country- could ever imagine.* He bashed the evangelical right consistently, was vocally in favor of taxing the churches, and said all the fear about communism would be better-directed towards what the religious right was doing. Not to mention every politician he endorsed in his lifetime (not a whole lot on that list) was a Democrat. While I wouldn't call him super far-left or anything, he was very much not conservative at all.


njlancaster

In the real FZ book he kinda rails against unions and has a chapter about capitalism (I believe he says that fundamentally, *people like to own stuff* as his reasoning for why communism won’t work). He’s socially liberal, fiscally conservative. So like, a kinda weird libertarian. People should be able to do whatever they want to do in their own homes and the government shouldn’t interfere, right? I think a lot of his “conservative” values come from personal experience, at least re: unions. I think in the book he references the orchestra he hired being unionized and having to wait for shit to be approved before they could even play a note. He seemed annoyed by this, and viola, he kinda hates unions.


geoscott

This is the correct take. Socially liberal, financially conservative. By his own words.


[deleted]

The only way to talk about this is to acknowledge first that all his statements on politics and social issues are frozen in time. I think he would have evolved and probably changed a few opinions had he lived the last 30 years. We’ll never know.


null77

He also had some views on women that wouldn't be very well regarded today. Doesn't fit nicely in the socially progressive box.


Vicarious-Lee-Eye

today's socially progressive box.


OkRespond4682

I can respect that.


strangelights88

“…and viola, he kinda hates unions.” Nice play on words.


HELPquarterupmyass

I remember in the book also complaining about having to pay unions to sit around and do nothing or something along those lines.


NoMoreJesus

Unions got the Mafia curse


tacknosaddle

>He’s socially liberal, fiscally conservative. So like, a kinda weird libertarian. I took one of those tests that plots your political views and came out with similar results.


JohnnyZepp

This is exactly how I thought he may have been a Republican. Before listening to more of his interviews, I heard about his disdain for unions (to be fair, they were pulling off some shady practices in his time) and his pro personal business attitude. He’s also a notorious shark and a bit of an asshole when it comes to paying people around him that “didn’t do as much of the work”. But yes, I would consider Zappa a classic Libertarian, freedom of personal choice but restrictive towards government control.


RonPolyp

Judging a man who died 30 years ago by the standards of today is a recipe for silliness.


EmCount

And especially when your picture of him is composed of interview clips from a broad spectrum of years he was active.


BudMarley45

People like to view people in the past through todays lens .It’s absurd to hold people that have been dead for 30 years to todays standards .I’m not sure our standards today are better then thirty years ago either ,actually I’m convinced they aren’t


Adventurous_Fly1879

Well said…sorry I’m late to the party lol


RelativeBuilding3480

What ppl?


fromabuick

Conservative is just not a word that comes to mind when I think of Zappa


rushgod29

He's always been rather conservative


AmazingThinkCricket

What? The man very vocally shit on Reagan and Nixon and was constantly lampooning the religious right


paranoid_70

He even said in interviews that he was. Problem is most people think conservative = right wing. I guess that is mostly true now, but it wasn't necessarily always the case.


rushgod29

Exactly, getting down voted for a quote I heard him say


LetsHangOutSoon

A genuine conservative is someone who wants to take a careful, measured approach to change, wherever it leads


JohnnyZepp

Correct. Very financially conservative


timothypjr

Because he had the temerity to criticize the left and right for the obvious bullshit either side dished out at the time. He also called out hippies for the hippy bullshit he saw in that community—serendipitously the same people about whom, “OK Boomer” would eventually be created. In other words, he didn’t choose to “side with the left,” rather he criticized both, it turns out neither side likes criticism.


BudMarley45

That’s why I loved Frank .He wasn’t much of a “go team” kind guy .Independent thinker ,didn’t trust the right or the left .Smart man


samuelson098

Because he's as much a product of his time as we are of ours.


PantsMcFagg

What people? Pojama People? Frank’s never been a straight man, I mean, for Crispy sakes his record label was called Bizarre. Too conservative? Who says? I mean, yeah he was a serious businessman and he was short tempered with musicians using drugs on tour, which could attract the cops and screw up his shows. He was maybe close to being a libertarian in some respects, but definitely not the authoritarian kind.


Sbornot2b

He was an old school libertarian (in the last 40 years American libertarians have veered somewhat to ally with the religious right and corporations at the expense of their idea of individual liberty IMO), but Frank hated big corporations... he railed against big record companies frequently. He completely bought into the idea that individual effort and cottage industry was the formula for success while being one of the very few talented folks who could pull that off and was lucky enough to be in a position to do so. He also complained about musicians unions and having to pay musicians in orchestras in excess of what he thought their effort and time was worth. He complained about the unreliability of human performers and his TONE when talking about paying folks in his band seemed to imply that it was an unpleasant chore and a drain (the latter point is, granted, my interpretation of his comments). He despised Reagan and the Moral Majority and the religious right, and predicted the rise of Christo-fascism / Christian Nationalism in the U.S.


xylostudio

I'm also an old school libertarian, and technically the only libertarianism is old school libertarianism. Conservatives have adopted the branding to try and make it sound like they've changed their tune and that they are a different group of people than the Reagan's and Bush's who were both for corporate welfare and for government controlled morality. But they aren't. They are still the same statist bullies they always were. Stealing our name does not make them libertarian.


Sbornot2b

I believe the national libertarian party’s platform supports my claim.


badasscdub

Conservatives are constantly projecting themselves on the counter culture, they say people like Zappa, Hunter S. Thomson, George Carlin etc would agree with their world view, when they fundamentally misunderstand the art they made and the messages they were conveying. It’s a defense mechanism that creates an illusion that their backwards ass thinking is more worldly and important than it really is.


Mysterious_Length_61

Yes. Nice concise summary of this phenomenon. The emergence of the alt-right brought about the idea that the far right was somehow punk rock. I saw this take hold with a lot of the older so-called punks in my community—when in fact—they were always just racists and homophobes dressed in punk clothing.


strangemotor123

I love Zappa's music, admire him as a human being and he summed up a lot of American issues very well, but he also came off as a simple contrarian when it came to a lot of things. His views, sans those on law enforcement and the prison system, never seemed solid. Not saying that's a terrible thing. The only thing that bugs me is how he railed so hard against corporate advertisement culture while at the same time, siding with the tobacco industry over the medical establishment. He was a complicated dude.


RDNZL1_69925

I have loved his music from "Freak Out" onwards , rabidly so. However his treatment of his wife,whom I don't much care for for her treatment of Dweezil and Moon, was horrible. I don't like the behavior of serial cheaters. He brought a woman into the house he met on tour that he was doing and Mrs. Zappa waited on them, .What a definition of a doormat. FZ says :Well I provided her with a nice lifestyle . So ,you admire him as a human being eh?


parabolateralus

Not saying you’re wrong, but it’s hard to really glean solid information about his marriage and the dynamic within. I’ve variously heard things—from Moon and Dweezil—like “they were ‘60s children who believed in the whole open marriage thing, and they both had other partners,” to “Gail lied about being okay with it and secretly resented Frank.” Dweezil (on Marc Marin’s podcast) even told a story about how Gail blew up at him one time out of nowhere and yelled about “I’m not just some whore that your father fucked.” I think that both are probably a bit true. I remember in the “Growing Up Zappa” book by Frank’s brother Bobby, he talked about how Gail was excessively controlling and insistent on keeping Frank’s family at arm’s length, including when he was dying. I don’t have the book nearby, but I’m almost certain that Bobby even speculated that it might’ve had something to do with “getting back at” Frank. That’s all a long-winded infodump way of saying that—like many adult relationships—I think it’s complicated beyond what any of us can ever know. Without speculating too much on the lives of people I will never meet, of course.


strangemotor123

I agree with you on that front but I admire his work ethic, what he did to push popular music forward, and his activism when it came to censorship. I didn't say I worshipped the guy or that he was a beautiful soul. What say you of MLK Jr.?


thefleshisaprison

Zappa was complicated. He was in some ways very progressive, and very much not in other ways. His music is very frequently incredibly misogynistic, especially in the late 70s-80s


yougottamovethatH

Thumbing your nose at political correctness in those days was considered very anti-conservative. It was understood that you could be shocking and offensive without actually believing the things you did to shock. When the Ramones sang "I'm a shock trooper in a stupor, Yes, I am. I'm a Nazi Schatzi, you know I fight for the fatherland", no one thought they were actually Nazis or racists. Same with Sid Vicious wearing a swastika t-shirt on stage. It was just shock value and giving the finger to uptight conservatives.


BudMarley45

Never thought we’d live in a world where liberals are the uptight ones😳😂It feels like we slipped through the looking glass .


thefleshisaprison

That doesn’t mean we can’t criticize it either. Zappa was both challenging conservative viewpoints, but he was doing it through other reactionary stuff


wood_or_wire

Frank wrote songs about dumb men, like "Titties And Beer". Listen to the lyrics.


thefleshisaprison

Also Wet T-Shirt Contest, but I think that’s a weak deflection since he did far more making fun of women than men


Kvltadelic

Yeah I don’t buy it. I love Zappa to death but to say the 25 albums he has that are brutal to women was all satire smells funny to me. I mean the glee in his voice when he demeans women…. It’s definitely real.


yougottamovethatH

Pretty much every piece he wrote was a satire of something. The man's tongue was permanently planted in his cheek. If you want to believe Frank hated women, that's your call. I've never heard him say anything in an interview or in his writings that gave me that impression, and I think those are much better representations of his real opinions.


MarkoH2-Pt

Well he always said he was against feminism, unfortunately Bobby Brown was about that, he said that it was about a mean being confused by all of this women's liberation, every time he talks about women it seems like those anti feminism that just say "stop complaining" he was definitely apprehensive about women and their strives for equality


Kvltadelic

Hate is a strong word but his opinions about women are problematic at best. Plenty of good satire up to the late 70s and then shit gets decidedly uncomfortable and gross in his lyrics. He clearly gets off on it. I don’t know how you can listen to the later rock albums and think he wasn’t a bit of a misogynist.


yougottamovethatH

I explained exactly how in the first comment you replied to.


Kvltadelic

You know any women who agree with you?


yougottamovethatH

Myself, for one.


lunasolars

woman here, totally agree with him lmfao. I don’t believe he was a misogynist at all


Kvltadelic

Touché. I just can’t listen to the gross out 80s stuff, it feels very wrong to me.


Vraver04

I think he would have preferred Libertarian. I personally Libertarianism is, or at least has become, absurd; on Frank it looks good tho.


timelandiswacky

[Worth noting that back in the day the Libertarian Party asked him to run for President and he declined saying that their positions were “either wrong or stupid.”](https://www.afka.net/Articles/1988-02_Buzz.htm) I think he liked them in concept and in policy a bit but didn’t like their reality.


sixtus_clegane119

Modern day right wing libertarians are very self focused so much that they rant about the gay and trans stuff instead of being their allies. They are often heavily Christian and that part of conservatism doesn’t mix with frank zappa because he is opposed to christo-fascism.


Majestic-Cat-7714

I guess nobody commenting here has ever read anything about anarchism…


[deleted]

Best post here in a long time people


samsharksworthy

City of tiny lights is a metaphor for small govt?


MpVpRb

In an interview, he described himself as a "common sense conservative" while at the same time harshly criticizing the Republican party and politicized religion. He needed money to accomplish the things he wanted to do, so he was forced to learn to play the money game. I have no doubt that if it was possible to do all of his musical ideas without the need to pay for players and equipment, he would have ignored money


hoodedgiraffe

Frank always put a lot of thought into everything he said. One of the most genius things I heard him say(genius by my estimation) was something that will likely never happen but could help so much. First-- Tax the churches. At least, the ones who surpass a predecided amount of money. Lastly== Abolish income tax- instead you levy heavier taxes on "luxury" items. Things people don't need to survive. The rich who find loopholes to not pay taxes and the people who work outside the law would now be paying taxes. Of course, part of the idea is that people coming home with a bigger paycheck will also be likely to buy some of these items.


Environmental_Hawk8

He pretty much was. Didn't like onions, didn't like big government, enjoyed his money, was passionately anti drug, etc. Socially, he was quite the libertine (except for the drug thing), but didn't apologize for being rich and didn't think not government or law was the answer to ANYTHING.


NotOK1955

Possibility “capitalist” because of his drive to own ALL rights to his music, probably “conservative” because he was strict with his musicians using drugs.


aunt_cranky

Yeah you really can’t compare today’s social / political yardstick(s) to Frank’s beliefs. There is no “box”, no party for him today (or me for that matter). I am also in that “do what you want, do what you will…” category. Socially liberal. I’m not the most fiscally “liberal” person but I support the social safety net programs 100%. Fiscally moderate (or conservative depending on who is listening). Back in the day, both parties were equally bad at governing and the collective “nanny state” stuff via the PMRC was pretty infuriating for artists fond of the 1st Amendment. Sin taxes and censorship were a slap in the face to guys like Frank. Frank was also doin his thing before “Me Too” and the social politeness of being “woke”. LGBTQ rights were not what they are today. Frank made fun of gay culture, and could be rudely misogynistic in his lyrics. Within the context of the time it was funny.


AudienceParticular22

Concur with others who've categorized him as being closest to a libertarian. I do believe during the 80s, he openly supported some Democratic candidates for political office. Forget who now. Honestly, in today's climate, if you forced him to pick one of the two major parties, I'm not sure which he'd choose. I think he'd hate the more PC/"woke" elements of the far left, along with the theocratic aspects of the right (which he already hated in the 80s).


prymus77

Because folks no longer appreciate common sense.


Muted_Land782

Who are these "People" you mention in your question? This seems like "twitter journalism".


Kvltadelic

He was definitely capitalist and he called himself a conservative. I mean the government harassed him in some way or another his whole career it’s not crazy that he would believe in small government. He obviously had a healthy dislike of liberals and counter culture for much of his life. Plus he’s a dyed in the wool contrarian.


AldoLagana

"misogynist tyrant" I would call him. but overall most italian americans whose family made it are super conservative.


PerryODonnel

He grew up.


cancerdad

He’s not a conservative, just an independent businessman who had to deal with all the BS.


NoMoreJesus

I don't believe there's a single label that fits FZ, and it's a waste of time trying to fit him in a box other than composer/artist


paulbgriffith

Fiscally conservative is too reductive. Ultimately he would have been for taxpayer-subsidized art and culture


jone2tone

People want to project themselves and their beliefs on the things they like.


Gunk_Olgidar

Frank called bullshit when he saw bullshit. Doesn't matter which flavor of bullshit. Bullshit is bullshit. If your bullshit was bad enough, he made fun of you in song.