How is expanding government a conservative solution?
Posted by Robbie53024 10 years ago to Government
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"The reasons are more pragmatic..."
"In the whirling Heraclitian flux which is the pragmatist's universe, there are no absolutes. There are no facts, no fixed laws of logic, no certainty, no objectivity." -- Leonard Peikoff
I'm too jaded to be surprised. These politicians always underwhelm. There are only a few real leaders. They remain consistent .They do not compromise on foundations. That's difficult to do sometimes. Supporting liberty and freedom on one hand but not open borders, decriminalizing drugs, outlawing abortion on the other hand.
I don't remember who said this, but there's a quote that goes, "Tell me how much you want to reduce teenage employment, and I will tell you exactly where to set the minimum wage."
McDonald's was just starting out, back then (Ray Kroc bought into it in '55.).
neither mine nor theirs were supposed to be "living" wages. it wasn't until I got to the USAF, where I initially got $3.18/hour at age 22, that I got married. but my wife and I didn't estimate that we could afford a family, then -- too poor and too young. so, we waited. and waited.
the 1st problem with "minimum wages", of course, is govt interference in private job contracts. the second is the abdication of personal responsibility -- you don't marry or have kids unless you can afford to do it.
-- j
But your not alone. Most people who want to call themselves libertarians are actually closet liberals - some come out of the closet and some show what they really are over time. In the end most lay all their hopes on that 5% bit of conservatism, hoping it will offset all the rest by labeling the whole as libertarian.
Like a sinner hoping to slide into heave by going to church on Christmas and Easter, you hope you might have enough grace to slide by, but like that sinner, the scales just may find you lacking.
.
The difference between the left and the right as it pertains to libertarianism is that the left is so rabidly economic control that they cannot bring themselves to even consider economic liberty. Whilst the right tends to be more laizzes-faire when it comes to social controls. Yes there are some with a die-hard issue or two (abortion, marriage), but in the aggregate they are much more open to social liberty than not. Thus, you have the left who cannot stand economic liberty and the right that is kinda ambivalent overall on social liberty (given that the left is for social liberty and the right is for economic liberty). That's why you find more folks on the right who end up here and end up identifying with libertarian ideas than you do lefties.
Just my hypothesis. You're free to agree or call it hogwash.
You also might disagree with me, but it's easy to be a libertarian, compared to either a conservative or a liberal. Each require a very definitive set of public standings that are rather ideologically pure. Libertarians tend to straddle the ditch on several key issues the others won't cross.
Your list of such areas is far too short friend. Please allow me to expand it;
Church and state separation
gun control
education (federal or local control)
welfare
veterans benefits (liberals lump this with welfare, conservatives will not)
military force usage
expanding federal gov. powers
states rights issues
EPA (and several other ABC depts.)
and as you mentioned,
marriage
abortion
There are many more where liberals find good camo as libertarians while being true liberals.
I just find the true libertarian to be a very rare cat. They are out there and the real test is if I can openly speak to them for 15 minutes without their head (or mine) exploding from the strain. True libertarians and I can get along just fine (I just see them as backslid conservatives), but liberals who are hiding in the ranks WILL show their true colors in minutes and the fireworks begin. LOL
As for your list, I'm not sure I know of any libertarians that would agree with any liberal position on those items, whilst many of the right would.
I would have a whole lot more hope that the semi-free world can pull out of this mess, if I could hear just one American politician propose that we a.) identify government-run medicine - in whatever form - as a textbook human rights violation, and b.) establish a complete separation of medicine and state on that moral basis.
This is a fun game, let's do more self-contradictory questions! :)
In the church of Objectivism, you can demonize Christianity, you can caricature conservatives, but don't you dare show the hypocrisy of Objectivists.
A conservative, BY DEFINITION, does not support an *expansion* of government. Anyone who does, is not, BY DEFINITION, a conservative.
This is the major schism between conservatives and Republicans in the Republican party.
But, go ahead and downcheck me because I dare challenge the erroneous preconception among Objectivists that conservatives are just another brand of socialist.
ergo, the question is self-contradictory. :)
Check your premises. The article calls him a "conservative". I can call myself Queen of England, but I still won't get in to Buckingham Palace...
My comment was an example of a self-contradictory, nonsensical statements. Like the title of the post.
Hence my comment, "This is a fun game, let's do more self-contradictory questions! :) "
and sex causes death, because it precedes it.
making love, then, is a form of inverse birth control -- it causes birth, well, sometimes. "control" implies non-birth, which "varies", like the results of diet pills. -- j