Posted on 01/18/2013 6:13:36 AM PST by Kaslin
Dear Socially Liberal Fiscal Conservative Friend,
That's pretty toothy, so I'm going to call you Bob.
But whatever specific name you go by, Bob, you know who you are. You're the sort of person who says to his conservative friends or co-workers something like, "I would totally vote for Republicans if they could just give up on these crazy social issues."
When you explain your votes for Barack Obama, you talk about how Republicans used to be much more moderate and focused on important things such as low taxes, fiscal discipline and balanced budgets.
When Colin Powell was on "Meet the Press" the other day, you nodded along as he lamented how the GOP has lost its way since the days when it was all about fiscal responsibility.
And, Bob, you think Republicans are acting crazy-pants on the debt ceiling. You don't really follow all of the details, but you can just tell that the GOP is being "extreme," thanks to those wacky tea partiers.
So, Bob, as a "fiscal conservative," what was so outrageous about trying to cut pork -- Fisheries in Alaska! Massive subsidies for Amtrak! -- From the Sandy disaster-relief bill? What was so nuts about looking for offsets to pay for it?
Bob, I'm going to be straight with you. I never had much respect for your political acumen before, but you're a sucker.
You're still spouting this nonsense about being fiscally conservative while insisting the GOP is the problem. You buy into media's anti-Republican hysteria no matter what the facts are. Heck, you even believe it when Obama suggests he's like an Eisenhower Republican.
Well, let's talk about Eisenhower, your kind of Republican. Did you know that in his famous farewell address he warned about the debt? "We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage," he said. "We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
Bob, we are that insolvent phantom, you feckless, gormless clod. The year Eisenhower delivered that speech, U.S. debt was roughly half our GDP. But that was when we were still paying off WWII (not to mention things like the Marshall Plan), and the defense budget comprised more than half the U.S. budget (today it's a fifth and falling). Now, the debt is bigger than our GDP. Gross Domestic Product is barely $15 trillion. The national debt is over $16 trillion and climbing -- fast. The country isn't going broke Bob, it is broke.
When George W. Bush added nearly $5 trillion in national debt in two terms you were scandalized. When Obama added more than that in one term, you yawned. When, in 2006, then-Sen. Obama condemned Bush's failure of leadership and vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling, you thought him a statesman. Obama, who wants to borrow trillions more, now admits that was purely a "political vote."
Yet when Republicans actually have the courage of Obama's own convictions you condemn them.
You nodded sagely when Obama said we needed a "balanced approach" to cut the deficit. He said he couldn't rein in entitlements without also raising taxes on "millionaires and billionaires." Well, he won that fight. We raised taxes on millionaires and billionaires exactly as much as he wanted. We also raised the payroll tax on everyone.
Obama's response to getting the tax hikes he wanted? He says we still need a "balanced approach" -- i.e., even more tax hikes.
Anyone who calls himself a fiscal conservative understands we have a spending problem. Do the math. A two-earner couple that retired in 2011 after making $89,000 per year will pay about $114,000 into Medicare over their lifetimes but will receive $355,000. When will it dawn on you that Obama doesn't think we have a spending problem? I ask because when he said "we don't have a spending problem," it seemed to have no effect on you.
And yet you still think Paul Ryan's budget was "extreme." Do you know when it balanced the budget? 2040. What's a non-extreme date to balance the budget, Bob? 2113?
Look, Bob, I don't want to go spelunking in that cranium of yours. I don't know why you think you're a fiscal conservative. The simple fact is you're not. The green-eye-shaded Republicans you claim to miss would be scandalized by the mess we're in, largely thanks to voters like you, Bob. Eisenhower would take a flamethrower to today's Washington.
I don't expect you to vote Republican, never mind admit you're simply a liberal. But please stop preening about your fiscal conservatism particularly as you condemn the GOP for not being fiscal conservatives, even when they are the only fiscal conservatives in town.
“I agree with you that every STATE should outlaw abortion and no STATE should redefine the parameters of marriage.”
The Federal government has no role in those issues, except that it can use the full faith and credit clause to allow states to refuse to recognize marriages that their own state law does not recognize.
As I consider myself to be libertarian, which makes me conservative, I don’t understand how a libertarian can be other than for the rights of the unborn. As for gay marriage - what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is not the business of the government. But changing the definition of marriage beyond one man and one woman opens doors I would rather not see opened - like that fast food commercial.
Show me someonw who claims to be socially liberal, but fiscally conservative and I will show you someone who will wimp on fiscal matters too, because they have no faith in individual responsibility - (Chris Christie, for one), and are terrified of being branded as extremists.
I agree with you 100%, but my thoughts take me one step further. Any government with the power to legislate these social issues also has the power to swing in the opposite direction (which is what we are seeing now). My opposition to the federal government's involvement in social issues IS NOT equivalent to condoning abhorrent behaviors, quite the opposite, it is my recognition that there are two sides to every door. These issues are best left to the states and local governments, where representation is closer to the people and we all have a choice: if we don't care for liberal NY, we pick up and move to TX where there exists a contrasting representation of the population.
The federal government has no business in these issues, and to think so makes one accepting of nanny state tendencies. It is a dangerous precedent that has already been set and needs to be rolled back. If we tell liberals what is acceptable, we have no room to b!tch when they turn around and shove their ideals down our throats. The federal gov't should be OUT of these issues or we've degraded to nothing more than mob rule.
As I consider myself to be libertarian, which makes me conservative...
Don't forget dangerous drugs. Social liberals want drugs legalized. And do not fool yourself; libertarians are not conservatives. They are liberals. Social liberals.
And libertarians therefore can never ever acheive fiscal responsibility.
This is an important point that EVERYONE misses - governments at different levels have different purposes but everyone talks about “The Government”.
At the Federal level I am rock ribbed fanatical libertarian. This government should only be allowed to do what is specifically allowed to them in the Constitution.
States have wide latitude to do what they want within their own constitutions.
Local governments should be able to do pretty much anything the citizens agree to do.
Those two issues, plus a host of various “ism” perceptions that are actively pomoted and propagated without effective response.
The fact is that a Socially Liberal Fiscal Conservative who votes social issues is a flippin’ idiot. I’d probably lean towards the Socially Liberal (Libertarian) position on a number of issues, but I’m smart enough to realize that the BIG issues in the room are the debt and taxation/spending policy.
I’ll ALWAYS vote - in a general election - for the major party candidate that’s closest to me on those (plus Second Amendment Rights) regardless of Social Issues. Which means that I’m always going to vote for the Republican over the Dem.
This is libertarian thinking at its worse. OF COURSE the federal government must be involved in social issues. Take marriage as a current and prime example. Marriage is not just a civil or religious concern, it is a concern vital and integral to national security. A healthy marriage is the foundation to a healthy society. Any county that wants to survive and thrive promotes and protects the family. Any country that wants to escalate into a fiscal, social and moral black-hole can follow America's example since we entered into the Great Society.
Social issues are the key to our survival as a nation. Nothing else comes close. Not a 16 trillion dollar debt. Not unemployment. Not nothing.
“Don’t forget dangerous drugs. Social liberals want drugs legalized. And do not fool yourself; libertarians are not conservatives.”
Show me the clause in the US Constitution that permits the Federal government to prohibit drugs.
You are suggesting that government can enact legislation that will foster healthy marriages? I don’t see any evidence over the last 30 years to validate that claim. I’m all for healthy marriages but just how do you propose the government does that? My opinion is that is a role for the church not the state.
Then you have an obligation to amend the Constitution to permit the Federal government to get involved in those issues. If you want to undermine our country’s foundations, I know of no faster way than to violate or ignore the Constitution. It puts you in league with El Presidente.
Sorry, but that “$16 Trillion” doesn’t include trillions more in liabilities (SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.).
And, of course, the dumbasses are still using the credit card for $40 of every 100 they spend.
The Federales still aren’t broke - they have enormous assets in mineral rich land - but I can’t see them using these assets to dig themselves out of the hole.
Milton Friedman, the original fiscal conservative, was pro-legalization. So you could say he was socially liberal fiscally conservative.
In a nutshell, the left and almost-left are uneducated in politics and know only the sound bites on TV.. that’s what they repeat. They also have a short attention span and lean lazy in doing any research. They choose to believe what they hear and not what they should know. Thus, the misconception of who conservatives are... or who the Republicans are/have become. I hear them repeat those sound bites... and even though none of them are true, they think they are real smart by being able to recite them. To be so shallow and to be willing to stay that way....
It offends me to hear myself being called what they think I am. No way to defend against it... we are trash and crazy. They don’t know they are being cooked and we are trying to save them.
Social issues are the key? Show me where the founders advocate as such? The founders deliberately stayed away from personal and social issues, including an official religion, understanding that a government with the authority to grant such powers would have the authority to take them away. The Founding Fathers did realize that a social issue is not something you build or in our case rebuild a country on. Until we all get that through our heads, we will doom the conservative cause.
So, in comes the argument that we are confronted with social issues that the Founders could not have imagined. True, and they were confronted with some that are beyond our comprehension (ie slavery). If we accept that argument, then we have to conclude that the founding documents of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence have to evolve over time - and liberals would thank you for that thinking.
Right, because spending billions on a drug war we can never win is fiscally responsible.
I was pro-Drug War.
But the Drug War has become to much of a threat to civil rights. Police kick down the wrong doors, seize property, shoot dogs, and, occasionally, people. Cops have become too militarized.
I’d rather put up with the druggies (you can shoot them if they become threatening) that the cops.
Typical. Hiding behind the Constitution.
First YOU show me the clause in the US Constitution that permits the Federal government to prohibit abortion. Or same sex marriages. Or whatever.
but just how do you propose the government does that?
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1. Re-instate tax benefits for married couples.
2. Reduce - even stop - welfare benefits for unmarried welfare queens.
3. Many others come to mind, but these two alone would add billions of economic benefit to the country.
Not only can it not be won, it further empowers those who wish to do harm. Look at the cartels, the heroin smugglers, the meth cooks in clandestine labs. What we continue to do is erode personal liberties in the interest of furthering the 'war' effort. We can't walk into a Walgreens and buy sinus medicine without being tracked, we can't go to the hardware store to buy muriatic acid to clean our driveway, we can't walk through S Central LA or S Chicago without worrying about gang violence - but it's just an inconvenience for our own good!?!?! Yeah, right. It is a reason to strangle personal freedoms for all to try to prevent the minority from partaking in their habits.
We would be much better served and much better off as a society to use a fraction of the funds toward education and do away with the militarization of local police forces and the erosion of rights. It is amazing how quickly people swallow the trampling of rights when they assume they know what is in the best interest of everyone, but hate it when it is done to them.
There are two major issues with the WOD. First is the incredible expense that doesn’t seem to affect availability and increases violence. The second is the way in which it contorts the constitution to achieve its “authority”. That same authority is now being abused to give us Obamacare under the Commerce Clause. The “crusade” against drugs was used as the justification and now “fiscal conservatives” have to live with the consequences thanks the “social conservative” position on the WOD.
I’m not a user myself and have no interest in ever using. Maybe if I ever had to undergo chemo I’d give it a try, but at least I’d have the option available to me here in Colorado.
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