When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. - Benjamin Franklin.
When people get used to preferential treatment equal treatment seems like discrimination. - Thomas Sowell
RMNIXON (06-12-2021)
Thing is, Wolf, both of those involve positions taken when what I argued is what makes one conservative or liberal is not the particular positions one takes but the general attitudes and arguments leading to those positions.
Take same-sex marriage. Ted Olsen is the lawyer who argued the case against the ABA before the Supreme Court. He was the epitome of a conservative. The conservative, constitutional principle he argued from was equal protection under the law and due process. Many a conservative attacked his position yet his argument was conservative.
As for individual rights vs social welfare, here I think, generally, positions taken align with attitudes and arguments made. The liberal favors welfare based on an attitude, basically emotional, that the poor must be taken care of by the benevolence of the State. The conservative favors individual rights, iow, the protection of property in a free market following the argument Adam Smith once argued: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." The conservative is factually correct. Yet conversely, the conservative, in politics and/or business, knowing the Smithian argument might well reason that sharing the wealth via welfare undermines the socialist purists by providing welfare. If you follow Bell, Marxian Socialism in the United States, that is precisely what has happened historically.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
MMC (06-12-2021)
True, but many others will vote for a candidate - and, by proxy, an agenda they may not entirely agree with - for other reasons, such as a fundamental disagreement with the other candidate's position on one or more issues. Whether we want to admit it or not, most of us are really voting for the lesser of two evils in most cases.
Then, too, you have to realize that there's a huge gap between a candidate's proposed agenda on the campaign trail and what he or she will actually and in the real world be able to accomplish. If you believed everything the Trump campaign and Trump supporters said about "what Joe Biden will do as President" - or even everything that Joe Biden said Joe Biden would do as President - you must now have buried all your firearms in the back yard, be prepared to shell out for slavery reparations and God knows what else.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
In another current thread, Ethereal made what I believe was a good point about conservatives generally rejecting forcing compliance with some governmental edict that affects individuals in the name of the public good except when the "public good" is something like compulsory military service. I understand what you mean by "general attitudes and arguments", but the attitude in a case such as that appears to depend very much on how the "public good" is perceived. Many traditionally "conservative" views - let's say, laws prohibiting the burning of an American flag, for instance - appear to be rooted in the attitude that it really offends many people, so let's make it illegal. The notion that "liberal" views are emotion-driven while "conservative" views are not just doesn't seem rooted in reality or history.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
I would change ethereal's "except when the "public good" is something like compulsory military service" with a more general except when it is reasonable.
Perceptions are important. They probably form many axiomatic assumptions one argues from.
I could be wrong but I've yet to hear a reasonable liberal argument for welfare that's not merely appeal to emotions or virtue signaling. OTOH, liberals do often argue for equal rights which seems reasonable to me given it appears in the Declaration. So I didn't mean liberals rely solely on emotion, just in the case of the example of welfare.
My point, earlier on, was to emphasize general attitudes and arguments over particular positions taken.
Last edited by Chris; 06-12-2021 at 01:42 PM.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. - Benjamin Franklin.
When people get used to preferential treatment equal treatment seems like discrimination. - Thomas Sowell
The welfare system in the U.S. is riddled with abuse and mismanagement; there is no question about that whatever...but as for the existence of welfare itself, every advanced human civilization in history (and probably many who were not so advanced) has, without exception, provided public assistance to its citizens who needed it. It's what people and governments have always done, and it has far less to do with "emotion" than with practicality and the maintenance of good order. Yes, absolutely, welfare as practiced in this country has gotten completely out of hand and requires some serious reform, but it's never going to go completely away as an institution because human societies can't function effectively in its absence.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
I understood your point. I'm simply saying that many (if not most) voters are smart enough to realize that voting for a Presidential candidate who campaigns on either a "hard left" or a "hard right" agenda is only ever going to have so much power and influence. He (or she) is not, in the real world, going to be able to deliver even a fraction of what they promise...whether it's making scary-looking guns disappear or building a 1900-mile long wall.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry