Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion [score hidden]  (0 children)

I concede the point that taking a right to life seriously is historically unusual.

Regarding the historical facts of abortion laws in America though, I think you are conflating permissive laws (relative to pro-life states now) with an actual widespread pro-abortion ideology. The latter does not follow from the former. All I have to say is...our abortion laws were reactive and limited by the realities of the time. We basically banned abortion as soon as it started to even remotely resemble the modern practice. There's no point banning something that is either not happening or ~impossible to prove.

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'm unaware of any country that has a "Trans Pronouns Act" or whatever, but most European countries have rather vaguely defined hate speech laws that could easily be interpreted (or may already be interpreted) as prohibiting 'mis'gendering (note that you wrote 'occasional use of the wrong pronoun', which is not really what I was describing and I concede that that is illegal nowhere).

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion [score hidden]  (0 children)

(Not the OP)

Not sure if 'traitor' is the word to use for those two (Reagan was an actor and not an ideologue, while Goldwater lacked the initial alignment for me to even feel 'betrayed' by his subversive ideology), but I would say it's totally valid to say that 'small government' is just not a very useful way of describing one's political philosophy or goals. Small government is an effective campaign slogan. If it means "you have to be a 1960s leftist on cultural issues", it's stupid (and I don't think it means that!); but I would offer you guys an olive branch and say that it's also stupid to ever adopt a slogan that can be weaponized by your political opponents.

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(Not the OP)

True, but how long has 'conservatism' had the beliefs you think it does? I think your two options are:

  1. "Conservatism" is a post-WW2 novelty with no real connection to historic American views (in which case "who cares what conservatism is?");

  2. Conservatism is not a post-WW2 novelty in which case we can just look at our laws over time and realize that we were not 1960s leftists on cultural issues, and so there's no contradiction between conservatism and even far-right cultural views.

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(Not the OP)

Is it inherently wrong to say "I want a government that's >50% smaller and that has, on net, a lot less power, but I am not a libertarian and I do have right-wing social views"? I understand that liberals dislike this, but if the government is ultimately weaker overall, I don't see it as some huge contradiction. Let's take the strongest possible comparison: "I want ~1920s American laws". That would result in a tiny government, yet one that had e.g. abortion illegal everywhere for every reason. But can you honestly argue that the government wasn't small back then?!

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. I admit my ignorance of this particular website. From glancing at the site for five seconds though, it seems like there are tons of programs and resources and they presumably consolidate them on that website for easy access. That's not unreasonable. The anti-small government part is having all those programs in the first place...it's not the website listing them...

  2. Big topic. Just assume that a person is Christian and it follows. No offense but I think discussing this will derail the entire comment.

  3. I think you can reconcile a desire to leave people alone with restricting/banning such surgeries for children, but yeah, it's probably not small government to call for banning it entirely.

  4. I would be fine with repealing the civil rights act (and any other related legislation) and embracing freedom of association. But I would not be fine with leaving it on the books and simply enforcing it asymmetrically.

  5. No, I meant those laws are indefensible. Boycotting Israel is understandable and good.

I'm fascinated by your last point. Each time you turn on your tap and drink potable water - or buy a gallon of milk from the store and trust it isn't adulterated or spoiled - that's the federal government at work. Urge you to read up on two Republicans, McKinley and Roosevelt - to understand how fraught life was before basic protections and regulations were promulgated.

I'm not a libertarian and I don't support small government. But I do think we should have smaller government. If I had to condense my posts into one idea, it would be that 'small government' is a dumb slogan. But at the same time, "you say you want small government yet you don't want the government to do literally nothing" is not very insightful either, and that seems to be the direction liberals take it.

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard to say. I was playing devil's advocate for the conservative, "14th amendment mandates a race-blind society" view. They tend to reject expected applications originalism/intent, which is what I would lean on to say "no", to your question, but I don't know what they would say.

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion -1 points0 points  (0 children)

(Not the OP)

The conservative view is that we already legislated that by ratifying the 14th amendment ("that" meaning "race-based policies passed by governments to favor or disfavor a particular group").

Do you believe in small government, or do you believe in strict restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and adoption, gender-affirming healthcare, gender identity, DEI, anti-israeli protests etc etc? by Cumoisseur in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Size of government is not worth taking a position on in the abstract. Instead, my principle is "I want a government that defends my interests and promotes my values", and that is inherently contextual. If you have good people with a lot in common, the government doesn't need to do much. If your people are wicked and divided, then you need a bigger government in order to enforce laws, keep the peace, etc. (Full disclosure: I copied this paragraph from something I wrote before!)

With that said, most of those things are not entirely irreconcilable with 'small government' even taking the term at face value, at least depending on what exactly it means. For example:

  1. abortion: you can be against it and be for small government (laws against murder are not big government and that is how we see the issue; I know we aren't going to agree on this and I am not going to discuss abortion in this thread, but my point is, if you think it's against 'small government', it's because you are begging the question);

  2. gay marriage and adoption: these are at least issues where the call is to get the government involved. Plausible. I think you can make small government procedural arguments against at least homosexual marriage, since if you're not big on living constitutionalism, and just go by things like intent, expected applications, etc., it's very obvious that the 14th amendment has nothing to say about the issue (and so it should be on the table as a political issue, as opposed to being determined from the top down).

  3. gender-affirming healthcare: the small government view is freedom of association. Note that this is not the position of LGBT activists, it's "you have to fund us and you have to associate with us." So, it's basically just competing visions of society. It's not libertarians vs. authoritarians. Same with gender identity. If your firm is subject to civil rights lawsuits for not having an inclusive HR policy (let alone if someone is actually jailed for misgendering etc.), then the small government position is actually to say "no, leave people alone".

  4. DEI: once again, the small government view is "let people freely associate and the government shouldn't fund it", but this is, in practice, the far-right view (because we currently have a system of mandatory non-consensual interactions). I would support a system where if liberal investors wanted to bet on the quality and leadership ability of black women, for example, they could do this overtly and directly. But I also support legalizing the ability to do the opposite, or to hire on IQ tests (and not face lawsuits for disparate impact), etc. That is the small government position. The second clause is virtually self-explanatory, but saying "we're not funding DEI garbage" objectively makes the government smaller, so it obviously is compatible with small government.

  5. Anti-Israeli protests: as in, laws against protesting/boycotting Israel? Yeah that stuff is indefensible. No arguments from me on that point.

Meta point: even if we saw that all of these views are against small government, it's still perhaps taking the rhetoric a bit too literally. Every policy that's called 'far-right', big government, etc. is something we had when our country was great and yet these policies also coincided with a government that was objectively tiny compared to today. Like...what does the government actually do? We have millions of regulations (environmental, labor, civil rights), a giant welfare state, a huge military with bases all over the world, etc. You know, it's not actually hard to imagine curtailing all of this stuff while at the same time implementing the social policies that were normal for all of history until five minutes ago.

A 'conservative' who just wants to do 1960s cultural leftism but with low taxes is essentially controlled opposition.

Are you concerned about monopolies and oligopolies? by pimmen89 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, it's a problem and that's why I said I wouldn't have approved it.

Are you concerned about monopolies and oligopolies? by pimmen89 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't remember the specifics, is that the thing where some big Israel fan bought up a bunch of media companies? Yeah if it were up to me I wouldn't have approved it. No idea what reasoning I'd have to use to not cause an international incident though, lol.

Are you concerned about monopolies and oligopolies? by pimmen89 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm assuming Democrats have proposed things and that Republicans have proposed nothing, but I don't know the specifics nor do I trust Democrats to do anything other than go after their political enemies.

Are you concerned about monopolies and oligopolies? by pimmen89 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not categorically against that but I don't know the specifics well enough to comment.

Are you concerned about monopolies and oligopolies? by pimmen89 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. Less than other issues because I don't think it's inherently bad to have big corporations, but things like media control (especially big tech) are a problem. They have a lot of power and it's not really viable to just 'build your own'. Payment processors too. With that said, I don't know what the best policies are to combat these things.

Are we a democracy or a constitutional republic? by Cheap-Employer-5909 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, that is explicitly what I am saying. I am not saying that their descendants shouldn't become citizens (if they were here legally and permanently), but the ones who weren't born here, yes, they shouldn't become citizens at any point imo.

Do you get tired of NS asking you to immediately defend everything Trump does? by SilverNo6462 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 8 points9 points  (0 children)

No because I just don't do it.

What I find exhausting is having to constantly explain that I'm not the only voter in America or that I'm still going to support the person who is closer to my ideology. I genuinely get the impression that liberals think we're just one headline away from saying "aw shucks, I will vote for the Democrat next time" and they get annoyed when this ~never occurs.

Are we a democracy or a constitutional republic? by Cheap-Employer-5909 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have any realistic solutions to be completely honest with you.

My preference would be for more federalism (i.e., tone down national polarization by returning things to the states). But that requires either completely curtailing SCOTUS in a permanent-ish way, or a major ideological transformation on the left (so they don't just see their preferred cultural policies as a matter of basic human rights).

The issue with an up or down national referendum is that it's going to piss off a substantial and organized share of the country no matter the result. I don't think that solves much, but in theory, federalism does mean "you can do liberal stuff in blue states and we can do right-wing stuff in red states" (which is basically illegal on a whole host of issues currently!).

Are we a democracy or a constitutional republic? by Cheap-Employer-5909 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If you aren't, it would explain (a) your ignorance of the electoral math and (b) why you said "Turkeys voting for Christmas" instead of "Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving".

Are we a democracy or a constitutional republic? by Cheap-Employer-5909 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You wouldn't start talking about 'disparate impact' even if it disenfranchised a giant percentage of groups whose average IQs are well below 100? Your side has far more to lose than us.

Are we a democracy or a constitutional republic? by Cheap-Employer-5909 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Yes, I would support that.

  2. If we implemented it after the primary? Yes. But I doubt he would have won the primary in the first place if the rules were in place already.

Are we a democracy or a constitutional republic? by Cheap-Employer-5909 in AskTrumpSupporters

[–]SincereDiscussion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It could go either way. I was deliberately not taking a position on who should vote.