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Comment by beachstartup | Hacker News Reader

this is my main gripe with republican, as opposed to libertarian views. they believe in personal freedom and limited government... except where they don't.

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People want what they want, and don't usually have a consistent philosophical framework to back it up. They'll just use whatever phrase they've heard that speaks to them and aren't really concerned if they take the other side for another topic. They'll say that state's rights are important when they are arguing for one thing and forget about that principal when it comes to another, and it's not limited to one party or another.

Though there is the odiousness of "state's rights" originally being shorthand for "state's rights to allow slavery". It would be nice if people trumpeting the philosophy remembered that it was the justification for a monstrous institution and a war to maintain it.

People want what they want, and don't usually have a consistent philosophical framework to back it up

And people can be excused for that. A political organization should not.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and any coalition is going to have members who are there for different reasons. An individual person has a hard enough time putting together a coherent philosophy, and if a party is just a sum of its parts, it's easy to believe that the philosophy is going to be less coherent.

Which isn't an excuse for inconsistent or conflicting behavior. Working to restrict access to family planning under the banner of "pro-life" while cutting food and health benefits to poor children and their families under the banner of "cutting waste" is reprehensible.

Both major political parties in the USA are coalitions representing many groups of people with separate interests. It is in the interest of these groups to combine their resources when their goals tend to either align, or at least not conflict with each other.

The idea that republicans profess to believe in personal freedom in all respects is something libertarians made up to malign Republicans. Republicans, like Democrats, believe that government should regulate the morals of the people when necessary. For Republicans, small government is a means to particular, mostly economic, ends, not an overarching ideological imperative as it is for libertarians. Thus, there is nothing internally inconsistent about Republicans preferring that government intrude minimally into private markets while also preferring a large and strong military apparatus.

The fiscal responsibility part of the Republican ideology is largely insincere. Sure, the people who vote Republican believe it, but the elected officials don't. During the Bush years, when the Republicans controlled congress and the presidency, federal spending grew enormously.

>Sure, the people who vote Republican believe it, but the elected officials don't.

... which is why the Republican Party is set to lose an election that should have been an easy lay-up.

>During the Bush years, when the Republicans controlled congress and the presidency, federal spending grew enormously.

That's how we ended up with the budget sequester, which is the only thing that seems to have actually worked since the Gingrich House in the mid '90s. Now that the sequester is gone federal spending will grow in leaps and bounds no matter who is in power. It's built into the system.

Intrude minimally into private markets? I don't believe the actions over the past years as pertain to women's access to healthcare and reproductive services is minimal. Republican governments across a myriad of states have been anything but minimal into their intrusion of private markets that don't align with their core beliefs.

If you believe that abortion is immoral, then it cannot be the subject of legitimate markets. We don't allow private businesses to discriminate against black people, use child labor, or buy and sell babies or organs, etc. Nobody sees those restrictions as being intrusion into private markets, because they don't consider those markets legitimate in the first place.

Which goes back to the original point: Republicans don't profess that personal freedom and free markets should apply in all circumstances. There are some things that are the proper subject of markets, and some things that are the proper domain of government. Things that are the proper domain of the government's right to regulate morality (e.g. pornography, abortion, drugs), are not within the proper domain of markets.

> If you believe that abortion is immoral...

Stronger: If you believe that abortion is murder. We don't deregulate the market for hit men just because we believe in the free market.

That's not stronger, that's narrower.

The same with Democrats (personal freedom).

Different spins on Oligarchy/Corporatocracy. The Sanders wing of the Democratic party seems like the only one challenging.

It's all the same. I hate that people think there is this "left/right" gap when there isn't.

Sanders and Hillary both back Obamas official lines including increased wars, creating/arming ISIL/ISIS (yes, that was created by the US, directly. Don't kid yourself. In 30 years it will come out of a declassified document, just like Cointelpro, Bay of Pigs and the 1973 cope in Chile).

In regards to legalization, I don't think the US federal government will take a stance either way, unless Canada gets full legalization passed first. The biggest reason that it simply can't be legal at a federal level involves international treaties (which is why it's not even technically legal in The Netherlands, even though there are laws governing growing, sale and taxation .. even though it's still not legal to sell.. it's just 'tolerated' and taxed ...and regulated).

While I agree there isn't a huge gap, I'm not sure "increased wars" is true in Sanders case. Sorry if I appear to be nitpicking, but at election time, unintended misinformation is everywhere.

Too true! What isn't everywhere is who is going to be the candidates' VP? Who are the other members of their cabinets going to be? These nominations are the only true powers a Prez has besides a veto(overridable) & political 'influence'(real or perceived).

Obama was ALL about transparency & change... until he chose Mr Patriot Act Biden & left Geitner & Gates right where they could continue the banker war on the economy and saving the military complex.

> Sanders and Hillary both back Obamas official lines including increased wars

The only remaining candidate to vote against war is Sanders. The only candidate to support legalization of MJ is Sanders.

Bernie has been pretty clear that he believes the greatest threat to national security is global warming, not Isis.

I can't fault his analysis, there.

You're trying to talk about Republicans as having a single coherent philosophy, which is just not so. Same with the Democrats. Because of our voting system, there are only ever two viable parties, and so both parties have to be broad coalitions. The Republican party is a broad coalition of social and religious conservatives, libertarians, international realists, and neoconservatives.

Libertarian, Green, Reform, and other third parties are nice side shows, and good ways to get alternate ideas heard and stimulate conversation, but if you're serious about actually winning and exercising political power, you need to work inside one of the two big tents.

Conservatives believe in fiscal freedom and social control. Liberals, inversely, are for fiscal control and social freedom. Both, in theory, could argue they are for "smaller government".

Libertarianism wants both fiscal and social freedom. Small government compared to the "left" and "right", big government compared to the AnCap folks.

It is all perspective.

Liberals aren't really for social freedom. They're for a different flavor of social control.

Ergo the saying "Libertarians are left of Left AND right of Right". It's so very true...

Stupid reductionist logic from a stupid libertarian business card.

thanks, everybody, for downvoting this.

That's what I like about Sharia Law, the consistency.

haha, you're on fire today

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