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Comment by stormbrew | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that the conservative perspective would largely rather go without these net benefits than see someone they think is undeserving, or worse "immoral" in some way, get any benefit.

That's why we have means testing at all: not to prevent people from needlessly getting benefits, but to prevent those who are undeserving of them from getting them.

A lot of things make more sense when you understand this imo, and stop trying to frame other people's views into your own moral framework (giving you the mistaken impression that they're hypocrites about it).

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The conservative perspective is not, and has never been, that poor people deserve to stay poor. It is that I can and will give my money to poor people, and you're free to do likewise, but we're not going to point a gun at old Steve and make him do the same.

Now that gun-pointing redistribution programs are fully entrenched, some people are still trying to have some say - ANY say - in where their money goes.

All allocation of property, including maintaining the status quo, involves the use of social convention backed by force. There are many people who would happily not live on the streets if a massive gun-pointing programme on behalf of property owners didn't evict them and deter them from finding another nice presently-unoccupied property.

(Smarter conservative arguments focus on utilitarian claims that [forms of] redistribution reduce incentives to grow the economy and build houses, rather than dubious moral claims that Uncle Sam pointing his tax collectors at Steve is somehow more immoral than Steve pointing his bailiffs at tenants)

> The conservative perspective is not, and has never been, that poor people deserve to stay poor.

It's a good thing I didn't say it was then, isn't it? I'll help you, if you really want to try to strawman what I said, it would be closer to: "the conservative perspective is that bad people deserve to be poor."

But I do think "poor people stay poor" is the net effect of conservative policies, because they prioritize other things over lifting people out of poverty, as you're doing in this post.

Instead they focus on lifting the "right people" out of poverty. Because that's the main reason to be able to pick and choose your charity: to make sure it goes to the people you think deserve it, or will use it right, or so on.

I think to be a conservative in this sense you actually have to first believe the myth that money you are taxed was yours to begin with, and you aren't merely a temporary holding container. After that myth dissolves, the whole anti tax conservative ethos logically falls apart. If you want more money, lowering taxes is objectively backwards. Just ask for a raise if you aren't happy with your pay or seek out a better job.

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