Debalic wrote:
Right. So if you're a *** Republican, you don't care about rights for gays. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.
No. You believe that the marriage status is a benefit, not a right. And you don't believe that extending that benefit to gay couples is more important than dozens of other political issues. It's no more hypocritical than a beer drinker not fighting for the right to have the government provide him free beer. Would he benefit from having free beer? Sure. Would a group that he identifies with benefit as well? Absolutely. Does his identity as a beer drinker define him above all things and require that he fight for that benefit, or choose a party solely based on whether it includes "free beer" on its platform? No.
Quote:
So he's Republican before he's ***. Which means that the good of the party is more important than the good of the people. Got it.
He believes that the agenda of the party is better for "the people" than fighting for a benefit for his own identity group. He's looking at the good of all the people, not just his own group. That's called not being selfish.
Quote:
Liberals believe in allowing people to live the lives they want and helping out when things go bad.
Interesting. So forcing people to buy health care even if they don't want to is "allowing people to live the lives they want"? Taxing person A to pay for benefits for person B is "allowing people to live the lives they want"? Subsidizing product A while placing taxes on product B is "allowing people to live the lives they want"? You're kidding. The Left's policies almost entirely consist of using the power of government to force people to live the lives they (the liberals) want them to live, whether they (the people) want to or not. Don't like people choosing to smoke? Create smoking bans. Don't like people eating junk food or drinking soda? Regulate/tax that. Don't like people living in homes that could generate more tax revenue if they were a shopping center? Take that property from them and hand it to a developer. Do I really need to go on?
Also, while I'm sure they are motivated by the desire to help others. They believe in having the government do it for them. Also, they believe in using qualifications for that help as a means to (again) control people's behavior.
Quote:
Not unexplainable malice. It's quite easily explained - when not malicious, just disinterested.
When "interested" takes the form of "use government to coerce people to do what we want them to do", then "disinterested" is the means by which liberty is maximized. Remember that liberty is the absence of influence on your choices and actions. A government that is disinterested is a government that is actually "allowing people to live the lives they want". I really do think the difference is that liberals tend to be ends focused, while conservatives focus on the means. It's why liberals obsess over social stats and try to manipulate the rules to make them come out the way they think is fair, while conservatives care most about whether the rules we use to determine peoples outcomes are fair.
These are completely different approaches.
Edited, Mar 20th 2015 6:41pm by gbaji