Explain Conservatism

[Gary K]

I'm a newbie around here, but I'll give you my definition of what conservatism is.

1. I want to conserve the constitution, as it was written, in all that details, including the prohibition against all forms of interfering with religious expression, free speech in all it's forms--meaning whether I agree with it or not, the right to keep and bear arms for an armed citizenry is the only check upon a government that runs amok. These are the most "controversial" part of the constitution today and so I list them.

2. To me liberty is the greatest gift the founding fathers gave us. Those who would sacrifice liberty in the name safety do not understand what they are doing. They do not understand that once liberty is gone, it is only gotten back at the price of a lot of bloodshed. You cannot just vote it back in.

3. To express this idea I will quote Alexis de Toqueville for he said it much better than I can: “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” I want to conserve faith, for without faith we cannot have morality, and without morality we cannot have liberty.

4. This idea again is expressed best by de Toqueville: “When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” I want to conserve duty, honor, honesty, self-discipline, etc... for it is upon these foundations, and only these foundations, that a successful society can be built. The Bible teaches this too for we see that every time the Israelites/Jews lost their grip on these ideas they lost their national power and liberty.

I guess that's a good enough start as I could write pages on what I want to conserve from what our founding fathers entrusted us to preserve/conserve. But this ought to give you enough to chew on for a while.

 

[kmoney]

I'm challenging conservatives to state their ideals in a defensible way. I have a hunch that there are no conservatives anymore. Not in any serious numbers, at least. Not in mainstream politics. The old pre-Trump conservatives, those who actually were ideas-driven, left. George Will works at MSNBC now. David Frum, Bill Kristal, Rick Wilson. It's hard to name a single intellectual who has gone along for Trumpism. And Trumpists often engage in naked hypocrisy. So, I suspect that it has no ideological underpinnings, but is based on a sort of team mentality. I'm looking for someone to prove me wrong.

If you modify that statement to say that there aren't Trumpian conservatives I may agree. There are certainly still conservatives. I can't rattle off a bunch of names but one that comes to mind is Jonah Goldberg. I often hear him on NPR and he's a conservative Trump critic.
Trump is a mixture of nationalism and populism and authoritarianism, not conservatism.

 

[rexlunae]

Today's conservative is the same as he was when Goldwater wrote his book. Reagan summed up his conservative view by saying:

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.​

Conservatives: Smaller Government
Liberals: Bigger Government

Well, I hear that claim a lot, and while I know that it is what conservatives have claimed to want for a very long time, it doesn't seem like much of a principle at all, and I don't think they really want it. Or, at least, they seem to want the government to do a lot of things. The smallest government, of course, would be no government. And yet, a lot of Trumpian conservatives seem to want billions of dollars spent building a wall on the border, a $600 billion "defense" budget, and in many cases they want their Social Security checks to arrive as always. Oh, and a bunch of them want the government to regulate and punish sex.

Can you elaborate what the actual principle is?

 

[rexlunae]

If you modify that statement to say that there aren't Trumpian conservatives I may agree. There are certainly still conservatives. I can't rattle off a bunch of names but one that comes to mind is Jonah Goldberg. I often hear him on NPR and he's a conservative Trump critic.
Trump is a mixture of nationalism and populism and authoritarianism, not conservatism.

The conservatives who are anti-Trump, while notable, are now without a party, which makes their views fringe. I'm trying to interrogate the mainstream who seem to have gone whole-hog for Trump.

 

[ClimateSanity]

I'm a newbie around here, but I'll give you my definition of what conservatism is.

1. I want to conserve the constitution, as it was written, in all that details, including the prohibition against all forms of interfering with religious expression, free speech in all it's forms--meaning whether I agree with it or not, the right to keep and bear arms for an armed citizenry is the only check upon a government that runs amok. These are the most "controversial" part of the constitution today and so I list them.

2. To me liberty is the greatest gift the founding fathers gave us. Those who would sacrifice liberty in the name safety do not understand what they are doing. They do not understand that once liberty is gone, it is only gotten back at the price of a lot of bloodshed. You cannot just vote it back in.

3. To express this idea I will quote Alexis de Toqueville for he said it much better than I can: “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” I want to conserve faith, for without faith we cannot have morality, and without morality we cannot have liberty.

4. This idea again is expressed best by de Toqueville: “When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” I want to conserve duty, honor, honesty, self-discipline, etc... for it is upon these foundations, and only these foundations, that a successful society can be built. The Bible teaches this too for we see that every time the Israelites/Jews lost their grip on these ideas they lost their national power and liberty.

I guess that's a good enough start as I could write pages on what I want to conserve from what our founding fathers entrusted us to preserve/conserve. But this ought to give you enough to chew on for a while.

That's pretty much the same as my conservatism

 

[aCultureWarrior]

The conservatives who are anti-Trump, while notable, are now without a party, which makes their views fringe. I'm trying to interrogate the mainstream who seem to have gone whole-hog for Trump.

So you're really not interested in what true conservativism is, you just want pseudo conservatives to tell you what their version of it is.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

I'm a newbie around here, but I'll give you my definition of what conservatism is.

1. I want... free speech in all it's forms--meaning whether I agree with it or not,..

Please expound on that statement.

 

[rexlunae]

So you're really not interested in what true conservativism is, you just want pseudo conservatives to tell you what their version of it is.

I want what the mainstream of conservatism is right now under Trump. I recognize that this is not the same as other incarnations. This is, in part, why I've found myself agreeing with you way more often since this time last year than either of us have been accustomed to prior.

 

[Gary K]

I see a lot of Trump hating going on here.

I didn't vote for him. I couldn't hold my nose tight enough to keep on the smell of his past and some of the statements made here that are criticising him. However, I must say the man has become a far better president, so far, than I thought it possible for him to become. He has rolled back tons of regulation that have been stifling the economy for quite a while. In one go he rolled back enough regulation that it is estimated was sucking $3 trillion a year out of the economy. That right there is more than any president in several decades has done for the little guy in America for that means more jobs and a better life for a lot of people.

He has also rolled back things that were clearly unconstitutional which have been limiting the free expression of religious freedom. When the Constitution says there shall be no law limiting the free expression of religion that is exactly what it means. If someone doesn't support the LGBT agenda for religious reasons that right cannot be abridged as the Constitution guarantees them that right, and it is the supreme law of the land. So what if some baker doesn't bake a cake for gay couple. That baker is not stopping, and cannot stop, that couple from marrying or from having someone else bake them a cake. That couple can simply go to another baker who is friendly to their cause and have them make that cake. The couple is deprived of nothing. When that couple goes to court to sue they are, in fact, desiring to limit that baker's right to the free expression of his religion. Oh, I hear the argument that if you go into business you give up your rights, but that is simply a logical fallacy. No where does the Constitition say that you have rights that are abrogated by being in business. That is so far outside the intent of the creators of the Constitution it's laughable. Those men were almost all businessmen, and very deep thinkers, so to say that they wrote a document that would stop they themselves from enjoying the rights they were granting to the rest of the nation is ludicrous beyond belief.

I also hear the argument against Trump that he isn't perfect. Really? That is one of the, pardon the terminology, stupidest arguments I've heard. Just when have we had a president who was a perfect human being? We never have, and it is a logical fallacy to insist that we must have a perfect human being for president as such a person does not exist. So Trump isn't a born politician, so what? Look at where "born" politicians have taken us. Our constitution is in tatters. Our national debt is so high that if we cut spending tomorrow so that we could pay off what we owe at $1 trillion/yr it would take us more than two centuries to pay off all our debts. We are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt as a nation. Our politicians have been stealing us blind for a long, long time. They have cooperated with the Federal Reserve to bankrupt us by stealing, through means of inflation and debt, the value of our currency. Right now the real value of the dollar is about $.05. This is why prices are so high, jobs are so scarce, and very few people have the money to actually pay their bills. Politicians are to blame. All those politicians who keep on promising "free" stuff are lying to you. Where do you think that money comes from? It comes out of your pockets. You pay those bills. Every cent the government spends comes out of the pockets of its citizens. Trump is trying to do something about this, but he is being fought by both Democrats and Republicans. You know, the "born" politicians who are absolutely corrupt. And then the media, and you Trump haters, blames Trump because his economic agenda isn't being passed. What baloney.

To tell the truth, I'm sick of politicians. They are all liars, and yet the great drumbeat is "Trump's a liar". Really? You're going to focus on him alone and let all the other liars who the ones who are actually responsible for the condition our country is in off the hook? The so-called conservatives like McConnel, Ryan, and those of that stripe have lied to us for years. Oh, when they couldn't repeal Obamacare because they didn't have the votes they promised every with their hands over their hearts that they would do it. When they have the power to make change will they? Not on your life. They are the real liars. All those so-called "conservative" pundits who bash Trump on a regular basis support all those politicians who have been lying to us for decades. What does that tell you about them? It tells me they are just as corrupt as the politicians they align themselves with.

All I can really tell you guys is stop believing the MSM. They are corrupt beyond belief. They are now political tools, not the fourth estate that our founding fathers saw them as when they gave them gave them special protections. The founding fathers saw the media as way to check government power, not to collude with it and protect it from the consequences it deserves when it becomes utterly corrupt as it is now.

 

[rexlunae]

1. I want to conserve the constitution, as it was written, in all that details, including the prohibition against all forms of interfering with religious expression,

Including for Muslims?

... free speech in all it's forms--meaning whether I agree with it or not,

That we have in common.

...the right to keep and bear arms for an armed citizenry is the only check upon a government that runs amok. These are the most "controversial" part of the constitution today and so I list them.

I think we'd differ here, both in terms of policy desires, and in terms of how we interpret the intentions of the Second Amendment. But fair enough.

2. To me liberty is the greatest gift the founding fathers gave us.

I agree in a qualified way, although, I would caveat that with an acknowledgement that they didn't give it to all of us, and to many they prolonged the denial of it. There is a reason slaves were fighting on the side of the British in the War of 1812.

Those who would sacrifice liberty in the name safety do not understand what they are doing.

Yeah, there's a famous saying that starts out kinda like that.

Do you feel like it enhances liberty to incarcerate massive numbers of people? Or to round up and deport immigrants?

They do not understand that once liberty is gone, it is only gotten back at the price of a lot of bloodshed. You cannot just vote it back in.

I don't know about that. Peaceful methods have proven generally more effective overall. The powerful always have all the guns, or if they don't, they at least have more and bigger guns. For as many guns as there are out there in the US, I don't think there's much of a case to make that a coup could be raised from the armed people. Now, if a society itself rises up and refuses their leaders' dictates, that can bring down any ruler.

Neither of these is easy.

3. To express this idea I will quote Alexis de Toqueville for he said it much better than I can: “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” I want to conserve faith, for without faith we cannot have morality, and without morality we cannot have liberty.

How would you assess the morality of Donald Trump?

Edit: You may have partially answered this with your latest, which you posted while I was working on my response. I'm leaving the question in case you want to add anything in a follow-up.

4. This idea again is expressed best by de Toqueville: “When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” I want to conserve duty, honor, honesty, self-discipline, etc... for it is upon these foundations, and only these foundations, that a successful society can be built. The Bible teaches this too for we see that every time the Israelites/Jews lost their grip on these ideas they lost their national power and liberty.

Well, that resonates for me. I would say that democracy is the situation where an entire nation rises up as their own masters.

I guess that's a good enough start as I could write pages on what I want to conserve from what our founding fathers entrusted us to preserve/conserve. But this ought to give you enough to chew on for a while.

Thanks for responding, and welcome to TOL. I imagine we will differ on many, perhaps most things. But I hope that we can still have a productive discussion, and perhaps even find surprising agreement.
:cheers:

 

[User Name]

Today's conservative is the same as he was when Goldwater wrote his book. Reagan summed up his conservative view by saying:

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.​

Conservatives: Smaller Government
Liberals: Bigger Government

What, then, is the difference between a conservative and a libertarian in your view?

 

[rexlunae]

I see a lot of Trump hating going on here.

Guilty.

I didn't vote for him. I couldn't hold my nose tight enough to keep on the smell of his past and some of the statements made here that are criticising him.

That's great!

However, I must say the man has become a far better president, so far, than I thought it possible for him to become. He has rolled back tons of regulation that have been stifling the economy for quite a while. In one go he rolled back enough regulation that it is estimated was sucking $3 trillion a year out of the economy. That right there is more than any president in several decades has done for the little guy in America for that means more jobs and a better life for a lot of people.

Every regulation has two sides, and you can have pathological growth that doesn't help either the little guy or liberty. One man might feel that it is his liberty to pollute a residential neighborhood, and anything that prevents him from doing so is an abrogation of that liberty, but the people living there might have a different opinion. I think liberty includes protection from that sort of abuse, and that such protections are worth even pretty large reductions in GDP growth. How do you feel about these sort of regulations?

In any case, this is a testable claim. If the regulations that Trump has eliminated add $3 trillion to the economy, we should see GDP growth increase by that much more. The last few years, the GDP has grown by 2-2.3%, and the number for 2016 (the last complete year) was $18569.1 billion. Assuming 2017 will end up comparable, it will be around $18,940.482 billion. So, the target for Trump to hit that goal is $18,943.482 billion.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth-annual

He has also rolled back things that were clearly unconstitutional which have been limiting the free expression of religious freedom. When the Constitution says there shall be no law limiting the free expression of religion that is exactly what it means. If someone doesn't support the LGBT agenda for religious reasons that right cannot be abridged as the Constitution guarantees them that right, and it is the supreme law of the land.

I guess the question is, how far can that right be extended. Can it trump civil rights legislation? If so, no civil rights legislation ever would have worked, since the reasons given for racial segregation were traditionally religious. The standard that civil rights laws draw, typically, is that a person who operates a "public accommodation" incurs responsibilities to serve people fairly, and not discriminate, and then the liberty of their would-be customers take precedence over the owners' sentiments.

Would you feel that you had liberty if you were theoretically allowed to drive, but no one would sell you gas? Or let you stay in their hotel?

So what if some baker doesn't bake a cake for gay couple. That baker is not stopping, and cannot stop, that couple from marrying or from having someone else bake them a cake. That couple can simply go to another baker who is friendly to their cause and have them make that cake. The couple is deprived of nothing.

The couple is deprived of a cake, that any other citizens would be entitled to.

When that couple goes to court to sue they are, in fact, desiring to limit that baker's right to the free expression of his religion. Oh, I hear the argument that if you go into business you give up your rights, but that is simply a logical fallacy. No where does the Constitition say that you have rights that are abrogated by being in business. That is so far outside the intent of the creators of the Constitution it's laughable. Those men were almost all businessmen, and very deep thinkers, so to say that they wrote a document that would stop they themselves from enjoying the rights they were granting to the rest of the nation is ludicrous beyond belief.

But nowhere in the Constitution is your right to be in business guaranteed, either. If you choose to be in business, the state can legitimately place limits on how you can conduct your business.

I also hear the argument against Trump that he isn't perfect. Really? That is one of the, pardon the terminology, stupidest arguments I've heard.

I agree. But then, I wouldn't argue that he isn't perfect. I would argue that he isn't adequate. He's almost perfectly inadequate, in fact.

Just when have we had a president who was a perfect human being?

A year ago.

:rotfl:

Ok, I'm joking. Mostly. But I would say that he was a lot better.

We never have, and it is a logical fallacy to insist that we must have a perfect human being for president as such a person does not exist.

It's also a logical fallacy to set up a straw man, if we're counting.

So Trump isn't a born politician, so what? Look at where "born" politicians have taken us. Our constitution is in tatters. Our national debt is so high that if we cut spending tomorrow so that we could pay off what we owe at $1 trillion/yr it would take us more than two centuries to pay off all our debts.

Trump's tax cut is going to increase the debt. As GW Bush's did. But the Republicans are too craven to face economic reality. Democrats are the true fiscal hawks, Republicans believe in tax cuts that we can't afford.

We are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt as a nation. Our politicians have been stealing us blind for a long, long time. They have cooperated with the Federal Reserve to bankrupt us by stealing, through means of inflation and debt, the value of our currency.

Our currency consists of Federal Reserve notes, which are subject to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve Bank. None of that is secret, or undisclosed. If you don't like the deal you get by holding onto Federal Reserve notes, take your notes and buy something else with them. Buy some gold. Buy some bitcoins. Buy some stocks. Buy some foreign currency. All of those are potentially more exciting, and better at holding and gaining value. But don't pretend you don't know the deal with the notes. People hold US dollars because they are stable and reliable, and that stability and reliability is the result of the policy decisions of the Fed. You can't get that stability and reliability without the monetary policy backing it. That is really the whole point.

Right now the real value of the dollar is about $.05.

That is literally impossible. That's like saying that the number 1 is actually 0.05. There's no set value that a dollar is supposed to hold. It inflates, occasionally deflates, and changes based on the economic inputs to the system.

A growing economy typically experiences some amount of inflation. And it's a perfectly healthy sign. Inflation has the beneficial impact of eroding both accumulated debt and accumulated wealth, which I count as a good thing.

This is why prices are so high, jobs are so scarce, and very few people have the money to actually pay their bills.

Unemployment is at a 40 year low. Jobs aren't scarce. Good jobs are harder to come by, but this is largely a product of wealth concentration. Low inflation, as we are currently experiencing, actually reinforces that problem. Yes, inflation without wage growth is bad, but if we have inflation while wages keep up with inflation, it can be good.

Politicians are to blame.

Agreed. Specifically, the politicians promising trickle-down gains to the poor and the middle class to justify tax cuts for the wealthy. The most stimulative thing that can be done for the economy by the government is injecting wealth into the bottom of it, because the poor spend every dollar, generating jobs and economic growth. Giving money to the people with plenty of it doesn't help anyone but them.

All those politicians who keep on promising "free" stuff are lying to you. Where do you think that money comes from?

Taxes and debt.

It comes out of your pockets. You pay those bills. Every cent the government spends comes out of the pockets of its citizens. Trump is trying to do something about this, but he is being fought by both Democrats and Republicans. You know, the "born" politicians who are absolutely corrupt. And then the media, and you Trump haters, blames Trump because his economic agenda isn't being passed. What baloney.

Here's what I support: Tax the rich. Like, a lot. Expand the support to the poor and the middle class. This isn't "free stuff". It's a component of living in a free and prosperous society. And if you are fortunate to become very successful, you incur the responsibility to share that burden. If you're rich, you don't need the help. And they can afford it. Trump's approach is upside-down, will only make the problem much worse.

To tell the truth, I'm sick of politicians. They are all liars, and yet the great drumbeat is "Trump's a liar". Really? You're going to focus on him alone and let all the other liars who the ones who are actually responsible for the condition our country is in off the hook?

That's an unfair and inaccurate broad-brush. I've never voted for a single politician who I thought was a liar. But Trump is a standout among liars. He has no concern for the truth whatsoever.

The so-called conservatives like McConnel, Ryan, and those of that stripe have lied to us for years.

That they have, and I don't defend them. But not like Trump. Trump could teach a masters class on shameless lying.

Oh, when they couldn't repeal Obamacare because they didn't have the votes they promised every with their hands over their hearts that they would do it.

That was quite a spectacle, wasn't it? All these years, all these symbolic votes, all the promises to repeal and replace. And it was all for the cameras. Trump got some flack for saying he expected there to be a bill on his desk on day one, but I thought he was absolutely right. If you'd believed Republicans, you'd think it would be easy, but it was all posturing and pandering. Of course, I knew there wouldn't be any such bill. The math doesn't work out. But no one on the Right wanted to hear that.

When they have the power to make change will they? Not on your life. They are the real liars. All those so-called "conservative" pundits who bash Trump on a regular basis support all those politicians who have been lying to us for decades. What does that tell you about them? It tells me they are just as corrupt as the politicians they align themselves with.

It tells me Republicans are liars or deluded. Vote Democrat.

All I can really tell you guys is stop believing the MSM. They are corrupt beyond belief. They are now political tools, not the fourth estate that our founding fathers saw them as when they gave them gave them special protections. The founding fathers saw the media as way to check government power, not to collude with it and protect it from the consequences it deserves when it becomes utterly corrupt as it is now.

I watch the mainstream media, and they prepared me to expect the Republicans plan to either 1. throw millions of people off of health care or 2. never pass. So far, they lead me right. But it matters who you get your information from. It's wrong to apply the "MSM" broad brush. Fox News are liars.

If there's one thing that's important to learn about politics, it's that the simplistic and cynical position that all politicians lie actually gives cover to the worst liars. All politicians try to present themselves in a positive light, from wearing makeup when they appear on television, to soft-peddling their most controversial positions, to outright untruth. But if you just flatten all of that out to the same thing, it actually gives them all permission to be their worst selves, because it doesn't matter what they do. There are actually many, many honest people trying to do public service in the best way they can for money that doesn't reflect the weight of the decisions they make, and they deserve credit for those efforts.

 

[ClimateSanity]

I see a lot of Trump hating going on here.

I didn't vote for him. I couldn't hold my nose tight enough to keep on the smell of his past and some of the statements made here that are criticising him. However, I must say the man has become a far better president, so far, than I thought it possible for him to become. He has rolled back tons of regulation that have been stifling the economy for quite a while. In one go he rolled back enough regulation that it is estimated was sucking $3 trillion a year out of the economy. That right there is more than any president in several decades has done for the little guy in America for that means more jobs and a better life for a lot of people.

He has also rolled back things that were clearly unconstitutional which have been limiting the free expression of religious freedom. When the Constitution says there shall be no law limiting the free expression of religion that is exactly what it means. If someone doesn't support the LGBT agenda for religious reasons that right cannot be abridged as the Constitution guarantees them that right, and it is the supreme law of the land. So what if some baker doesn't bake a cake for gay couple. That baker is not stopping, and cannot stop, that couple from marrying or from having someone else bake them a cake. That couple can simply go to another baker who is friendly to their cause and have them make that cake. The couple is deprived of nothing. When that couple goes to court to sue they are, in fact, desiring to limit that baker's right to the free expression of his religion. Oh, I hear the argument that if you go into business you give up your rights, but that is simply a logical fallacy. No where does the Constitition say that you have rights that are abrogated by being in business. That is so far outside the intent of the creators of the Constitution it's laughable. Those men were almost all businessmen, and very deep thinkers, so to say that they wrote a document that would stop they themselves from enjoying the rights they were granting to the rest of the nation is ludicrous beyond belief.

I also hear the argument against Trump that he isn't perfect. Really? That is one of the, pardon the terminology, stupidest arguments I've heard. Just when have we had a president who was a perfect human being? We never have, and it is a logical fallacy to insist that we must have a perfect human being for president as such a person does not exist. So Trump isn't a born politician, so what? Look at where "born" politicians have taken us. Our constitution is in tatters. Our national debt is so high that if we cut spending tomorrow so that we could pay off what we owe at $1 trillion/yr it would take us more than two centuries to pay off all our debts. We are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt as a nation. Our politicians have been stealing us blind for a long, long time. They have cooperated with the Federal Reserve to bankrupt us by stealing, through means of inflation and debt, the value of our currency. Right now the real value of the dollar is about $.05. This is why prices are so high, jobs are so scarce, and very few people have the money to actually pay their bills. Politicians are to blame. All those politicians who keep on promising "free" stuff are lying to you. Where do you think that money comes from? It comes out of your pockets. You pay those bills. Every cent the government spends comes out of the pockets of its citizens. Trump is trying to do something about this, but he is being fought by both Democrats and Republicans. You know, the "born" politicians who are absolutely corrupt. And then the media, and you Trump haters, blames Trump because his economic agenda isn't being passed. What baloney.

To tell the truth, I'm sick of politicians. They are all liars, and yet the great drumbeat is "Trump's a liar". Really? You're going to focus on him alone and let all the other liars who the ones who are actually responsible for the condition our country is in off the hook? The so-called conservatives like McConnel, Ryan, and those of that stripe have lied to us for years. Oh, when they couldn't repeal Obamacare because they didn't have the votes they promised every with their hands over their hearts that they would do it. When they have the power to make change will they? Not on your life. They are the real liars. All those so-called "conservative" pundits who bash Trump on a regular basis support all those politicians who have been lying to us for decades. What does that tell you about them? It tells me they are just as corrupt as the politicians they align themselves with.

All I can really tell you guys is stop believing the MSM. They are corrupt beyond belief. They are now political tools, not the fourth estate that our founding fathers saw them as when they gave them gave them special protections. The founding fathers saw the media as way to check government power, not to collude with it and protect it from the consequences it deserves when it becomes utterly corrupt as it is now.

I sure am glad to have you here. Many here agree with your ideas but lack the ability to express them with such articulateness.

 

[Gary K]

Guilty.



That's great!



Every regulation has two sides, and you can have pathological growth that doesn't help either the little guy or liberty. One man might feel that it is his liberty to pollute a residential neighborhood, and anything that prevents him from doing so is an abrogation of that liberty, but the people living there might have a different opinion. I think liberty includes protection from that sort of abuse, and that such protections are worth even pretty large reductions in GDP growth. How do you feel about these sort of regulations?

In any case, this is a testable claim. If the regulations that Trump has eliminated add $3 trillion to the economy, we should see GDP growth increase by that much more. The last few years, the GDP has grown by 2-2.3%, and the number for 2016 (the last complete year) was $18569.1 billion. Assuming 2017 will end up comparable, it will be around $18,940.482 billion. So, the target for Trump to hit that goal is $18,943.482 billion.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth-annual



I guess the question is, how far can that right be extended. Can it trump civil rights legislation? If so, no civil rights legislation ever would have worked, since the reasons given for racial segregation were traditionally religious. The standard that civil rights laws draw, typically, is that a person who operates a "public accommodation" incurs responsibilities to serve people fairly, and not discriminate, and then the liberty of their would-be customers take precedence over the owners' sentiments.

Would you feel that you had liberty if you were theoretically allowed to drive, but no one would sell you gas? Or let you stay in their hotel?



The couple is deprived of a cake, that any other citizens would be entitled to.



But nowhere in the Constitution is your right to be in business guaranteed, either. If you choose to be in business, the state can legitimately place limits on how you can conduct your business.



I agree. But then, I wouldn't argue that he isn't perfect. I would argue that he isn't adequate. He's almost perfectly inadequate, in fact.



A year ago.

:rotfl:

Ok, I'm joking. Mostly. But I would say that he was a lot better.



It's also a logical fallacy to set up a straw man, if we're counting.



Trump's tax cut is going to increase the debt. As GW Bush's did. But the Republicans are too craven to face economic reality. Democrats are the true fiscal hawks, Republicans believe in tax cuts that we can't afford.



Our currency consists of Federal Reserve notes, which are subject to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve Bank. None of that is secret, or undisclosed. If you don't like the deal you get by holding onto Federal Reserve notes, take your notes and buy something else with them. Buy some gold. Buy some bitcoins. Buy some stocks. Buy some foreign currency. All of those are potentially more exciting, and better at holding and gaining value. But don't pretend you don't know the deal with the notes. People hold US dollars because they are stable and reliable, and that stability and reliability is the result of the policy decisions of the Fed. You can't get that stability and reliability without the monetary policy backing it. That is really the whole point.



That is literally impossible. That's like saying that the number 1 is actually 0.05. There's no set value that a dollar is supposed to hold. It inflates, occasionally deflates, and changes based on the economic inputs to the system.

A growing economy typically experiences some amount of inflation. And it's a perfectly healthy sign. Inflation has the beneficial impact of eroding both accumulated debt and accumulated wealth, which I count as a good thing.



Unemployment is at a 40 year low. Jobs aren't scarce. Good jobs are harder to come by, but this is largely a product of wealth concentration. Low inflation, as we are currently experiencing, actually reinforces that problem. Yes, inflation without wage growth is bad, but if we have inflation while wages keep up with inflation, it can be good.



Agreed. Specifically, the politicians promising trickle-down gains to the poor and the middle class to justify tax cuts for the wealthy. The most stimulative thing that can be done for the economy by the government is injecting wealth into the bottom of it, because the poor spend every dollar, generating jobs and economic growth. Giving money to the people with plenty of it doesn't help anyone but them.



Taxes and debt.



Here's what I support: Tax the rich. Like, a lot. Expand the support to the poor and the middle class. This isn't "free stuff". It's a component of living in a free and prosperous society. And if you are fortunate to become very successful, you incur the responsibility to share that burden. If you're rich, you don't need the help. And they can afford it. Trump's approach is upside-down, will only make the problem much worse.



That's an unfair and inaccurate broad-brush. I've never voted for a single politician who I thought was a liar. But Trump is a standout among liars. He has no concern for the truth whatsoever.



That they have, and I don't defend them. But not like Trump. Trump could teach a masters class on shameless lying.



That was quite a spectacle, wasn't it? All these years, all these symbolic votes, all the promises to repeal and replace. And it was all for the cameras. Trump got some flack for saying he expected there to be a bill on his desk on day one, but I thought he was absolutely right. If you'd believed Republicans, you'd think it would be easy, but it was all posturing and pandering. Of course, I knew there wouldn't be any such bill. The math doesn't work out. But no one on the Right wanted to hear that.



It tells me Republicans are liars or deluded. Vote Democrat.



I watch the mainstream media, and they prepared me to expect the Republicans plan to either 1. throw millions of people off of health care or 2. never pass. So far, they lead me right. But it matters who you get your information from. It's wrong to apply the "MSM" broad brush. Fox News are liars.

If there's one thing that's important to learn about politics, it's that the simplistic and cynical position that all politicians lie actually gives cover to the worst liars. All politicians try to present themselves in a positive light, from wearing makeup when they appear on television, to soft-peddling their most controversial positions, to outright untruth. But if you just flatten all of that out to the same thing, it actually gives them all permission to be their worst selves, because it doesn't matter what they do. There are actually many, many honest people trying to do public service in the best way they can for money that doesn't reflect the weight of the decisions they make, and they deserve credit for those efforts.

I'm not going to respond point-by-point, but will address what I see as the fundamental difference in how we think. As that is the real difference between us, that is the point worth actually talking about.

You, from what you say, believe more government is the solution to every problem our society faces. Where that leads is directly to totalitarianism. You'll most likely react in anger to that perception, but if you will stop and actually consider the facts you will see I am correct.

Every time you give government more power to affect the lives of citizens it removes just that much more liberty. It is a slippery slope to embark on for where does it stop? There is always someone who wants the government to stop one more type of thinking/behavior or another so government power just keeps on growing, and liberty just keeps on shrinking. After a while there will be no liberty to lose, for the government will control everything. And that is totalitarianism.

The successful solution to the issues that preserves libery is not government, but individuals who live by self-respect, self-discipline, morality, respect for others, etc... for people who are self-governed by these principles do not need a government to tell them what to do and how to act to create a successful and open society. They will act appropriately on their own. The problem in this country right now is that it has left decency, morality, love for our fellow man, self-respect, self-discipline, etc... far behind. It's now all about the big I. It's all about me, what I want, my jealousy that someone else made good and I didn't. It's all about lust for things and lack of desire to earn personally earn them. If it wasn't, people wouldn't respond to politicians who play on these desires by promising more and more government entitlements.

We've already spent ourselves into bankruptcy and very few people will admit it. They just want more and more given to them. Well, someone has to pay for all of that, and those who keep on clamoring for more goodies from the government are the ones who will have to pay in the long run. They and their children, their children's children, and so on for many generations for all government spending is paid for by it's citizens. That's just fact. There is no way around it. Unfortunately these same people who keep on clamoring for more government force the rest of us to pay for all this madness too. They have no respect for people with my point of view whatsoever. They all just basically give us the Hawaiian good luck sign.

Right now your children's children are so far in debt that they will never be able to pay it off. If the Federal government cut spending to the point we could begin paying off our debt at $1 trillion a year it would take more than 2 centuries to pay off the debt, and that doesn't count any interest on our debt. And yet you want government to keep on spending more money, keep on getting more powerful, and adding regulations that reduce wealth. Your descendents will be nothing more than slaves to the government for many generations to come, and yet you don't care a whit for that. You need to remember, debt is a form of slavery. And right now we are all slaves to debt.

Let's look at how much we owe. We have two forms of debt. One is the published debt. That is spending congress has taken responsibility for and said how it will be paid. It is a very small part of what we actually owe. The other part of our debt is called unfunded liabilities. That is spending congress has authorised, but made absolutely no provision for paying for. It is by far the largest part of our debt, and it is absolutely unconstitutional. Let's figure, in round numbers so it's easy to see, our published debt at $20 trillion. Our unfunded liabilities at this point are now at a little more than $205 trillion. That makes our total debt $225 trillion. Now, if we figure our population at 300 million people it gives a round number for the math, and doesn't substantially affect the result. Oh, it will affect it some, but when you see the results you will understand that the increase is basically meaningless. So, let's divide 225 trillion by 300 million. The answer to that is a debt, for every man, woman, and child in the US of $750,000. How do you plan on paying off your share of the debt? Do you understand that you and your descendents have been saddled with this slavery unconstitutionally? In other words, illegally? Yes, that is what your beloved government has done to you and your children. Basically though, you have done it to yourself.

When do economic realities take over? When does how much you spend have anything to do with how much money you actually have? Do you spend a few hundred dollars a month more than you earn to personally feed refugees, or donate to support transgender operations? Why not? Don't you care about them? If you're not spending more than you earn in this line you are defeating your own point of view, for this is what you think the government ought to do on every issue you support. When all the time the government is spending not only your money but the money of generations to come. It's utter financial madness.

The Federal government has some constitutionally mandated functions it is required by law to do, but it has spread far, far beyond those mandates, and is thus far outside the law, as the constitution specifically says all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are withheld from it.

So, that is where our fundamental differences lie. I don't think we ought to spend far more money than we have. We ought to live by financial realities. We must live by financial realities. And, we must become a society in which individuals live by self-government, self-denial, and respect for others, if we are to survive as a nation. Anything else leads to a complete collapse of the United States as a nation and we will become the slaves of other nations. There is no way around it, for there is no free lunch. Someone always pays.

 

[patrick jane]

I see a lot of Trump hating going on here.

I didn't vote for him. I couldn't hold my nose tight enough to keep on the smell of his past and some of the statements made here that are criticising him. However, I must say the man has become a far better president, so far, than I thought it possible for him to become. He has rolled back tons of regulation that have been stifling the economy for quite a while. In one go he rolled back enough regulation that it is estimated was sucking $3 trillion a year out of the economy. That right there is more than any president in several decades has done for the little guy in America for that means more jobs and a better life for a lot of people.

He has also rolled back things that were clearly unconstitutional which have been limiting the free expression of religious freedom. When the Constitution says there shall be no law limiting the free expression of religion that is exactly what it means. If someone doesn't support the LGBT agenda for religious reasons that right cannot be abridged as the Constitution guarantees them that right, and it is the supreme law of the land. So what if some baker doesn't bake a cake for gay couple. That baker is not stopping, and cannot stop, that couple from marrying or from having someone else bake them a cake. That couple can simply go to another baker who is friendly to their cause and have them make that cake. The couple is deprived of nothing. When that couple goes to court to sue they are, in fact, desiring to limit that baker's right to the free expression of his religion. Oh, I hear the argument that if you go into business you give up your rights, but that is simply a logical fallacy. No where does the Constitition say that you have rights that are abrogated by being in business. That is so far outside the intent of the creators of the Constitution it's laughable. Those men were almost all businessmen, and very deep thinkers, so to say that they wrote a document that would stop they themselves from enjoying the rights they were granting to the rest of the nation is ludicrous beyond belief.

I also hear the argument against Trump that he isn't perfect. Really? That is one of the, pardon the terminology, stupidest arguments I've heard. Just when have we had a president who was a perfect human being? We never have, and it is a logical fallacy to insist that we must have a perfect human being for president as such a person does not exist. So Trump isn't a born politician, so what? Look at where "born" politicians have taken us. Our constitution is in tatters. Our national debt is so high that if we cut spending tomorrow so that we could pay off what we owe at $1 trillion/yr it would take us more than two centuries to pay off all our debts. We are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt as a nation. Our politicians have been stealing us blind for a long, long time. They have cooperated with the Federal Reserve to bankrupt us by stealing, through means of inflation and debt, the value of our currency. Right now the real value of the dollar is about $.05. This is why prices are so high, jobs are so scarce, and very few people have the money to actually pay their bills. Politicians are to blame. All those politicians who keep on promising "free" stuff are lying to you. Where do you think that money comes from? It comes out of your pockets. You pay those bills. Every cent the government spends comes out of the pockets of its citizens. Trump is trying to do something about this, but he is being fought by both Democrats and Republicans. You know, the "born" politicians who are absolutely corrupt. And then the media, and you Trump haters, blames Trump because his economic agenda isn't being passed. What baloney.

To tell the truth, I'm sick of politicians. They are all liars, and yet the great drumbeat is "Trump's a liar". Really? You're going to focus on him alone and let all the other liars who the ones who are actually responsible for the condition our country is in off the hook? The so-called conservatives like McConnel, Ryan, and those of that stripe have lied to us for years. Oh, when they couldn't repeal Obamacare because they didn't have the votes they promised every with their hands over their hearts that they would do it. When they have the power to make change will they? Not on your life. They are the real liars. All those so-called "conservative" pundits who bash Trump on a regular basis support all those politicians who have been lying to us for decades. What does that tell you about them? It tells me they are just as corrupt as the politicians they align themselves with.

All I can really tell you guys is stop believing the MSM. They are corrupt beyond belief. They are now political tools, not the fourth estate that our founding fathers saw them as when they gave them gave them special protections. The founding fathers saw the media as way to check government power, not to collude with it and protect it from the consequences it deserves when it becomes utterly corrupt as it is now.

Welcome to TOL. It's a pleasure to see another member that has some positive things to say about Trump and his job so far. You might see a couple Trump haters that will never acknowledge anything good is possible from Trump. You will likely run into a plethora of left wing talking points that are exactly what Trump is trying to work on and are designed to bash Trump. I've noticed you used the word "brainwash" which I also use to describe what MSM and the internet are doing to many Americans. You'll get to know who's who eventually, have fun.

 

[rexlunae]

I'm not going to respond point-by-point, but will address what I see as the fundamental difference in how we think. As that is the real difference between us, that is the point worth actually talking about.

Well, if you must. Though, that does leave a lot of point on the table. I understand it's a lot of points, and it takes a lot of time, but I also did invest quite a bit of effort into responding by the point.

You, from what you say, believe more government is the solution to every problem our society faces.

No I don't. I believe that government can be a constructive force in the lives of its citizens, and that's why we have one. That doesn't equate to believing that government is the solution for every problem, or even most problems.

Every time you give government more power to affect the lives of citizens it removes just that much more liberty.

Every time? Then what is the government for? Are you a conservative, or an anarchist?

It is a slippery slope to embark on for where does it stop?

It stops where we say it will stop via our democratic process. Where do you think it should stop.

There is always someone who wants the government to stop one more type of thinking/behavior or another so government power just keeps on growing, and liberty just keeps on shrinking. After a while there will be no liberty to lose, for the government will control everything. And that is totalitarianism.

Well, lets set aside the "thinking" part of that, because there's no one who argues for that. But do you deny that there are behaviors that should be stopped? Maybe you are an anarchist, but I think you're not being honest with yourself.

The successful solution to the issues that preserves libery is not government, but individuals who live by self-respect, self-discipline, morality, respect for others, etc...

I think that when you are trying to get treatment for a potentially terminal illness, you won't find it very liberating for the government to say "you're on your own, pay for it yourself or die". Sometimes liberty requires a bit more than hands-off policy (aka laissez faire).

...for people who are self-governed by these principles do not need a government to tell them what to do and how to act to create a successful and open society. They will act appropriately on their own.

I think even most people who are honest and self-sufficient need a rule-book to live in a shared society with others. They can't make that up themselves. That has to be a matter of consensus.

The problem in this country right now is that it has left decency, morality, love for our fellow man, self-respect, self-discipline, etc... far behind. It's now all about the big I. It's all about me, what I want, my jealousy that someone else made good and I didn't. It's all about lust for things and lack of desire to earn personally earn them. If it wasn't, people wouldn't respond to politicians who play on these desires by promising more and more government entitlements.

...culminating in the election of Donald Trump?

We've already spent ourselves into bankruptcy and very few people will admit it. They just want more and more given to them. Well, someone has to pay for all of that, and those who keep on clamoring for more goodies from the government are the ones who will have to pay in the long run. They and their children, their children's children, and so on for many generations for all government spending is paid for by it's citizens. That's just fact. There is no way around it. Unfortunately these same people who keep on clamoring for more government force the rest of us to pay for all this madness too. They have no respect for people with my point of view whatsoever. They all just basically give us the Hawaiian good luck sign.

Then we can't afford a tax cut. Right?

Right now your children's children are so far in debt that they will never be able to pay it off. If the Federal government cut spending to the point we could begin paying off our debt at $1 trillion a year it would take more than 2 centuries to pay off the debt, and that doesn't count any interest on our debt.

It's a $12 trillion dollar external debt. My math says that take 12 years at $1 trillion per year. Throw in the debt owed to Social Security, and it's $20 trillion. Still not out of line. It requires discipline, but it's not just something we can't do. And if we're going to do it, we can't do tax cuts.

And yet you want government to keep on spending more money, keep on getting more powerful, and adding regulations that reduce wealth.

As I pointed out earlier, it's Democrats who are fiscal hawks. I think there are some things that we could pay for with debt, and it would be worth the trade-off, i.e. increase our collective wealth, but all the policies Democrats try to pass, they also try to pay for. It's Republicans who want tax cuts and defense spending without finding a way to pay for it.

Your descendents will be nothing more than slaves to the government for many generations to come, and yet you don't care a whit for that. You need to remember, debt is a form of slavery. And right now we are all slaves to debt.

I think that's more than a little hyperbolic. Yeah, you take on debt by giving someone else a right to demand something from you later, but most of our debt, we owe to ourselves, and just like personal debt, we take it on with the understanding that we get something worthwhile for it. That can be liberating, because it affords you the chance to do important things without first raising all the funds you need.

Let's look at how much we owe. We have two forms of debt. One is the published debt. That is spending congress has taken responsibility for and said how it will be paid. It is a very small part of what we actually owe. The other part of our debt is called unfunded liabilities.

Well, but it is important to keep track of the distinction. $20 trillion is the realized debt. It's money we actually owe right now. The unfunded liabilities are projections of what we will owe in the future. But you have to go out decades to get the big sort of numbers like $100 trillion, $200 trillion. And it's based on the assumption that we're going to keep running deficits the whole time. But we can choose not to do that. And again, the Democrats are the more likely party to do something responsible about that.

That is spending congress has authorised, but made absolutely no provision for paying for. It is by far the largest part of our debt, and it is absolutely unconstitutional. Let's figure, in round numbers so it's easy to see, our published debt at $20 trillion. Our unfunded liabilities at this point are now at a little more than $205 trillion. That makes our total debt $225 trillion. Now, if we figure our population at 300 million people it gives a round number for the math, and doesn't substantially affect the result. Oh, it will affect it some, but when you see the results you will understand that the increase is basically meaningless. So, let's divide 225 trillion by 300 million. The answer to that is a debt, for every man, woman, and child in the US of $750,000. How do you plan on paying off your share of the debt? Do you understand that you and your descendents have been saddled with this slavery unconstitutionally? In other words, illegally? Yes, that is what your beloved government has done to you and your children. Basically though, you have done it to yourself.

I'm not sure where you get this idea that it's illegal for the government to raise debt. I suggest you review Article I, sections 6 and 8 of the US Constitution for the applicable law.

When do economic realities take over? When does how much you spend have anything to do with how much money you actually have?

Here's an economic reality for you: Single payer health care is cheaper than any other kind. We can't afford not to adopt it. It's costing us trillions of dollars by doing this private insurance system with no price controls, and maximizing the power of for-profit health care companies.

Do you spend a few hundred dollars a month more than you earn to personally feed refugees, or donate to support transgender operations? Why not?

The amount of money the government spends on feeding refugees is very, very small compared to the whole budget. As far as transgender operations go, that presumes that the government pays for it sometimes. I'm not sure that's happened yet. Maybe for a trans veteran. It's a thin, thin slice of a huge pie, and at the moment it would only come from an obligation that the government incurred for some generally accepted service. The biggest welfare program we have is Medicaid, which is for citizens, many of whom are elderly and unable to work. If you want to cut that, you better hope you never need a nursing home. It's hard to see where that could be cut without being inhumane, and also, the costs would just get shuffled from the government onto the people directly, at a higher price because they would be far less powerful individually than as a group. And that's still a pretty small portion of what we spend overall.

Don't you care about them?

You're right that I don't spend more than I make on charity. But then, I'm not a Republican, so that's just how I roll. I pay for what I spend.

Like I said before, the Democrats are the party of fiscal discipline.

If you're not spending more than you earn in this line you are defeating your own point of view, for this is what you think the government ought to do on every issue you support. When all the time the government is spending not only your money but the money of generations to come. It's utter financial madness.

If you're serious about that, how about we balance the budget? Lets tax the rich. We can do it, and I would support it.

The Federal government has some constitutionally mandated functions it is required by law to do, but it has spread far, far beyond those mandates, and is thus far outside the law, as the constitution specifically says all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are withheld from it.

The same sentence of the Constitution that tells Congress to appropriate funds to provide for the common defense also tells them to serve the general welfare. In both cases, if it were absolutely clearly laid down what that should encompass, we wouldn't need a legislature, they'd just have put it in the original document.

I don't think we ought to spend far more money than we have.

Then vote for Democrats. Republicans say they believe in that, but they never ever do it, even given the chance.

 

[Jerry Shugart]

What, then, is the difference between a conservative and a libertarian in your view?

What is it in your view?

 

[User Name]

What is it in your view?

Personally I don't see much difference between the two. There is a lot of overlap, so it depends on who you ask.

 

[patrick jane]

What, then, is the difference between a conservative and a libertarian in your view?

Libertarians want NO government involvement in anything, healthcare, infrastructure, banking etc. That's true Libertarianism. They also say no drugs should be illegal or something along those lines, basically let people do whatever they want to themselves as long as nobody "gets hurt."

 

[User Name]

Libertarians want NO government involvement in anything, healthcare, infrastructure, banking etc. That's true Libertarianism. They also say no drugs should be illegal or something along those lines, basically let people do whatever they want to themselves as long as nobody "gets hurt."

What did Barry Goldwater want?