TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
You really like looking at conservatives through rose-tinted glasses, don't you? Conservatives "small limited government" really translates into "government filled with people I agree with that hold my values".
That's interesting (and perhaps projection?), given that the entire rationale behind "small limited government" for conservatives is based on the assumption that said government may not be filled with people they agree with and who hold their values.
Exactly my point. The "Small limited government" shtick is a lie.
I'm not sure where you think there's a lie in there. If I want to live in a society that is not run by a government that does things I don't like, the best way to accomplish this is to minimize the size and power of the government. Period. What you seem to be missing is that this doesn't just benefit one group of people at the expense of another. It benefits all of us. If there are 10 different groups of people, representing 10 different sets of values, and we assume that the government will only ever act in a way that perfectly corresponds to the values of one of those groups, then 90% of the people in the society are suffering with a government that is doing things they don't agree with. All the time. There are only two ways to resolve this problem:
1. Force the other 9 groups to all adopt your own values and ensure that the government acts in alignment with those values, usually by granting the government vast amounts of power while your "side" has control of the reins so it can cause that forced social change. This is more or less the route that the Left is taking. Another word for this is authoritarianism.
2. Minimize the amount of power the government has all of the time. This way, you can maximize the amount of different viewpoints and value sets that can exist in your society while minimizing the degree of suffering by those whose values may not be shared by those in power. This is more or less the route that the Right is taking. Another word for this is liberalism (or, I suppose libertarianism, but that tends to get associated with the modern political party of the same name).
Obviously, there are more degrees and axis to the issue than this. But that is a very broad basic view of the most significant difference between left and right. What's interesting though is that liberals tend to assume that conservatives are also attempting to do option 1 (projection). They know that they are fighting to gain political power so they can force society to change in accordance with their views and ideals and assume that's what conservatives are doing when we oppose them. But we're not. We don't want either side to have that kind of power.