re: Certainly they do often do that, but pointing out that such activity exists is not an argument that it is a good thing.
It's the nature of government, it's what government does.
Its not the nature of government. Its something that government often does. Doing it to an ever increasing idea is a bad thing not something for the common good.
You often use the argument that we are not going to have some libertarian utopia so any argument based on reducing intervention is bogus. I would reply that your argument is bogus. The fact that the perfect utopian ideal of a certain philosophy might not be achievable does not support the contention that the philosophy and its ideas are useless or we should move further and further away from the ideas found in the philosophy. Its as if your saying that we will never have total peace and harmony in the world so no one should complain about any military invasion or intervention that we start or participate in.
You argue against what YOU perceive to be liberal or Democrat, but seldom rail against what is commonly perceived to be conservative or Republican.
1 - I regularly complain about the high spending of our current government, where both houses of congress as well as the presidency are controlled by the Republicans.
2 - On this thread and elsewhere on SI I have argued against Republicans and conservatives, esp. but not only on the spending issue. Currently on another thread I have been arguing against people who are trying to assert that the administration of the New York Times is a pack of traitors because the NYT published stories about the Bush administration's wiretapping of conversations between people in the US and outside of it without a warrant.
3 - I am conservative as well as libertarian, so I am less likely to be against conservative ideas at least if they aren't very statist ideas.
4 - A number of bad conservative ideas (like outlawing or heavily regulating contraception, sodomy laws, "intelligent design" being taught in public school science classrooms ect.) have been struck down by courts by what I consider to be stretches of the constitution. (Although the "intelligent design decision was less clearly a stretch, it doesn't strike me as a totally unreasonable decision.) While I don't want any of these ideas to be active in our law or government institutions, I don't think they should have been struck down by the courts in the way they where. But if I say this I am once again perceived as supporting statist conservative actions.
5 - In a number of areas I have disagreements, problems or concerns about the policies of the Bush administration, but if someone, in my opinion, greatly exaggerates the problem I'm unlikely to jump in in support of the exaggeration. I might stay silent, or I might point out the exaggeration. If I do the latter, then even if I say something like "this is wrong/a bad idea/a problem, but you overstate your case" I am inaccurately perceived or portrayed as being a defender and supporter of the administration on that particular issue.
6 - Overall I think liberals and Democrats are more statist than Conservatives and Republicans. This is far from universal there are statist conservatives (certainly at least statist Republicans), and there are a number of liberals and liberal ideas that are rather libertarian, but in general liberal Democrats are somewhat more statist IMO.
7 - Probably the biggest factor in terms of you seeing a lack of complaints from me about Republicans or conservatives - On this thread, and on the other political threads where we both participate. I am mainly engaged in conversations with liberals. I respond in these conversations, so I wind up talking about, and opposing more statist ideas from liberals than from conservatives.
Tim |
