What I have noticed here is that conservatives don't like the government intruding in their lives. They hate the government trying to tell them what they can and cannot do with their lives. So why is that while they hate the government in their lives, and want it to butt out, they are happy for the government to decide who can and cannot get married, and they are more than happy for the government to step in and put restrictions on abortions, which restrict what people can do with their lives? If you want the government out of your lives, why don't you want people to make their own decisions and not be restricted by a government? Is it okay for the government to control others, as long as it isn't you? *scratches head* I don't get it.
IMO conservatives are not so much hypocrites. Because to be a hypocrite one must know they are going against their behavior/nature or against what they see as right. For conservatives, they do not know what is right. Most need religion to tell them what is right and wrong, and how to think. Also, conservatives, are for themsepves and do not pay well as a team. In fact they have no true sense of sacrifice other than selfish selfserving idologies to make their lives better. But as far as a conservative hating government, but at the same time run for government so that they can further destroy the government they hate, they are like followers of a conservative mantra. They are like misguided slaves to their idology and religions. Example; conservatives think government is creating Laws/Regulations to harm small business. This is someways true. But if you look at the driving force of the actual legislation and who voted for it, it was overwhelmingly conservative drivin and approved. And when you look at who benifits from the regulations, it is a conservative entity/corporation, that benifits financially and legally. Often the regulation is designed to squeeze out the little guy, and make the little buisness subservant to the major industry corporation that ownes over 80% of the monopoly. See, conservatives, lack the ability to evaluate and assesses the process, and the players of all government politics. Because conservatives are simple people with simple thining, they obey the propaganda from the broadcast meda, rather than think for themselves.
I suppose we are all hypocrites. I'd be very suspicious if anyone told me I wasn't one. I'd be careful to throw negatively charged words around, it's not really helping. As for the marriage thing, I suppose they don't think that marriage is a government thing, it's a religious thing, and therefore should be decided by the church. Mind you, I am not of the concerned group so I might have misunderstood their views completely.
I'm still a hypocrite in some areas but I do make a concious effort to eliminate them when I encounter one or am made aware of one. As to your original example - yes if one claims to support the principle of limited government - they are hypocrites in wanting government to decide the essence of "marriage". I would continue though and argue that 'progressives' are also hypocritical in their pursuit of civil liberties - as it conflicts with their centrally planned economics.
Do people really advocate central planned economics? I'm going to play my oh-so-common card of coming from one of the most actually socialistic countries in the world, Sweden. We have nothing even close to centrally planned economics. We are still a capitalistic nation. We have a few government funded things, for instance, the government will pay for certain industries to stay alive in case of a conflict which would limit our trade, for instance, fabrics and yeast, but that's about it. Add that to the fact that even our right wing politicians are left of your left wing politicians and I find it unlikely that anyone except those left of the democrats to advocate planned economics.
You did just admit though that several of the sector's of your economy are centrally planned though - so I'm not sure where the disagreement is. Socialism and Capitalism are two mutually exclusive ideologies. If you increase/decrease Socialism you have less/more Capitalism. Anything that is funded by the government is an example of central planning due to the fact that the wealth that is sent to those politically favored areas had to come at the expense of the private sector which may or may not have used those resources differently. Your government has decided that in those instances - it can allocate resources better than the private sector - this is central planning. So yes I think the evidence shows that many people advocate central planning. P.S. I am not one of the knee-jerk people that will go ONOES SOCIALISM!!!1 I do actually know what socialism is and know the difference between that and crony capitalism (aka Corporatism). So if I do talk about Socialism (I'd prefer to call it a form of Collectivism which can actually be defined) I hope my point(s) aren't lost in translation
It's not so clear cut as being for gay marriage or not. Marriage is a religious practice. Some believe the government should get out of it all-together, by seperation of church and state. This would by unhypocritical to be against gay-marriage for. While the government is involved, and they change the definition of marriage of tens of thousands of years. This is not only possibly infringing on the religious rights of, say a pastor who is asked to marry a same-sex couple, but it is also infringing on the religion of those who *believe* same-sex marriage is wrong. If you're going to take a religious matter, make it state-sanctioned, and then change it around abit. You're messing with the religion. This would be another unhypocritical belief some people hold. There's a huge laundry-list of unhypocritical views against gay-marriage and for small government. Adoption, the rights of a baby to be raised by a healthy balanced man *and* woman. No men and women are not equal, which can sprout a whole other non-hypocritical argument itself. They have different chemistry, different levels of hormones, their brains are different. Naturally a baby should be raised, like it has for so many millennia, by a man and a woman. To say otherwise is to say it's 100% natural a kid be raised by a single parent, or their brothers/sisters.
If you only see the world in black and white, then this might be true, but in reality, a healthy society needs to have good elements of both. Striking a balance between freedom and security, the individual and the common good, rights and responsibilities, is what people of good will are trying to do in a society. What we have today is that lunatics of the left and right are trying to run the asylum, but they are too intransigent and intellectually deficient to be successful.
Conservatives are not hypocrites. Hypocrites are hypocrites. But you are correct - many people who give themselves the label of "Conservative" are hypocrites. A classic example is Tony Abbott - the Leader of the Australian Liberal Party. Claims to be a conservative, a believer in the "free-market". His Party has a policy a reduction target for carbon emissions exactly the same as the ALP. Yet he opposes the ALP's policy of using a market-based approach to reach this target. Instead - his Party proposes a "Big Government" interventionist scheme. A (fiscal) "Conservative" who wants government intervention over a market-based scheme is a hypocrite. He is also the leader of a party that calls themselves "liberal" - yet opposes abortion and gay marriage.
How very true, and those who don't mind being dictated to by government show a lack of confidence in their own lives. Conservatives don't want govt deciding if a man gets to marry his prized pink sheep or not; we want to see the localities and states decide on whether to sanction abnormal behavior or not. Now abortions are a different manner. Here we are talking about the outright murder of millions of GOD's children. No doubt Roe v Wade will be overturned after the 2012 elections when America has some decent/intelligent and moral people legislating our nation with an obvious Republican sweep of all three chambers of govt. So we want government with all of its failed programs to stay completely out of our lives, except of course (as I've stated many times) to maintain a strong military for defense purposes. So we Conservatives do not want government to sanction abortion (murder), or to sanction any kind of social degrading of our culture so as to accommodate a multicultural, abnormal social liberal agenda. I don't see how our values can be misconstrued into believing we want government to control our lives. You get it now?
Yet, in the American case, they seem to be quite comfortable with a huge sprawling government military. Why is that? If the military were handed over to free enterprise, then maybe the USA would not have been so completely incompetent over recent decades and avoided stupid, pointless, expensive, illegal wars.
Thank you for that beautiful illustration of Mak's point. Hypocrisy at its finest. ..oh...wait...that is just you isn't it Mak!! With a sock-puppet name to prove your point! Nice one!
You realize the states and localities ate run by governments right? You basically just said "I don't want the government to interfere in peoples personal lives, I want the government to do it" you contradicted yourself in a single sentence.
This is nonsense. Because we can only speak in general terms, I'll say that most people find a religion that fits their notions of what is "right"; not the other way around. Most simply start with a belief in "God". And so are you, what with the typical leftist lack of faith in people to work things out on their own; to take care of themselves without a massively intrusive Government. Unciteable/unsupportable. Onerous business regulation legislation is not overwhelmingly driven by Conservatives; the statement is ridiculous on its face. Find a credible cite to support your assertion, or retract it. Your post is just an anti-conservative screed, and suffers the inconvenience of being unsupportable. The only lack of ability I'm seeing at the moment is the lack of support of leftist assertions. Simple thinking is manifest in simply attacking a boogeyman of "Conservatives" with a bunch of inaccurate proclamations that you will not provide evidence for. Fail.
This is true, when you make that claim in the present maze of regulation and Nanny-Statism that is reality at present. Was it true long ago, when life - and Government - was simpler? Conservatives were happy when the Government allowed the States to determine these things, so - clearly - it is not that Conservatives want Government to "go away", but regress to its traditional Constitutional State. Conservatives would be happy living in a US where some States (People) determine for themselves to disallow abortion; to disallow gay "marriage"; etc. Conservatives are not happy with Government being used as a tool to impose a morality which opposes their core ideologies, whether they be personal or religious. That isn't the same thing as you're saying; not by a very large margin. You're confusing Conservatives - particularly Constitutional Federalists - with Libertarians. No, you obviously don't.
That doesn't make the statement that "Socialism and Capitalism are two completely separate ideologies" any less true, and - nonetheless - it is simply your belief that we need both, because of your ability to play with the definitions. And I may agree with you to a degree - but that's not the point of my objection to your tone. This whole "if you only see the world in black and white" charge is popular with lefties, and complete nonsense. Sounds lovely. Until someone disagrees with what you consider "balance", at which point you throw out the "you only disagree with me because you see the world in black and white" charge. Yes...because only the moderates avoid seeing the world in "black and white". Stop assuming that you're somehow elite because you think you're correct. Everyone believes they're correct if they hold a position that they've thought about.
We're talking about the use of the national government here. State's rights and local decisions on all of these freakish liberal social agenda issues should be used in deciding the outcome. But like I said, the only thing our national government should be used for (as written in the Constitution) is to maintain a strong military.
There is no hypocrisy there whatsoever. LibHater is a Constitutional Conservative. The Constitution calls for the Government to have the role of administering a military. In this day and age, a military is more important than ever. Perhaps you're the sock puppet?
Gee, Makedde, I don't know. I have noticed that liberals love having the govenrment run their lives. They like the regulation and the myriad of laws that cover ever conceivable aspect of their lives. But, then they want to whine because smoking dope is illegal. If you want the government to run every aspect of your life, quit whining. Or is it fine for the government to run every aspect of your life as long as it's the way you want it to be. Or maybe, it's just okay for the government to run every aspect of everyone else's life? BTW. I am strongly opposed to the discrimination against gays in this regard but the discussion is about hypocrisy and not gay marriage.
Thanks for proving my point. What right-wingers fail to understand is that the world is incredibly diverse and only through mutual respect and consensual politics can we make any progress. The **********s have shown a complete inability to accept diversity and think that they can threaten and bully their way to power. They condemn anyone, liberal or conservative, that acts in an adult way on this, and prefer to destroy the country rather than contemplate any compromises.
You don't get it because you don't understand the difference between negative rights and positive rights.