Ask Lemmy

Me as an ESL being utterly confused by people's replies when apparently I understand "conservative" as per Merriam Webster dictionary definition 2.a "marked by moderation or caution"

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"I'm an uninformed idiot."

Conservatives are fiscally reckless. Look at every conservative president's deficit spending, and economic crashes. Look at the states most dependent on federal funds.

Even if you had zero morals and voted 100% on fiscal policies, the best choice is very clearly not conservative.

"I don't hate you because you're a POC, a woman, or queer. I hate you because you're poor."

Either "I hate poor people but I love weed" or "I'm lying because my actual views would scare people off".

Conservativism, in all forms, is not a real ideology. It's narcissism. A conservative will redefine conservative values based on their own identity.

So the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" idiot is lying to themselves about who they are. They want fiscal policies that benefit themselves, and they don't want to be labelled a bigot, but they are fine with bigots in office as long as they get the fiscal policies that benefit themselves.

Ask them what they mean by "fiscal conservative," and they will probably vaguely gesture and say "lower taxes." What they mean is "lower taxes for me." Fiscal conservatives still want to spend government money on programs they like. They want boondoggles in their backyard, earmarks and pork barrel projects, and social safety nets as long as they are the recipient (Medicare, Social Security, Veteran benefits, etc.)

They want to frame it as responsible restraint. Pull funding from programs they don't understand, like scientific research, or don't like, like foreign aid (except of course if strong ties to their home country).

And when they say lower taxes, when pressed, they will describe how their property tax or income tax or capital gains tax or death tax is really bad "for the economy." They want good schools and roads and infrastructure, but they want someone else to pay for it.

Calling themselves conservative gives them license to be as selfish as they want to be without having to admit that they don't actually have any values.

Euro perspective - When I hear fiscally conservative, that means supporting a governmental policy that is frugal with spending and responsible with public assets and finances.

This has several parts, here are some of the most important:

a) Keeping a balanced budget - the government should not be spending more than it is collecting from taxes and income. (A little debt in dire times is fine, but that should be payed off when possible)

b) Responsible management and long term planning - the planning horizon should be counted in decades

c) Focusing on core tasks: national security, infrastructure, healthcare, education etc.

d) Not raising taxes unless strictly necessary, lowering them if it is permissible according to the above.

Socially liberal => supports personal liberties

Now why does government debt even matter? Well, because debt is owed somewhere, and if it becomes large may mean that the government is beholden to other parties for the debt.

As someone who has used the term before.

Social liberal: I think you should be able to do whatever you want in your personal life, even if it harms yourself. I'm willing to negotiate with harming consenting adults while recognizing the possibility, even likelihood, of an imbalance of power making it difficult to properly give consent, or for it to be recognized by the public at large, e.g., maybe Amazon workers aren't really okay with peeing in bottles because they don't have enough time or facilities for bathroom breaks, just because they accepted the job. Doing things that harm those you have guardianship over is not acceptable because they are not in a position to give consent.

Fiscal conservative: I want money in the public trust to be spent effectively. This doesn't mean I want less taxes, I'm in fact okay with more. A city near me has 30% of its budget dedicated to police services, yet we have some of the highest violent crime in Canada. The simple fact is, a lot of crime is driven by poverty and lack of opportunity. So why are we paying to catch and jail poor people with no skills who are trying to survive and not paying for skills training, robust childhood education, and at least minimal supports so people don't have to be desperate enough to risk their lives and mine so they can survive? It doesn't make sense and there's no indication it's working. FYI, school meal programs tend to help the local economy to the tune of about $7 for every $1 you spend on them. That sounds terribly fiscally responsible to me...

"I'm a dumbass who's too embarrassed to say I vote Republican."

I don't like paying taxes to fund public services, but I don't care what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms

I used to say this. And I believed it. It’s a lie people tell themselves because they’re voting for terrible things and don’t want to take credit for half of it.

“I kill the poor but I’m sad about it” gtfo

"I'm a liar, pretending to be a libertarian. Fund the police so they can shut down the protests for things I don't like."

I'm someone who actually calls myself socially liberal but fiscally conservative, and that's because my primary concern (in the terms of moral foundations theory) is the liberty/oppression axis. In other words, I think leaving people alone is a good thing, and while it's not the only good thing and it needs to be balanced against other concerns, we should still be doing it more than we are now.

Two caveats:

1. I'm socially liberal because a free society requires tolerating even the people you hate. This is hard, and even many people who consider themselves tolerant because they simply don't hate a particular group aren't (and often don't want to be) tolerant in this sense.

2. I'm economically conservative because the freedom to act without government interference even in an economic context has great inherent worth (but I'll repeat here that I don't value it to the exclusion of all else) but also because the free market usually does a better job than central planning at making everyone prosperous. I don't care much about wealth inequality - a world in which I have two dollars and you have two million dollars is a better place than a world in which we both have just one dollar.

Edit: in practice I always end up voting for moderate Democrats at the national level, both because I think social issues are generally more important than economic issues and because neither party usually does what I would want regarding economic issues. However, I have more options at the state and local level.

“i vote MAGA, but im too much of a wuss to admit it out loud.”

Bellend

That you don't understand how capitalism works.

"I pick the parties on their rhetoric, not their record."

That they're a Democrat

Isn't this kind of a roundabout way of saying "I'm a libertarian that isn't into wearing tinfoil hats?"

"I don't understand what those words mean and I'm taking the coward's way out of this conversation."

"I'm a dumb cunt"

"I'm discriminating towards poor people".

I used to think this, because I was against government waste. But I also supported welfare programs, so I was just using the wrong terms for my ideas.

"You've been duped". Because people like this never acknowledge the amount of corporate welfare going on in America, if you want to be fiscally conservative, stop paying for profit companies from government coffers. Don't go after food stamps, that is just veiled prejudice

This is my father. Like, I'm happy that he doesn't hate me because I'm bi and poly. He's pretty open about how he thinks the Republican party is cruel and shitty.

His problem is that he associates fiscally progressive policies with California's creaking and inefficient bureaucracy. In his career, he spent a lot of time interacting with various CA governmental departments and he grew to loathe them intensely. Whenever I discuss progressive policies with him, he always relates it back to his experiences living and working in California and then just shrugs and says "I hate both parties for different reasons."

It's funny, because like, shit man, I kinda agree with him on a superficial level. California's state and local governments sucks at their jobs in a lot of ways (see the notorious San Francisco public bathroom). I agree that unions (of which there are many in California) can sometimes impede quick and efficient work (although I don't fucking care, I just chill out and am patient with folks and the shit gets done eventually. The process would be more efficient if the company tried to have a more harmonious relationship with the union).

He just doesn't seem to understand that as far as progressive polities go, California is a terrible example. There are plenty of places around the world that that have implemented progressive and socialist policies while still preserving the things he cares about (efficiency and relative frugality), but he's never been to those places. He hasn't engaged with those governments. All he can think of is the "progressive" state that caused him so much anger.

So basically, I think most people like this are fundamentally nice and decent, but they're ignorant and are blind to the underlying dissonance between their social and fiscal philosophies. My dad has never voted for Trump (he wrote in a friend's name which was basically a vote for Trump, but fuck man, it's at least a little better), but I don't believe he'll ever accept that voting according to his fiscal philosophy directly contradicts his social philosophy.

EDIT: apologies if this is rambling or poorly written. I'm sleep deprived and distracted and very stressed, and I probably shouldn't have commented at all.