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[read this one first (and scroll up to the top if you have to) if you wanna know what provoked me to write the following--because i've just about had enough of this kinda fucking bullshit.]
Depends on what you mean by “conservative,” Scott (and yeah, not only have you brought me outta retirement with this post, you’ve even got me upper-casing–which means i totally expect you to properly paragraph this shit as quid pro quo).
If, by “conservative,” you mean “Republican” in its current definition, then no, i’m not a conservative.
If, on the other hand, you’re by chance alluding to the classic conservative principles (which the modern Republican party long ago abandoned) of limited government and limited spending, then yeah, count me among that number.
And you wanna know why, Scott? It’s an interesting question–over the years, I’ve been accused by my liberal friends of being cheap, stingy and non-progressive, but the truth is much simpler than that.
Bottom line: I’m a conservative because I fucking hate WASTE–because, see, I know that, for every dollar pumped into the federal government, at least 75 cents of said hard-earned dollar is wasted before it ever gets to its intended target.
And why is this, you might ask? Well, i’ll tell you why (actually, i’ll tell your readers why, because, smart boy that you are, Scott, i know you already know): because when it’s not your money–when you don’t have a dog in the fight–you don’t give a rat’s ass how efficiently the money’s spent, because you know that when Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, or [insert name of federal sinkhole here] goes down the tubes, it won’t bite you in the ass–the dumbass public won’t connect the dots, and you’ll still be re-elected and go on to fuck up another day.
It’s shit like this that drives me crazy, Scott–because unlike Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi–among many others of both parties who should’ve been de-elected for their egregious sins, and most unjustly were not–I work damned hard for my money.
AND I HATE TO SEE IT WASTED.
That’s why i–among many tens (maybe even hundreds) of millions of other hard-working americans–you know, the ones you so love to condescendingly sneer at–am a conservative. You get that, Scott?
And by the way, fuck your kind offer of amnesty; while i may have demonstrated any number of drunken character flaws in my previous comments to this fine blog, fear of the big bad wolf was never chief among them–feel free to do your worst.
[what can i say--fucker still has the power to get to me]
sober update: just so nobody misunderstands, it was a similar post over at billinexile that inspired me to start guttermorality in the first place--and while he may piss me off from time to time, i hold scott and his blog in high regard and i'm glad he does what he does.
7 comments:
oddly enough, the night before you posted this i was thinking about you and scott.
we wouldn't know each other if not for him and that's part of the reason i hold him in such high regard.
Well, you basically describe the libertarian point of view.
You would feel at home at the Cato Institute (www.cato.org). Browse through their book selection. They have such handy topics as privatizing police, fire departments, water and sewage treatment, and a host of other governmental tasks.
What you are stating is certainly a very common view of the world. Ron Paul caught fire in the Republican primaries with his views of dismantling the Department of Education and a few others (his views on different races and classes were not so popular...at least it was hard to get people to admit it).
I have two problems with the libertarian perspective: First, it is not 1740 anymore. We live in a very complicated modern world. Government serves an essential role. If you had your own gun back a couple of hundred years ago, that meant something. You could generally protect yourself.
It is also poignant that lax regulations (remember, libertarians want limited government) got us into this whole financial meltdown in the first place.
Criticisms of Democrats like Chris Dodd or Barney Frank are justified mainly because they played an important role in loosening is not repealing many regulations on banks and other financial services and never taking up new regulations as hedge funds went around and did their damage in a virtually unregulated atmosphere.
My second criticism of libertarians is a simpler one: we are one nation with one people. We are either going to rise together or fall together. Republicans got a lot of people to support deep tax cuts for the rich because of the argument that it would benefit everyone. When the data clearly showed that was not happening -- the rich got enormously richer and 60 percent of the population actually lost ground -- well, Republicans just repeated the same lines because it served their purposes.
We have millions of struggling Americans. How is America's future best served by having a 50 percent drop out rate in major city schools? How is America's future best served when the only health care millions of persons have is an emergency room by the time things get so bad, they have no where else to go?
(Hmm...that brings up a story...)
I think libertarianism is basically selfishness dressed up as an ideology. It is convenient -- and self-serving -- that you find most libertarians are a bunch of rich white men who keep saying if I can do it, so can you.
One of the things that amazes me about Americans is the strong spirit of public service. There are people of all stripes that patriotically serve their country. This includes millions of government employees in the military and outside of it.
Your characterization that they basically are lazy (insert perhaps stereotypes here) and feckless and do not care because it is not their money does a dis-service to this noble tradition.
One more thing:
On the issue of climate change, enormous changes are going to have to occur.
Dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can only happen through government regulation and leadership.
A small-government conservative has two choices: 1) Either accept the need for government regulation in this area or 2) Brand global warming a hoax. Most of the time, Republicans chose the later strategy.
Scott doesn't seem to feel the same way about you ;)
judi: this is true--i remember it well.
noblesavage: several things:
1. you act like i've never heard of either libertarianism or the fuckin' cato institute. the reason i don't characterize myself as a libertarian is because i understand that government (not only federal, but state and municipal as well) is a necessary evil for any functioning, free-market, democratic society, and the inevitable sacrifice of efficiency that comes with government is a necessary one when it comes to essential regulations and services that serve the common good.
2. the cause of this financial meltdown was the divorcement of risk from consequence, and it happened both from de-regulation (i.e., repeal of glass-steagal, for instance) and over-regulation (i.e., the government forcing banks to make bad loans to minorities who had no hope of repaying them, with promises that--don't worry--freddie mac would buy 'em up).
3. i'm not railing against "public service," noblesavage, i'm pointing out a basic tenet of human nature: when it's not your money, and when you don't feel the consequences of wasting it immediately (as you would if it were your money), then it's easy to spend $4,000 on toilet seats, period--republican or democrat.
4. and yes, i'm one of those who think global warming is a crock of al-gore-self-serving shit. he and his cronies are making a fuckin' fortune with their carbon-offset bullshit, flying around in their private goddam jets preaching the gospel of sacrifice for everybody but themselves.
anonymous: sorry, almost forgot about you. be of good cheer, however--you managed to inspire a post.
The cause of the financial meltdown was not the divorce from risk from consequence.
It was the abandonment of prudence. This lead any number of people to take risks larger than they should...and they got caught.
So now you have a lot of home foreclosures. Foreclosures have not stopped, they are happening at an unprecedented rate.
One of the basic problems with classical economics is that free markets ignore external costs. Pollution is an external cost. Pollution hurts society, but the polluter usually does not have to pay for it. A carbon tax is actually economically rational because it forces polluters to actually pay for their pollution. Free markets, by themselves, are inefficient. I think I expanded on this earlier with the "tragedy of the commons" concept.
I will let your global warming silliness go -- because there really is nothing you can do to reason with Senator Tom Colburn or anyone else who thinks global warming is a hoax. But, do not say that this is based upon an educated review of the evidence.
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