*** Official Politics Shitposting Thread ***

[OngBonga]

As usual, it's devolved into they typical FTR meme of "This word really means......"

It amuses me that you mock us for talking about what words mean, then immediately tell us what they mean.

Conservatives believe the government is limited only to the powers granted to it by the citizenry.

Liberals believe the government is limited only by the constraints placed on it by the citizenry.

So conseravtives are deluded while liberals are realists? I don't agree.

[BananaStand]

It amuses me that you mock us for talking about what words mean, then immediately tell us what they mean.

Since I started this stream of discussion using that word, I think I get to decide its intended meaning and context.

So conseravtives are deluded while liberals are realists? I don't agree.

I can't even begin to guess why you would extract that interpretation from what I posted.

[OngBonga]

I can't even begin to guess why you would extract that interpretation from what I posted.

It seemed more like a case of "how I wish it was" vs "how it actually is".

[BananaStand]

It seemed more like a case of "how I wish it was" vs "how it actually is".

Then allow me to clarify

Conservatives believe the government is limited only to the powers granted to it by the citizenry.

There is a document, that's existed for almost a quarter millennium, that spells out specifically what the government's job is. It identifies very specific and exact responsibilities and powers that the government has. And it specifically says that anything not mentioned in this document is outside of the federal government's purview.

Conservatives seek to adhere to those principles, as written. That means the federal government stays the fuck out of issues like abortion and gay marriage. The constitution allows for the possibility that there are issues that require government involvement, but seeks to push that responsibility down to the most granular, and theoretically least tyrannical, forms of government. In practice, this means that issues like abortion and gay marriage are within the purview of state governments.

Liberals believe the government is limited only by the constraints placed on it by the citizenry

The constitution places some specific restrictions on the powers of government. For example, the government cannot search your property or enter your home. The government cannot compel you to make testimony that incriminates yourself. Liberals believe that anything outside of specific restrictions is fair game. Since the constitution doesn't specifically restrict gay marriage, then they believe it is unconstitutional to make laws restricting gay marriage.

As you can imagine, there is great potential here for a chaotic free-for-all. The constitution doesn't specifically ban drunk driving....so why can't I do that? The solution is to segregate people into groups, and then let those groups compete for the most compelling victim status. The drunk driving question is easy. That's a danger to the public. And the public is an extraordinarily large, and therefore democratically influential group. So, their oppressor...a drunk driver...is punished by the law.

Where it gets out of hand is when groups are segregated into more and more granular levels. So then you have the poor claiming to be victimized by the rich. Black claiming to be victimized by white. Immigrants victimized by natives. Gays victimized by straights. The unborn being victimized by the living. On and on and on and on. If your group of victims is loud enough, and your oppressors are evil enough, you can demand government action. That's a slippery slope that has been the demise of many Marxist governments (and hundreds of millions of people) throughout the 20th century.