A lot of small government types are big government types. They just think the rules imposed on them personally should be small.
If DeSantis wins
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
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This depends what you mean by "small government" and "fascism".
One of the criticisms of certain "small government" conservatives in the USA is that they favour small government in the economic sphere, but significantly bigger government in social restrictions. Fascism is essentially a shorthand for "authoritarian, illiberal nationalism." I see absolutely no reason there cannot be an authoritarian, illiberal nationalist government with modest taxation.
And that's what the USA can end up with. I think you can see it right here and right now, in the form of a lot of the Trump base. Many libertarians should be as appalled at that as your average liberal, but then many people who call themselves libertarians are actually small government conservatives. (No idea about Styx, mind.)
I'm talking about complicated webs of motivations driving people, you're talking about an invisible yet inherent and immutable trait that dictates a person's existence, and you're calling me the reductionist? Reductionism is exactly what you're doing, you're taking a complex topic like human sexuality and giving one single consideration weight over the entire thing.
That's not the premise I was responding to. You were saying considering something a choice is rationalization to hate it. Your logic is:
"People choose to wear sneakers" -> "You're just rationalizing your hatred of people wearing sneakers!"
I think the thing that makes someone black is the same for all black people. I don't believe that is true of being gay.
Half of that is incorrect inferences you are making, and half of that is you implying the wrong thing. You bring up housing or work discrimination based on conversation where the discrimination is "housing programs intended for parents with kids aren't meant for people without kids" and "jobs teaching religious education aren't for people who are opposed to those religious doctrines." I know you're not out there trying to steal programs from single mothers or teach religion in a Catholic school, so give it a rest.
You "chose to be assaulted" is nonsense from nowhere. I said nothing like that. I'm guessing you're trying to say you were assaulted for not being straight, but you're inserting victim blaming into the middle. If a woman chooses to be a waitress and is assaulted at work, you're neither going to deny her agency in that choice nor claim she chose to be assaulted. I'm also not going to deny her agency nor claim she chose to be assaulted. Why are you tacking bad motives onto my words?
You keep saying that, but there are many gay people who don't agree with you. You're taking political slogans as some universal agreement. Example:
‘I am gay – but I wasn’t born this way’
Is sexuality purely the result of our biology? Brandon Ambrosino argues that simplistic explanations have ignored the fluid, shape-shifting nature of our desires.
www.bbc.com
Is that person a bigot? Is the gay person claiming everyone has infinite capacity to try on different things, to cultivate our tastes and preferences, rationalizing their bigotry?
You're missing the word some. I speculate that some people are aroused by danger, because that's undeniably true in other contexts and you're not going to dispute it.
You: Nobody would put themselves in danger for sexual preference.
Me: Some people specifically prefer danger in their sex life.
You: You think all gay people are sexually excited by danger!
I mean, come on. You have to at least be able to concede that point.
Let me put it this way: all people like food, some have different tastes, some of which is natural and some of which is cultivated behavior. Some people like pickles right away, while most don't, but anyone can decide they want to like pickles and eat them until they acquire the taste, and the people who like pickles to begin with have no obligation to eat them. I'm sure many biological or cultural factors exist outside a person's control that contribute to the proclivity to enjoy pickles, but nobody is born inherently a pickle-eater, nor is anyone incapable of becoming a pickle-eater.
The element that I think differentiates Fascism from right wing authoritarianism is totalitarianism. A small government authoritarian is still not going to be able to micro manage every last aspect of your life. Maybe they could focus on one thing or another but everything? Monitor communications, punish wrong think, control finances so that if one engages in wrong think, their assets can be frozen and more? That takes a lot of power. Even in a democracy though, you only need 51% of the vote to get to there.
Read the actual fucking bill. I did that's why I said the BILL says nothing about limiting what kids can and cannot say.
Like what...?
Yes folks, you heard it here, eating real food is wrong and not something people should do!!!
LMAO, Joe Rogan isn't right wing. Also, I totally didn't realize Robert Atkins is a right wing grifter too. See, this is what happens when you make everything political...
You mean I supposed to take a known liar's word on things now. Rebekah Jones has been shown to be a massive liar.
Robert Atkins died twenty (20) years ago, he's not a top advocate for anything
Homosexuality is natural. Every gendered species does it (this is separate from every individual doing it, which is not the case). Forced heterosexuality (I.e. banning or restricting homosexuality to mandate heterosexuality only) is incredibly unnatural. It's cultivated behaviour and requires a lot of violence to enforce
But I get it, some like homosexuality automatically and some are willing to try to see if they like it. Then some of this group does not
I would point out that I dont think Antivaxxers fit neatly into Left/Right spheres of influence. But, as Rogan has noted himself, he gravitates to Right Wingers and has trouble actually questioning them as he does those on the Left
Ah, but they kind of can.
A totalitarian state essentially needs a lot of police (including intelligence services, etc.). But if you take a look at what Western governments spend money on, it's overwhelmingly healthcare, social care and welfare / pensions. They can cut a lot of that, and only need to keep a fraction of it to fund policing to totalitarian levels. If you want to look at a country that taxes much less than the USA and is much less free, just take a look at China.
I guess all those references to (((the jews))) in the comments are just a freak coincidence then.
Fuck nazis and those who apologise for them.
An interesting question. I will review the size of China's government. EDIT: It takes a big government to hire watchmen to watch the watch men who are in turn watched by still others. I just now read a story about a Chinese monitor network in Australia watching students in that country, there to ensure they don't engage in prohibited speech and actions.
I would write, when a government spends money on the people that is not necesarily a benign thing. Right now, Biden keeps reminding people that, no matter how much they oppose his positions, they better vote for him or they'll lose Social Security, even though he is on video speaking about the need for bipartisan cuts to that program. Social Security has done some good things, but its had a ton of unintended consequences. Buddy economist tells me it has contributed to people's abilities to compete for jobs at lower wages, while relieving them of saving privately or family planning that would include parents taking care of kids and then kids taking care of parents. So, be ready to get your kids killed in WW3 or you might lose this government program.
Yes, as a Jew, I can certainly state, F Nazis and those who apologize for them. People in the comment section can be glowies, leftist trolls, and actual Nazis who often criticize Styx for not hating on Jews, writing things like, "Styx, just say it! It's the Jews!!!". Perhaps Styx does not as he realized George Bush and Joe Biden are not Jewish. I put those people on mute.
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Quite aside from the fact that ascribing something to nature isn't "reductionist"-- is it "reductionist" to say my hair colour is XYZ because of my parents, rather than a result of a "complex web of motivations"?-- this doesn't even address what I said.
Orientation isn't a behaviour. Don't conflate them.
It's not inherently, by logic alone, a rationalisation for prejudice.
But it is used as one by many people, including you. I can see that from your countless other contributions and attitudes over the years. For someone already disposed to be prejudiced, the "choice" idea provides a cover to shift responsibility onto the victim.
Uh-huh, but this doesn't address the question. Treating something as not a choice, in your view, means you're treating them as a "monolith". Do you therefore think that black people are a "monolith"? Because if not, then its not a logical extrapolation of my position either.
The victim blaming is inherent in your position. You said that gay people in dangerous situations could just be sexually excited by danger, and that contributes to why they're gay, in order to provide that danger. You had absolutely fuck all basis to say that, you conjured it in order to ascribe culpability onto the victim, but here we are.
Don't try to weasel your way out of your own victim blaming position as soon as you're confronted with an actual example of the person you're accusing.
That would be someone whose sexuality is fluid over their lifetime, and has misinterpreted it to mean that they switched from one binary choice to another at some point.You keep saying that, but there are many gay people who don't agree with you. You're taking political slogans as some universal agreement. Example:
" I don’t think I was born gay. I don’t think I was born straight. I was born the way all of us are born: as a human being with a seemingly infinite capacity to announce myself, to re-announce myself, to try on new identities like spring raincoats, to play with limiting categories, to challenge them and topple them, to cultivate my tastes and preferences, and, most importantly, to love and to receive love. "‘I am gay – but I wasn’t born this way’
Is sexuality purely the result of our biology? Brandon Ambrosino argues that simplistic explanations have ignored the fluid, shape-shifting nature of our desires.
Is that person a bigot? Is the gay person claiming everyone has infinite capacity to try on different things, to cultivate our tastes and preferences, rationalizing their bigotry?
That person is also a huge outlier.
Obviously some people have a danger fetish.
But you didn't just stop there, did you? You used that as an explanation for why entire communities are the way they are in repressive cultures, and in doing so shifted the blame for the danger onto the victim.
They aren't, but you're using their words to rationalize *your* bigotry for sure." I don’t think I was born gay. I don’t think I was born straight. I was born the way all of us are born: as a human being with a seemingly infinite capacity to announce myself, to re-announce myself, to try on new identities like spring raincoats, to play with limiting categories, to challenge them and topple them, to cultivate my tastes and preferences, and, most importantly, to love and to receive love. "‘I am gay – but I wasn’t born this way’
Is sexuality purely the result of our biology? Brandon Ambrosino argues that simplistic explanations have ignored the fluid, shape-shifting nature of our desires.
Is that person a bigot? Is the gay person claiming everyone has infinite capacity to try on different things, to cultivate our tastes and preferences, rationalizing their bigotry?
Actually try and understand their argument instead of stopping at "that means it's a choice, ha!" (Hint: their argument is that humans don't fit into strict definitions *at all*)
Yes, exactly.
So you've decided that I am prejudiced, and therefore my argument is to support prejudice, though the same argument wouldn't if I wasn't prejudiced, even though you know that I am based only on my arguments... sure.
Read the word "some", please. Don't just skip over that word, read and understand it.
Yeah, but it's not that simple.
Firstly, some parents don't want to take care of their kids, some kids don't want to take care of their parents. So do we let those children / OAPs starve? If we create a legal obligation for families to look after their own, that risks extreme financial stress, particularly low income families: should a family be thrust into deprivation because they're unlucky enough to have a grandparent with dementia and have to pay for their care, or mom/pop give up their job to care? Not only that, but a legal obligation to care for one's relatives is "big government": government reaching into people's lives and forcing them to do things. The same goes for things like savings. Are we really going to force people to save, or let them starve if they do not? What happens if their savings are wiped out by mom/pop requiring a triple heart bypass operation?
Next, lower wages. I would suggest the prime driver of lower wages is competition, often international. Does a company want to pay American workers $30k when it can pay Chinese $5k? If we remove lots of forms of income support and effectively compel companies to pay $40k (instead of $30k) so we can reduce welfare, doesn't that just make it even more attractive to shunt jobs to China? You can try to prevent this with trade protectionism, but trade protectionism, broadly, is favoured by literally no economists whatsoever. If you increase the labour cost to supply goods and services or restrict trade with protectionism then it increases prices, and if the prices go up your dollar goes less far, which means you are effectively poorer.
It's not that I disagree that there can be problems with welfare. It's just I've never seen anyone come up with a convincing alternative that won't result in people being left to die in the streets and/or a mass revolt by the poor.
I'm not just using the argument itself as a circular reason to conclude you're prejudiced. I'm recalling the denigrating attitude you've shown towards certain groups of people and me myself. You've invalidated my lived experience and insisted your own speculation about my nature outweighs it; insinuated that victims of repression are sexually excited by danger; and opined that any relationships i could form would be shallow hedonism.
So yes, when someone with a long track record of prejudiced invective invokes the "choice" malarkey, its quite obvious why.
Yet that was the sole explanation you offered for why people are gay in overwhelmingly repressive societies.
If you were just talking about a small subset, why bring it up? What relevance does it have to the community as a whole? You were specifically using it as an explanatory example.
You're recalling how you've interpreted my words, that's not the same as the words themselves. You have for years chosen to interpret what I'm saying as bigotry, rejecting any suggestion otherwise, and are circularly using previous assumptions to rationalize your new ones.
How many times must I say that people are not a monolith. You cannot ascribe huge swaths of people with a singular motivation, as though all of their thoughts are the same. Other people are not you.
I mean, Hitler was a Free Speecher.... again just for themselves. So was Marx. US Founding Fathers who banned most people from speaking politically. Castro. Robespierre. Cromwell
Like, Jordan Peterson keeps going on about Free Speech and then trying to eliminate transpeople from soceity. Sometimes in the same debate or even paragraph
If you are using the term Free Speech publicly, you 99% of the time only mean Free Speech for yourself and faction. It's a buzz word like liberty that you say to score political points.
Edit: forgot the other half. Most people are adults and can organise an orgy AND do enough to get fed daily. It's not mutually exclusive