Welcome to Buster's Blog

Irregular commentary on whatever's on my mind -- politics, sports, current events, and life in general. After twenty years of writing business and community newsletters, fifteen years of fantasy baseball newsletters, and two years of email "columns", this is, I suppose, the inevitable result: the awful conceit that someone might actually care to read what I have to say. Posts may be added often, rarely, or never again. As always, my mood and motivation are unpredictable.

Buster Gammons















Friday, August 26, 2011

"I'm A Social Liberal, But A Fiscal Conservative." Huh?


Have you ever had someone tell you that they're a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative? I have, and I bet you have too. And it's a load of hypocritical horseshit!

Just about everybody I know is fiscally conservative by nature. I don't run with anybody in the proverbial C-note-for-a-snot-rag crowd. We're all trying to be financially responsible. No one is purposely wasting money.

So what's up with this peculiar statement of personal philosophy? Every time I hear it, it comes from those who I know to be a good, decent, reasonable people. They probably are, for the most part, socially liberal. They are, without fail, genuinely middle-class, middle-tax-brackets people. They're not rich enough to be real Republicans. But they're offering up the "financially conservative" disclaimer as a half-assed rationalization/apology for voting Republican, because . . .

1. They may in some financial difficulty and are hoping (in vain) that the Reaganista/Dubya doctrine of tax-cuts-for-the-rich-trickling-down-to-all-of-us will actually be their salvation, or

2. They're in the corporate world and they've been buffaloed by their bosses or co-workers into voting Republican as a supposed form of job security, or

3. Despite the professed social liberalism, deep down they are Scrooge in the flesh -- skinflint, tightwad, fuck 'em cheap; unwilling to part with a penny to help the less fortunate, or

Oh, hell, that's enough! We're all fiscally conservative. If you call yourself a social liberal, then you're, well, a Liberal. Nuthin' wrong with that, and nuthin' to apologize about. So says Buster.



1 comment:

  1. I think people should be able to live their lives however they like as long as they are not hurting anyone. ~Why I'm socially liberal

    I think if people refuse to help themselves they should be cut off from assistance. I believe education and birth control should be the only two things government pays for. The rest is up to the individual to choose and deal with the consequences. ~ My version of fiscally conservativeness

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