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.
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
ReplyDeleteI 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