Red Mosquito

spike wrote:you post more fucked up phrases than that hourly

Rob wrote:

4/5 wrote:

Rob wrote:“Small government” is just something some people say, they don’t really mean it.

Unfortunately I think this is usually true. But there are some people who mean it. You just wont find them in governmental power or cheering for either team.

Rob wrote:Libertarianism is like a young hot chick you could get down with for a bit, but you know ahead of time you’ll have to grow out of it. Some choose not to. Whatever.

Maybe a cartoon version (which lots of libertarians invite upon themselves). But also, there wouldn't have been a 20 year war on terrorism or a war on drugs or mass incarceration, etc., etc. I know there's other things that you (and some that I) support that wouldn't happen either, but there are some significant things that you probably would happily accept if they had gotten to make those policy decisions.

I was mostly messing around, referring to those cartoon versions of online libertarians like Burt. My whole life I’ve heard “small government” but it was usually Republicans using that in an economic sense - low taxes, fewer services, free markets… but they never talked about those 3 examples you give (they actually grew those polices). So were they small government? The left tends to want less government in the social sphere (replacing the war on drugs, less incarceration, getting the government out of the bedroom or decision to marry, etc… but they want more services for the people, even if it means higher taxes. Why is that automatically the big government side? I guess I just think for most people, it doesn’t really boil down to big or small government. More about what you think its priorities should be.

verb_to_trust wrote:

spike wrote:you post more fucked up phrases than that hourly

Why do you hate cats?

spike wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:

spike wrote:you post more fucked up phrases than that hourly

Why do you hate cats?

i don't! why must you always assume?

4/5 wrote:

Rob wrote:

4/5 wrote:

Rob wrote:“Small government” is just something some people say, they don’t really mean it.

Unfortunately I think this is usually true. But there are some people who mean it. You just wont find them in governmental power or cheering for either team.

Rob wrote:Libertarianism is like a young hot chick you could get down with for a bit, but you know ahead of time you’ll have to grow out of it. Some choose not to. Whatever.

Maybe a cartoon version (which lots of libertarians invite upon themselves). But also, there wouldn't have been a 20 year war on terrorism or a war on drugs or mass incarceration, etc., etc. I know there's other things that you (and some that I) support that wouldn't happen either, but there are some significant things that you probably would happily accept if they had gotten to make those policy decisions.

I was mostly messing around, referring to those cartoon versions of online libertarians like Burt. My whole life I’ve heard “small government” but it was usually Republicans using that in an economic sense - low taxes, fewer services, free markets… but they never talked about those 3 examples you give (they actually grew those polices). So were they small government? The left tends to want less government in the social sphere (replacing the war on drugs, less incarceration, getting the government out of the bedroom or decision to marry, etc… but they want more services for the people, even if it means higher taxes. Why is that automatically the big government side? I guess I just think for most people, it doesn’t really boil down to big or small government. More about what you think its priorities should be.

I agree with all of this. My explanation is that whatever libertarianism is supposedly part of the Republican party is almost completely fictional. It's rhetorical. They claim(ed?) to be the party of small government but have overwhelming expanded government, just in different directions than Democrats expand it. Occasionally they've scaled back some very small part of the Democratic expansion while at the same time growing it in a different direction. They're only small government when it's convenient, which is to say they aren't really small government advocates, they just invoke that argument to justify opposition to Democratic programs. There are people who actually believe in small government (or smaller government) but they aren't playing for either current team.

Spoiler: show

BurtReynolds wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:Skinning cats is such a fucked up phrase

Bammer wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:Skinning cats is such a fucked up phrase

I attended a Zoom conference today. One of the featured speakers is a refugee from Kosovo. At one point he spoke the phrase “call a spade a spade” in a business context. Someone posted anonymously in the Zoom Q&A “Can we please stop using that phrase. It has racist origins.”

I was curious so I Googled it. The phrase originated about 500 years ago and spade is quite literally a spade, aka a small shovel. Then about 100 years ago it was supposedly co-opted by racists.

Fuck people, man. Just let the Kosovan refugee give his fucking talk without getting all woke on him.

Bammer wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:Skinning cats is such a fucked up phrase

I attended a Zoom conference today. One of the featured speakers is a refugee from Kosovo. At one point he spoke the phrase “call a spade a spade” in a business context. Someone posted anonymously in the Zoom Q&A “Can we please stop using that phrase. It has racist origins.”

I was curious so I Googled it. The phrase originated about 500 years ago and spade is quite literally a spade, aka a small shovel. Then about 100 years ago it was supposedly co-opted by racists.

Fuck people, man. Just let the Kosovan refugee give his fucking talk without getting all woke on him.