Conservatism and Reduced Government

[cybercoma]

Sorry I reject your whole premise. Iv looked long and hard for any evidence of any of this stuff being true, and it just isnt. Not in the US and not in Canada.

They may talk up that kind of rhetoric, but thats just hamming it up for the base. When it comes to every measure you could look at from government spending, to taxes, to deficits there simply is no data to support that.

Whats most accurate would be to say that both sides favor a large intrusive government, they just disagree on what it should do and sometimes they disagree on whether it should be funded by taxation or borrowing.

There is a very small but notable libertarian movement though that does want smaller government.

We can argue about the reality of politics, but this is a theoretical discussion about the stated aims of political ideologies. Conservatives currently claim to hold the position that government needs to be as close to non-existent as possible. Contrarily they trumpet crime and punishment policies that involve dumping money into prisons and police departments. Regardless, what I wanted to discuss here was the stated goal of reducing government, whether it's happening in practice or not. What is the end-game with that goal? Every man, woman, and child for themselves? Corporatism? What?

[dre]

We can argue about the reality of politics, but this is a theoretical discussion about the stated aims of political ideologies. Conservatives currently claim to hold the position that government needs to be as close to non-existent as possible. Contrarily they trumpet crime and punishment policies that involve dumping money into prisons and police departments. Regardless, what I wanted to discuss here was the stated goal of reducing government, whether it's happening in practice or not. What is the end-game with that goal? Every man, woman, and child for themselves? Corporatism? What?

Picture you have a numeric scale between 0 and 10. You think that 4, or 5, or 6 might work... but you know theres a lot of people pushing for 10. So you push for 0... Oppose all government expansion, and champion all government contraction. If you fought for 4,5, or 6 you might wind up with 8.

You might have a few people that really believe in minarchism as an absolute, but I think most real small government conservatives just see themselves as a counter-balance to forces that would grow government.

Edited June 29, 2012 by dre

[TimG]

This is an incredible claim. There's just no nice way to respond to this.

Why? It explains the phenomena that you are confused about. I realize that looking at government like a plant that needs to be constantly trimmed is probably not a view you can relate to personally but I think it is a reasonable way to described how conservatives look at it. Of course this view is challenged whenever cuts are proposed that affect things conservatives care about which is why conservatives generally have a rotten record of actually cutting spending while they rail against it. Edited June 29, 2012 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Picture you have a numeric scale between 0 and 10. You think that 4, or 5, or 6 might work... but you know theres a lot of people pushing for 10. So you push for 0... Oppose all government expansion, and champion all government contraction. If you fought for 4,5, or 6 you might wind up with 8.

You might have a few people that really believe in minarchism as an absolute, but I think most real small government conservatives just see themselves as a counter-balance to forces that would grow government.

I reject these tactics on the grounds that they are disingenuous and only serve to promote partisan gamesmanship than solve the country's problems. If you think 4, 5, or 6 will work, you should be fighting for 4, 5, or 6, not taking an extremist 1 stance. The idea that a middle-ground needs to be met is borne out of a false equivalence between positions. Government shouldn't work like a pawn shop. Everybody should be working towards the common goal of problem solving.

[cybercoma]

Why? It explains the phenomena that you are confused about. I realize that looking at government like a plant that needs to be constantly trimmed is probably not a view you can relate to personally but I think it is a reasonable way to described how conservatives look at it. Of course this view is challenged whenever cuts are proposed that affect things conservatives care about which is why conservatives generally have a rotten record of actually cutting spending while they rail against it.

"It doesn't matter what is cut."

Do you actually believe that?

[eyeball]

Government shouldn't work like a pawn shop. Everybody should be working towards the common goal of problem solving.

Except it does work like a pawn shop and that being the case I expect people to do what ever they need to avoid and or survive being pwned, so to speak.

[eyeball]

"It doesn't matter what is cut."

If this includes cutting the roots I'd be interested in hearing more.

[Guest Manny]

Why? It explains the phenomena that you are confused about. I realize that looking at government like a plant that needs to be constantly trimmed is probably not a view you can relate to personally but I think it is a reasonable way to described how conservatives look at it. Of course this view is challenged whenever cuts are proposed that affect things conservatives care about which is why conservatives generally have a rotten record of actually cutting spending while they rail against it.

Because they believe there is inherently waste in the system that can be trimmed, vs other useful aspects of the system. Conservatives feel less empathy for people who claim to need welfare, those who claim they deserve government money to support them is some way. There's far too many of those. But some people such as the physically disabled should get support.

No we don't want corporations to take over. You've been listening to propaganda son. We believe in freedom for the private citizen. Not police state, not government control.

Allowing businesses and the economy to be more self directed. Encouraging competition. That's the progressive part. The Neo-progressive party will fill a void in conservatism now, it's what the people want but they want good government. Also, economic disentanglement. Maintain certain protective barriers. Promote national job growth. Whoever can provide that would have my support. National? Oh, Liberals! Did I say a dirty word?

[cybercoma]

Except it does work like a pawn shop and that being the case I expect people to do what ever they need to avoid and or survive being pwned, so to speak.

You're talking about how the government is currently operating in practice. The OP and this subforum are about political philosophy, so I've been trying to work on the theoretical level in this thread.

[TimG]

Because they believe there is inherently waste in the system that can be trimmed, vs other useful aspects of the system.

Government is always expanding. It is constantly necessary to look at what it is doing and chop spending. There is never a time when there is no waste to be trimmed. The only issue is the "waste" nowadays is peanuts compared to the huge entitlement programs so so amount of trimming will stop the growth of those programs.

Conservatives feel less empathy for people who claim to need welfare

Yet conservatives donate more to charity in the US. What conservatives abhor is charitable giving that is mandated by government bureaucrats with agendas/priorities different than their own.

[TimG]

Do you actually believe that?

If one believes that most government problems are wasteful then random cuts are as good as targeted cuts. Unfortunately the majority of government spending increases are due to the massive entitlement programs like healthcare and pensions. These programs cannot be cut without serious political blowback so conservatives are often unable to reduce spending even though they wish it.

[bleeding heart]

If one believes that most government problems are wasteful then random cuts are as good as targeted cuts. Unfortunately the majority of government spending increases are due to the massive entitlement programs like healthcare and pensions. These programs cannot be cut without serious political blowback so conservatives are often unable to reduce spending even though they wish it.

If polls are any indicaiton, the overwhelming majority of conservatives wouldn't want cuts to health care.

That's basically the stance of a few right-wing ideologues on the fringes of the consevative intelligentsia. (Harper, for example, once mocked and derided it wholesale.)

You're right about the political blowback, of course...in a democracy, it's pretty tough to go explicitly with the minority opinion on something so important to people.

[dre]

I reject these tactics on the grounds that they are disingenuous and only serve to promote partisan gamesmanship than solve the country's problems. If you think 4, 5, or 6 will work, you should be fighting for 4, 5, or 6, not taking an extremist 1 stance. The idea that a middle-ground needs to be met is borne out of a false equivalence between positions. Government shouldn't work like a pawn shop. Everybody should be working towards the common goal of problem solving.

Yeah I agree, and I wasnt endorsing those tactics.

[Bryan]

Conservatives know that if left alone government will constantly expand so it needs to regularly trimmed like a gardener prunes his azaleas. As with the azaleas, it really does not matter which branches are lopped off as long as the growth is curbed and the garden (the economy) is protected from a run away bush.

Cutting for the sake of cutting is a necessary evil. Every single department needs to know that they must reign their budgets in. If they don't decide what can go, someone else will decide for them. When it gets to that point, they've already abrogated their right to complain about what got cut. If you didn't ramp the spending up, you wouldn't have lost whatever you thought was so important.

[cybercoma]

it really does not matter which branches are lopped off

It is constantly necessary to look at what it is doing and chop spending. There is never a time when there is no waste to be trimmed.

random cuts are as good as targeted cuts

What's apparent is that you really have no idea what you're arguing for or even what the purpose government programs serve. You go from saying it doesn't matter what's cut to advocating for waste to be reeled in (without ever really defining what's wasteful spending) back to randomly slashing spending again.

How about we just eliminate all food safety programs? Dismantle the military? Stop postal service? Quit guarding our borders? Stop deporting illegal immigrants? Eliminate all environmental regulations? Gut the RCMP? Slash CSIS? Withdraw from NATO? Call back all foreign ambassadors and close our embassies? Shut down federal courts? Any of that will save money and reduce the size of government. Does all of that sound like a good idea to you? Or is there perhaps a little bit more to budgeting than just making "any random cuts."

Face it. You're nothing more than a selfish child that just wants the government spending money on things that you want with absolutely no regard for the health, safety, and well-being of Canadians more generally.

[TimG]

What's apparent is that you really have no idea what you're arguing for or even what the purpose government programs serve.

That is the point. Every government program does something useful to someone. The only question is whether it is something government should be doing.

How about we just eliminate all food safety programs? Dismantle the military? Stop postal service? Quit guarding our borders? Stop deporting illegal immigrants? Eliminate all environmental regulations? Gut the RCMP? Slash CSIS? Withdraw from NATO?

An interesting choice of a examples because there are people on opposite sides of the spectrum that would argument one or more of those items could be cut. e.g. there are people in the NDP would think the military should be dismantled but want environmental regulations increased. there are people in the conservative party that want the reverse. What your examples illustrate is how arbitrary government spending priorities are and how random cuts can hardly be worse than 'targeted' cuts which are driven by the ideology of the government doing the cutting.

What is apparent is that you are not able to step outside of your ideological blinders and see how people who do not think like you see the world.

Edited June 29, 2012 by TimG

[bleeding heart]

What is apparent is that you are not able to step outside of your ideological blinders and see how people who do not think like you see the world.

I think he does see it. That's the point.

[cybercoma]

I think he does see it. That's the point.

TimG is more interested in confrontation than discussion. That's why he gets tied into these sort of knots where he says it doesn't matter what's slashed and government spending is arbitrary on one hand, while on the other he says we need to pay attention to what's cut and only get rid of the waste. I don't concern myself with his nonsense about 'ideological blinders' because he seems to have an incredible lack of self-awareness on those grounds.

[Shady]

How about we just eliminate all food safety programs? Dismantle the military? Stop postal service? Quit guarding our borders? Stop deporting illegal immigrants? Eliminate all environmental regulations? Gut the RCMP? Slash CSIS? Withdraw from NATO? Call back all foreign ambassadors and close our embassies? Shut down federal courts?

Those are all great false choices.

[Shady]

Statists will define any cut to government as a gut, in order to prevent even the modest modest reductions.

[bleeding heart]

Statists will define any cut to government as a gut, in order to prevent even the modest modest reductions.

Statists will also deride the sort of statism they don't like, while embracing that that they do.

The entire point of this thread, and of Cybercoma's "false choices" whose intent you seem to have misinterpreted.

[Pliny]

I read an article earlier today that was filled with leftist hyperbole, so I'm not going to bother linking to it. You know it's bad when even I'm criticizing something that favours my partisan slant. Nevertheless, beneath the layers of hyperbole, there was a very valid look at the shift that the Conservatives have taken since they were the Progressive Conservatives.

The author noted that Canada's current iteration of the Conservatives does share an ideological goal of the Republican Party in the US: reduce government. Casting aside arguments about whether they actually stand for that or whether they have even come close to accomplishing that, let's agree that reducing the government is one of the primary goals of the New Conservatives. The author points to a quote by Grover Norquist who worked under George W. Bush: "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Comedic notes aside, this thinking is worth looking at.

I don't think Mr. Norquist stands alone in this sentiment. Many conservatives here in Canada also seem to share this thinking. If we can just get rid of government, things will flourish. This is where the author of the aforementioned article says that what takes the place of government when it is lying dead and bloated in that bathtub is corporations. He falls down the hyperbole rabbit hole claiming that the Harper Conservatives are corporatists, which is another way of saying fascists.

However, let us cast aside the loaded labels, charged rhetoric, and useless hyperbole that obfuscates the important point that this article brings up. If the goal is to reduce as much of the government as possible, what then? We can see that the current Harper Conservatives are moving in that direction. Reducing and sometimes eliminating environmental regulations and safeguards is being lauded by conservatives in this country as a commendable way to bring "jobs, growth, and prosperity" to Canadians. I don't think I'm painting Harper and the CPC unfairly when I say that their goal is to reduce government.

So let's discuss the end game. What is the result of this? Do corporations then take over the role of government for society? Will we all live in a society that flourishes and thrives because barriers to corporate growth and prosperity will have been eliminated? Is this even the end game at all? Thoughts? Opinions?

Reduce is a relative term. Conservatives will not necessarily reduce government and while they were the "Progressive" Conservatives they had no plan to reduce government at all. They are often just as fond of government as liberals tend to be.

But I do agree that Harper wishes to reduce the size of government. The end game is a reduced size of government and I think that's it. Maybe he will just make it more efficient. He has eliminated the long gun registry.

Let me ask you why you feel that a reduction in the size of government has everything to do with corporations, the regulation of corporations or lack of it, the removal of barriers to corporate activity? He could get rid of Multi-culturalism and that has no direct relation to corporations.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Pliny

[eyeball]

But I do agree that Harper wishes to reduce the size of government.

So what? He also wants to increase the scope of his government's power.

[cybercoma]

I say it has to do with corporations because those with money will have power, while government ought to be a venue for everyone regardless of their capital to have some power in society. It's supposed to mediate between the interests of everyone, not look after a single sector's interests. By making government so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub, as Norquist said, it cannot effectively look after interests and the most vulnerable in society will be exploited as they were a century ago.

[TheNewTeddy]

I presume that they want the government to return to what it was 2 centuries ago; when all it did was build roads really.