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Point taken, but tobacco is legal. If the OP had suggested criminalizing tobacco, then he'd have a legitimate point.
OP did not mention tobacco, I did, just for purposes of debate. Whether tobacco is legal or not is neither here nor there. In fact it is illegal if you don't jump through all the federal and state hoops. Don't jump through those hoops and you will indeed find yourself busted and tossed in the clink over tobacco. More Arrests Made Connected To Illegal Tobacco Operation Bust In - WSPA.com
No, they don't. I think you are the only person on earth who has trouble understanding that government welfare is a fiscal issue, not a social issue.
Here is a Libertarian description of social liberalism from Wikipedia. It's a very accurate summary of a liberal social position;
Social issues
The Libertarian Party supports the legalization of all victimless crimes, including drugs, pornography, prostitution, polygamy, gambling, removal of restrictions on homosexuality, opposes any kind of censorship and supports freedom of speech, and supports the right to keep and bear arms while opposing capital punishment. The Libertarian Party's platform states: "Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships."
No, I am not the only person. EVERY liberal I know are social liberals, and they promote welfare state and ACA etc. Read my article from Red State (a very conservative magazine), and you'll learn that conservatives see it the same way. I'm not making this up.
Again, welfare is an attempt to address a host of SOCIAL issues.
Your Wikipedia info does not define social liberalism, it only defines which social issues libertarians want the government to ignore.
Here is what Wikipedia (we know you trust it) says about social liberalism: —advocated socialist methods to achieve liberal goals. Some social liberal ideas were later incorporated into the New Deal, which developed as a response to the Great Depression.
The welfare state grew gradually and unevenly from the late nineteenth century, but became fully developed following the Second World War.....Social liberalism was characterized by cooperation between big business, government and labor unions. Government was able to assume a strong role because its power had been strengthened by the wartime economy.
Ending the war on drugs would cost billions of dollars in cost treatment for drug addicts, additional ER visits for overdose patience, accidents caused by people under influence of drugs, welfare payments for the unemployed and unemployable due to drug use and finally loss of productivity resulting from removing drug addicts from the labor pool. There are sound economic, medical and social reasons why there is no civilized country on the planet where drugs in general are legal.
Absolutely.
Legalization has increased drug use in every country where is has been done, and as you say, the addicts finance their habit through criminal activity. They will not be able to hold jobs, or raise kids, so they and their children become burden on the society. It is a very bad idea.
The Holland (Dutch) Experiment
Holland has decriminalized drugs and tried harm reduction. Since the softening of drug policy there, shootings have increased 40%, robberies 62%, and car thefts 62%. This experiment which was meant to decrease organized crime has resulted in an increase in organized crime families from 3 in 1988 to 93 today.
The number of registered marijuana addicts has risen 30% and the number of other addicts has risen 22%
The Portuguese Experiment
In Portugal, since decriminalization has been implemented, the number of homicides related to drugs has increased 40%. "It was the only European country with a significant increase in (drug-related) murders between 2001 and 2006" (WDR, 2009).
Heroin consumption rose 57.5% in recent years
At variance with what official agencies have recently disclosed, the problem of drug dependence in Portugal has never been more serious: Between 2001, the year the decriminalization law went into effect, and 2007, continued consumption of narcotics rose, in absolute terms, by 66%.
In this period In this period consumption increased 215% for cocaine, 85% for ecstasy, 57.5% for heroine and 37% for cannabis.. These data are from a report of the Institute of Drugs and Drug Dependence (IDT), published in 2008.
Since decriminalization there has been a 50% increase in drug use among young people between the ages of 20 and 24. On the other hand, the number of persons who have experimented with illicit drugs at least once rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12% in 2007 (IDT Report of Activities of Nov 2008).
Also, who are you going to vote for, Dem, or Repub? If you vote Dem you are basically saying social issues are more important than fiscal ones, and if you vote Repub, you are saying that fiscal issues are more important than social ones. How can you support both, when you only have one vote?
Not really. When I vote Democrat, I am saying that I have no interest in going back to 1950's social policy while making big business our pimps.
Quote:
Do you support gay marriage? If you are going to vote Repub, then you don't support it, so why would you call yourself a social liberal, when you won't support the with your vote? If you vote Dem, then why would you call yourself a fiscal conservative?
I don't see how you can be both. Pick one, and run with it.
And thus you have discovered the problem with the modern Republican party. You are hemorrhaging supporters and setting yourself up for long term failure by championing social policy that is not supported by younger demographics. I'm sorry to say but when the baby boomers die off the Republican party is ****ed unless they do a massive about face on their social policy.
I think OP has just restated the point of economist Robert Higgs, who said that we can have a free state or a welfare state, but not both. Take the example of tobacco, which is simpler than the drug war example. The drug war example just has too many twists and caveats. You're lumping in everything from pot to crack to meth to heroin, for one thing. The tobacco example is easier to grasp.
Medicare was part of LBJ's 'Great Society' to provide senior citizens with guaranteed health care in their time of need. But a 1993 study found that close to 10% of Medicare costs were from smoking tobacco. It turns out that a lot of the health consequences of tobacco don't kick in until your 60's and 70's--just in time for Medicare.
A social liberal would presumably argue that if someone wants to ruin their lungs through smoking, it is their choice. But the fiscal conservative then comes along and says wait a minute, this is racking up a huge bill for the taxpayer; we've gotta have a War on Tobacco in response. So the guy who calls himself fiscal con/social lib now finds himself in a raging argument...with himself.
So OP has a legit point.
Yes, thank you. It creates an argument with oneself where one stance opposes the other.
A lot of people say they are both, but if you are a fiscal conservative you should probably oppose drug legalization and other socially liberal ideals, which will do nothing but cause a need for more law enforcement, rehab, welfare etc other tax payer funded actions. Why would a fiscal conservative support actions which will put more people on welfare?
The social liberal stance sabotages the fiscal conservative stance, so it makes no sense to promote both.
Do you support ACA? Universal Healthcare is a classic example of something social liberals would support, but it is also a classic example of something fiscal conservative would oppose. How can one person be both a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal? It seems many within the GOP are trying to be both in order to attract more independent vote, but I think they are eroding the conservative foundation their party is built upon.
I sort of get what you're talking about. I've given the subject a same think myself...
I think that a lot of socially liberal and fiscally conservative people think that basically all of the "moral" stuff such as gambling and prostitution shouldn't be regulated by the government per se, these "social ills" has been around since the dawn of time. Same goes with drug use, I mean we spend billions of dollars trying to regulate these three things and they ain'ts going away, you know what I mean.
That's what I'm talking about stop spending all that money on something that is futile. Find some way to tax it perhaps, I'm against over taxation, but I can make exceptions for these activities. Spend a 10th on the tax money on fighting it and put it toward programs that may help people to avoid these things. Again, a fiscally conservative person might not say add more taxes to deal with them, but I still think it's gotta be a million times more cheaper than "fight" them.
Let gays get married, legalize or decriminalize gambling,prostitution, and drugs.
Not sure what kind of society we'll have as an aftermath.... but we need to try a new approach cause what we have now isn't working too well.
Yes, though to be fair the term "fiscal conservative" has been hijacked by the tax cranky types.
There are viable reasons for a true fiscal conservative to support the ACA and/or a single payer system.
It is true conservatives can make arguments supporting ACA / Single Payer, and they have done so in the past (in the 1990s they wrote a proposal with all ACA key points in it). Those arguments are made from fiscal conservative POV, not from socially liberal POV.
My goodness, in the crazy spirit of American partisan policy, even the most brilliant ideas are criticized if they come from the opposing side of the aisle.
Of course ACA makes perfect fiscal sense, as access to medicine, especially preventative medicine will lower the cost of healthcare for the entire population. It's in fact cheaper this way than to bear the enormous cost of ER treatments for those that waited too long to go a doctor.
Universal healthcare systems make perfect sense from fiscal perspective, think of it as AN investment with a very good ROI.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
It is true conservatives can make arguments supporting ACA / Single Payer, and they have done so in the past (in the 1990s they wrote a proposal with all ACA key points in it). Those arguments are made from fiscal conservative POV, not from socially liberal POV.
Last edited by Rapaport; 04-20-2014 at 11:30 AM..
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