the missing link

[metaphortunate]

American domestic policy...



...is missing a quadrant.

Comments

[snippy]

I think this is clever and funny but not helpful or accurate.

Everybody cares about everything. Where they differ is in what action, if any, to take about it. After all, liberals want the government (laws) to *allow* you to fuck anybody. That's still caring. And conservatives care if you're starving, they just don't think that feeding you is an appropriate use of government and the power to tax.

[metaphortunate]

Yeah, I didn't get across that it's not so much what a particular person cares about, it's what a particular group wants the government to care about. A number of conservatives are personally generous, but they don't want the government to get involved. But then, of course, what makes them conservative rather than libertarian is that they're bang alongside the government outlawing your drugs and gay sex and whatnot. I'm interested in why we don't seem to have a group who is similarly into the government legislating your morality, but also into the government giving you welfare. Why does it seem to be one or the other, I wonder?

[marahmarie]

Compassionate Conservative? Moderate Democrat? Some already well-known group must fit this description and more roundly and commonly than most people are aware of.

[metaphortunate]

There is. It's not surprising when you think about it! (Mr. E spoiled it for me. :)

[snippy]

I think there are actually a lot of people who feel like that--see, e.g., the liberal-ish churches who are nevertheless opposed to gay-marriage. They're liberal on civil rights and on welfare, but not on sexual/moral issues.

But they're not a political party, any more than people like me who support both abortion and gun rights are a political party.