4 ms·

Conservatism has never been about any of the things its supposed to be about. See: federal debt.

• ISL 7y ago
  One can argue that those representatives who claim to be fiscally conservative but vote for unfunded liabilities are not, in fact, fiscally conservative.
  • arkades 7y ago
    It's a political party. If people that identify X vote for you, who identifies X and votes in a block with other people that identify X for matters that attract Identity X voters to said party... then you don't get to pull the No True Scotsman. You are the party of X, whether or not some arbitrary philosophy party X is supposed to uphold is consistent with the party's actions.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • monocasa 7y ago
      The party is Republican. Fiscal conservatism is absolutely a specific policy which someone can be said to be following or not.
  • ceejayoz 7y ago
    One can argue that's a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
    • monocasa 7y ago
      You can't say "you're not a scotsman because I don't like your actions or opinions". You can say "you're not a scotsman because you're neither from scotland, nor have any particular tie to it." Similarly fiscal conservatism has an actual definition, and it's totally vaild to say "you don't adhere to the definition", as long as you're not applying spurious constraints.
      • ceejayoz 7y ago
        > Similarly fiscal conservatism has an actual definition... A vague one, making it easy to play the Scotsman game with.