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You can extend the "free market ideologues" to include more groups such as those who were very concerned about free speech for exactly four years from 2021-2024

You can extend the "free market ideologues" to include more groups such as those who were very concerned about free speech for exactly four years from 2021-2024. Same people were concerned about politicization of justice department, but only when certain Presidents are in office. Same goes for "respect for constitution". "Family values" was abandoned quite a while ago. Wilhoit’s Law has never been truer.

sidibe 1y ago
Can't forget being "for the rule of law".
- matwood 1y ago
  Back the blue, unless of course it's the Capitol Police.
  - MathMonkeyMan 1y ago
    I tend to think of "rule of law" as describing the fairness of the courts. But then you need effective law enforcement for the courts to mean anything.
  - bunderbunder 1y ago
    Or, in my city, the cops who blew the whistle on other cops for electrocuting people's testicles as a means of extracting forced confessions. The "back the blue" crowd absolutely hates those guys.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    Most of these examples are good ones, but this one actually isn’t. I don’t know what part of the country you’re from, but in the south violence against the government is treated as distinct from violence against fellow citizens. I don’t want to debate the substance of the view, I’m just pointing out that it’s not actually contradictory like you’re implying. I grew up in virginia when it was a red state, my first reaction would’ve been relief that it was still possible. But it also would’ve been my first reaction 25 years ago when I was a Gore supporter in a Bush county. Jefferson’s tree of liberty and all that. I suspect this divergence comes from people who have internalized the 1960s civil rights movement view, and whose chief concern is the government protecting minorities from the majority. Meanwhile, the more traditional Anglo-american view is chiefly concerned with protecting the majority from the government.
    - mmooss 1y ago
      > in the south violence against the government is treated as distinct from violence against fellow citizens From what I see and know, among conservative supporters violence against police is strongly condemned and to be harshly punished, as is any form of protest that is arguably the slightest bit disruptive. > chiefly concerned with protecting the majority from the government. In fact, by their actions, they make the government - police and prosecutors - free to abuse people in almost any way with no reprocussions. One of the latest Trump executive orders even tells the DoJ to go after any legal authority prosecuting police. And by their actions, they are chiefly concerned with using the government to persecute and suppress anyone they disagree with. > 60s ... traditional It's a nice tactic to try to attribute those who disagree to a passing fancy, and your beliefs to 'tradition'.
      - rayiner 1y ago
        > From what I see and know, among conservative supporters violence against police is strongly condemned and to be harshly punished, as is any form of protest that is arguably the slightest bit disruptive. The question is who the police are being deployed to protect, private citizens or the government itself. Ordinarily police are deployed to protect citizens from criminals, so it’s bad to attack the police. But the Capitol police are protecting government officials from citizens, so attacking them is less bad. That’s the view. > 60s ... traditional It's a nice tactic to try to attribute those who disagree to a passing fancy, and your beliefs to 'tradition'. The assertion that the civil rights era signaled a major shift in views about the relationship between individuals and the government is hardly controversial. There’s a book on this idea (probably more than one): https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-distort-american-politics https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis.... Indeed, folks in the progressive left share more or less the same premise. If you talk to a progressive about foundational principles like federalism and limited government, the chief response is that those ideas were championed by our forebearers so that the government wouldn’t be powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. The point of disagreement is about whether the new approach is better than the traditional one.
        1y ago
torben-friis 1y ago
Freedom of religion as well, and the age and mental acuity of the president. And handling of secret information. And being involved in foreign conflicts.
eli_gottlieb 1y ago
As a 20th century political theorist once said, "the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy." If you hear someone talking high-minded rhetoric and idealism but they won't make a friend or an enemy over it, they don't believe it.
bunderbunder 1y ago
I have come to believe that many people's political attitudes can be boiled down to a single uniting element: an overwhelming fear that other people might do to them the kinds of things that they would absolutely do to other people if given half a chance.
- idle_zealot 1y ago
  [flagged]
- 3np 1y ago
  This line of thinking is increasing and dangerous (and no doubt intentional from at least some of the popular examples that come to mimd). It will make it that much harder for authentic candidates to talk about legitimate change and ideology.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    When your platform is "free lunches for school children" no one has to worry about the devastating consequences of someone doing it to you.
    - pavlov 1y ago
      Many of these people literally believe that "free lunches for school children" inevitably turns into "those socialists will force me to eat bugs in an Orwellian nightmare". For them, Sweden and North Korea are on the same spectrum of communism and will end up the same.
      - bunderbunder 1y ago
        Meanwhile they somehow don't see wealthy and powerful people using their political connections to enrich themselves by garnering favorable treatment from powerful government officials as an essential part of how things worked in the USSR. The problem with the saying "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" is that a lot of people haven't forgotten history; they simply never learned it in the first place.
leereeves 1y ago
Funny thing about the fictional "Wilhoit’s Law". It's not a law of science. It's nothing but an Internet snipe from a blog post by a music composer. It wasn't even written while the political scientist Frank Wilhoit was alive. https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative... It's just half of a truism: people apply different standards to "their side". As true of the left wing as the right.
- zzrrt 1y ago
  Being commonly misattributed (which GP did not do!) doesn’t make it fictional, nor does coming from a composer make it automatically wrong or useless.
  - leereeves 1y ago
    It's not relevant that the quote came from a composer specifically. It's relevant that it didn't come from someone with any expertise about politics. Yet it's been elevated to the status of a "law" by people who just really like the way it insults their opponents.
mindslight 1y ago
Don't forget Kenneth Walker's second amendment rights. You could understand some failing to live up to their values if they were minor issues, but it's like all of their core issues. About the only thing that seems consistent is wanting to harm their fellow citizens that they perceive as different.
istjohn 1y ago
Wilhoit's Law: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: > There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...
- parrit 1y ago
  That doesn't apply to Trump. s/law/what actually goes down/
  - simiones 1y ago
    Trump and his administration have explicitly directly claimed that they are the law, at least in as much as the executive branch should believe. They gave an executive order instructing every employee and official of the executive that they shall wholly and exclusively defer to the interpretation of the law as dictated by the president.
throw10920 1y ago
> You can extend the "free market ideologues" to include more groups such as those who were very concerned about free speech for exactly four years from 2021-2024. What groups? What people? Are they on HN? Are you responding to them? This is just sneering. You're not responding to a particular argument or person - you're you're just creating a fictional (in that they don't exist as a coherent, self-identified group, and are only a group in your own mind based solely off of these attributes) until group of people with some alleged hypocrisy and using them to dog-whistle indirectly attack a group of people based on some political ideology that you don't like (and which is largely irrelevant to the alleged hypocrisy that you're inventing). This is some of the most anti-intellectual drivel possible and the diametric opposite of what belongs on HN.

sidibe 1y ago

Can't forget being "for the rule of law".

matwood 1y ago
Back the blue, unless of course it's the Capitol Police.
- MathMonkeyMan 1y ago
  I tend to think of "rule of law" as describing the fairness of the courts. But then you need effective law enforcement for the courts to mean anything.
- bunderbunder 1y ago
  Or, in my city, the cops who blew the whistle on other cops for electrocuting people's testicles as a means of extracting forced confessions. The "back the blue" crowd absolutely hates those guys.
- rayiner 1y ago
  Most of these examples are good ones, but this one actually isn’t. I don’t know what part of the country you’re from, but in the south violence against the government is treated as distinct from violence against fellow citizens. I don’t want to debate the substance of the view, I’m just pointing out that it’s not actually contradictory like you’re implying. I grew up in virginia when it was a red state, my first reaction would’ve been relief that it was still possible. But it also would’ve been my first reaction 25 years ago when I was a Gore supporter in a Bush county. Jefferson’s tree of liberty and all that. I suspect this divergence comes from people who have internalized the 1960s civil rights movement view, and whose chief concern is the government protecting minorities from the majority. Meanwhile, the more traditional Anglo-american view is chiefly concerned with protecting the majority from the government.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    > in the south violence against the government is treated as distinct from violence against fellow citizens From what I see and know, among conservative supporters violence against police is strongly condemned and to be harshly punished, as is any form of protest that is arguably the slightest bit disruptive. > chiefly concerned with protecting the majority from the government. In fact, by their actions, they make the government - police and prosecutors - free to abuse people in almost any way with no reprocussions. One of the latest Trump executive orders even tells the DoJ to go after any legal authority prosecuting police. And by their actions, they are chiefly concerned with using the government to persecute and suppress anyone they disagree with. > 60s ... traditional It's a nice tactic to try to attribute those who disagree to a passing fancy, and your beliefs to 'tradition'.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      > From what I see and know, among conservative supporters violence against police is strongly condemned and to be harshly punished, as is any form of protest that is arguably the slightest bit disruptive. The question is who the police are being deployed to protect, private citizens or the government itself. Ordinarily police are deployed to protect citizens from criminals, so it’s bad to attack the police. But the Capitol police are protecting government officials from citizens, so attacking them is less bad. That’s the view. > 60s ... traditional It's a nice tactic to try to attribute those who disagree to a passing fancy, and your beliefs to 'tradition'. The assertion that the civil rights era signaled a major shift in views about the relationship between individuals and the government is hardly controversial. There’s a book on this idea (probably more than one): https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-distort-american-politics https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis.... Indeed, folks in the progressive left share more or less the same premise. If you talk to a progressive about foundational principles like federalism and limited government, the chief response is that those ideas were championed by our forebearers so that the government wouldn’t be powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. The point of disagreement is about whether the new approach is better than the traditional one.
      - 1y ago

torben-friis 1y ago

Freedom of religion as well, and the age and mental acuity of the president. And handling of secret information. And being involved in foreign conflicts.

eli_gottlieb 1y ago

As a 20th century political theorist once said, "the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy." If you hear someone talking high-minded rhetoric and idealism but they won't make a friend or an enemy over it, they don't believe it.

bunderbunder 1y ago

I have come to believe that many people's political attitudes can be boiled down to a single uniting element: an overwhelming fear that other people might do to them the kinds of things that they would absolutely do to other people if given half a chance.

idle_zealot 1y ago
[flagged]
3np 1y ago
This line of thinking is increasing and dangerous (and no doubt intentional from at least some of the popular examples that come to mimd). It will make it that much harder for authentic candidates to talk about legitimate change and ideology.
- XorNot 1y ago
  When your platform is "free lunches for school children" no one has to worry about the devastating consequences of someone doing it to you.
  - pavlov 1y ago
    Many of these people literally believe that "free lunches for school children" inevitably turns into "those socialists will force me to eat bugs in an Orwellian nightmare". For them, Sweden and North Korea are on the same spectrum of communism and will end up the same.
    - bunderbunder 1y ago
      Meanwhile they somehow don't see wealthy and powerful people using their political connections to enrich themselves by garnering favorable treatment from powerful government officials as an essential part of how things worked in the USSR. The problem with the saying "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" is that a lot of people haven't forgotten history; they simply never learned it in the first place.

leereeves 1y ago

Funny thing about the fictional "Wilhoit’s Law". It's not a law of science. It's nothing but an Internet snipe from a blog post by a music composer. It wasn't even written while the political scientist Frank Wilhoit was alive. https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative... It's just half of a truism: people apply different standards to "their side". As true of the left wing as the right.

zzrrt 1y ago
Being commonly misattributed (which GP did not do!) doesn’t make it fictional, nor does coming from a composer make it automatically wrong or useless.
- leereeves 1y ago
  It's not relevant that the quote came from a composer specifically. It's relevant that it didn't come from someone with any expertise about politics. Yet it's been elevated to the status of a "law" by people who just really like the way it insults their opponents.

mindslight 1y ago

Don't forget Kenneth Walker's second amendment rights. You could understand some failing to live up to their values if they were minor issues, but it's like all of their core issues. About the only thing that seems consistent is wanting to harm their fellow citizens that they perceive as different.

istjohn 1y ago

Wilhoit's Law: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: > There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...

parrit 1y ago
That doesn't apply to Trump. s/law/what actually goes down/
- simiones 1y ago
  Trump and his administration have explicitly directly claimed that they are the law, at least in as much as the executive branch should believe. They gave an executive order instructing every employee and official of the executive that they shall wholly and exclusively defer to the interpretation of the law as dictated by the president.

throw10920 1y ago

> You can extend the "free market ideologues" to include more groups such as those who were very concerned about free speech for exactly four years from 2021-2024. What groups? What people? Are they on HN? Are you responding to them? This is just sneering. You're not responding to a particular argument or person - you're you're just creating a fictional (in that they don't exist as a coherent, self-identified group, and are only a group in your own mind based solely off of these attributes) until group of people with some alleged hypocrisy and using them to dog-whistle indirectly attack a group of people based on some political ideology that you don't like (and which is largely irrelevant to the alleged hypocrisy that you're inventing). This is some of the most anti-intellectual drivel possible and the diametric opposite of what belongs on HN.