I’m a fairly liberal guy on environmental and social issues but I’m a strong 2nd Amendment supporter.
Will never give a dime to the NRA though.
I knew someone once who proudly said, “I’m a Democrat and a Catholic. I think it should be PRETTY obvious where I stand on abortion!”
I always thought it was hilarious. Sure, you could come up with any number of equally incorrect statements, but her’s was real and she sincerely thought it should be obvious how she feels. I honestly have no idea if she was anti-choice like most Catholics or pro-choice like most Democrats. She never said.
That’s not what you said before.
I think a great deal of what comes across as political inconsistency is because people can be conservative or liberal about ***financial ***issues (SS reform, flat taxes) and separately can be conservative or liberal about ***social ***issues (gay marriage, abortion) and those are not necessarily related.
Some issues (healthcare or welfare reform, for example) combine financial and social issues, further complicating matters.
I’d argue the opposite. Liberals and conservatives are more consistent because they focus on the goals they want to achieve rather than which processes are used to achieve those goals.
It’s always seem bizarre to me when people obsess over the politics of an issue rather than the issue itself. I can understand a person who supports public healthcare and a person who opposes public healthcare. But I can’t understand a person who supports public health care at the state level and opposes the same public health care at the federal level.
How do you know which one, the states or the people, have authority on an issue?
If the states have the authority over abortions then Roe v Wade was wrong. If the people have the authority over abortions then Roe v Wade was right. The Roe decision didn’t give authority over abortions to the federal government. Congress can’t prohibit abortions any more than state legislatures can. So the Supreme Court didn’t federalize abortions. The Court moved abortion from state control to individual control. Which, as you noted, was not unconstitutional.
The level of government involved can make a big difference in the reasonableness and effectiveness of a policy.
Consider, say, parking regulations. Most people would agree that there should be some kind of laws that regulate who can park where, and for how long. But it would be counterproductive to try to implement those laws at a national level. The parking regulations of sparsely populated rural areas are very different than those of densely populated urban areas. A single policy would be a really awkward kludgy compromise that wouldn’t really work very well for anyone.
The higher the level of government, the more diverse the constituency, and the more difficult it is to come up with a single set of rules that will work well for everyone. I’m sort of in favor of public health care (in the sense that I like it in theory, but I think most of the implementations I’ve seen are pretty flawed), and “really awkward kludgy compromise” is a pretty good description of how I feel about the ACA.
Implementing something at a lower level of government is also lower risk, in the sense that if you screw it up, you screw it up for fewer people. If it works well, then other cities/states can follow your example. States have been called “the laboratories of democracy”.
So there are principled arguments for why one might support a policy at one level of government and not at others.
Well, I’d definitely say my ignorance has been fought in this thread. As a libertarian, I certainly understand that the traditional left-right paradigm is hideously over-simplistic, and that political categorization is more diamond-shaped, to encompass authoritarian vs. libertarian. But I also expected that most people one would meet on a daily basis would align themselves with a certain “category,” for lack of a better choice of words.
Also, I would have though that, in this day & age anyway, full-on top-of-the-pyramid authoritarians were rare, at least in the U.S.
Some number of years ago I read about the term “Communitarian,” basically the opposite of Libertarian. I would have thought that the Communitarian movement in the US, inasmuch as it ever existed at all, breathed its last breath during the Eisenhower administration if not earlier. Clearly I’m wrong.
For what it’s worth, I define myself as an authoritarian liberal, and one only need take a look at the Pit to see what expressing that opinion has gotten me around here.
I know of an ardent, God-fearin’, Bible-Thumpin’ Christian who is also left of Karl Marx on economic and social views.
Sounds to me like somebody who has actually read the Bible - wasn’t Jesus a total hippie? 
I don’t think your Mom is that inconsistent, she’s just markedly authoritarian.
OK, frighteningly authoritarian.
I said nothing of the sort!
Not necessarily inconsistent for a conservative.
As the conservative commentator James J.Kilpatrick once said “Conservatism means that the government has no business meddling in the private lives of a free people.”
I…find this worrying, somehow. But I guess it means there is hope to pull some of the GOP voting base toward a reformist platform?
Like others have said I dont think anyone’s views are ever totally in one camp or the other.
For example, one might hate smoking and drinking. OTOH you might like the taxes those activities pay for.
Same with hunting. May PETA types and environmentalists hate the thought of killing wild animals for sport but they recognize that hunting fees pay for a large portion of a states parks and recreation budget.
Whether the states have the authority, or the people have the authority, Roe v. Wade was wrong - the Supreme Court is neither the states nor the people. It is the federal government.
The Supreme Court is part of the federal government.
Regards,
Shodan
I think it is very possible to be internally consistent in one’s political views while holding views that don’t fit neatly into the modern left-right political spectrum, which I would argue is pretty arbitrary anyway. How is opposition to abortion or same sex marriage inherently incompatible with favoring more government regulation of the economy?
But Roe v Wade did give authority to “the people” – it mandates that “the people” be allowed to make the decision on whether to have an abortion or not.
That makes no sense.
By this argument, every time the Supreme Court makes a decision, it’s imposing federal authority over some issue - even if it’s ruling that the federal government doesn’t have authority over an issue.