But if the Dems are often holding completely opposing views, aren't those just as hypocritical?

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Everyone in this thread so far, except Iamwhatiseem (and he was joking), is wrong.

This is exactly how people SHOULD feel given the sweepingly broad searches without judicial oversight that the patriot act permits.

The patriot act has violated my constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. It has done it just as resoundingly as if they forbid every citizen from having a gun --- even though I don't own a gun that would affect me profoundly because it would violate the 2nd amendment.

So although I haven't been arrested for something I said over the phone last week, I have absolutely no certainty that won't happen in the next 5 minutes, and that I might find myself in guantanamo without habeus corpus being tortured by Celine Dion songs being played 24-7 at high volume.

The patriot act has PROFOUNDLY affected me. The fact that 99% of the posters in this thread cant see it, is the most disturbing part of all.

Damn, you would think they would at least play some Rolling Stones.

An important nuance that often gets ignored.

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Well other than Russ Feingold, the other 50-odd democrats supported the patriot act (in the senate), and the dems also support bigger stronger government, so that's not hypocritical. In Russ's case, its not hypocritical because he favors bigger stronger government that still is restricted to function within its limits set forth in the constitution.

As for the abortion vs S-chip thing, from the kid's perspective the dem position is hypocritical (you either want to let my mother kill me or give me free healthcare). But from the mother's perspective, its not (you want to let me decide whether to give birth or not, and if I choose to give birth to a baby I can't afford on my own you will help me out).

Its torture, not vacation.

I think a small fisted government with a lot of power is not so bad; i mean for a start, it would likely be more effecient, no?

Yeah it does seem somewhat contradictory.

In my case, i generally see myself as somewhat more authoritarian than the average conservative, so i find it fairly easy to justify my own support for the Patriot Act.

I just think a lot of conservatives are willing to make the exception to the rule as far as government control/intrusion goes, when it comes to military/law enforcement/national security matters. It sits a lot better, politically.

But some of the provisions of the Patriot Act had more to do with huge power being given to the IRS, and the expansion of our scope overseas and what not, so it also goes against the mantra and philosophy of isolationists.

Doc could explain this a lot better than me, but military and national security matters seem to be the exception to the rule per government involvement.

DMV's and government run healthcare are still a no go in the eyes of most on the right.

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I wish you had just posted this because I agree with you.

The Patriot Act seems to me to be one of those things you don't think about and it doesn't affect you, until it does, and that's when shit will hit the fan. Will any of us here ever be negatively affected? Probably not. But the simple fact that possibility is out there is bad enough.

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More efficient at screwing everyone over, maybe.
Those are some good thoughts. Perhaps the social beliefs of libs/dems and the military beliefs of cons/reps do often supercede their core beliefs in big and small government and what it's scope and role should be.

On the other hand, it could just be the result of people wanting to show support and solidarity to their own political party, no matter how convoluted and twisted the ideas coming out of them are. A good example on the other side of the spectrum would be liberals' support for stricter control of or the outright banning of guns (although I may just be blurring the ideals of liberalism and libertarianism here).

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I'm glad somebody else picked up on that.

I hope it never comes to the point that conservatives are thought to be wanting no enforcable power at all in the hands of government.

Even the most hardline of ardent anti-conservatives don't go that far - that first more with anarchy than it does with strength, which is what i would like to see in our nation's set up for law and order.

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I dunno. To me, in the fields of national security, military and law enforcement, the government generally does an exceptional job and gets it right.

And, even at that, i think we're still slightly too over-prosecutory a nation.

I think of the two paragraphs i quoted, its certainly the former. I am not cynical enough to see it as the latter just yet.

But yeah, one ideology does trump the other. "I'd like to see a smaller and less intrusive government other than when it leads us to waging war and hanging people" (in which case, its full government-steam ahead!), would be the "simplest to understand" way of putting it. My tough on crime and national security principles superceed my "role of government" principles.

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Eh. Would you not consider Right Wing Libertarians a type of conservative?

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Hmmm, that's an interesting question.

I'm not really sure. Mybe you might better explain it, haha. (A bit of a cop out, i know, but i really don't know if i would class them as conservative tbh).

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Eh. The standard political xy graph, while not solving all theoretical political definition problems, does a pretty adequate job of sorting this stuff out.

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I can see that, yea. I was more thinking domestically with my reply, since small centralized power has a history of being more difficult to hold accountable.
Certainly.
And if only more people would realize that they hold conflicting views (which pretty much anyone who has political views does) I think we could make some progress in finding some sort of middle ground.

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