- Joined
- Mar 8, 2013
- Messages
- 16,339
- Reaction score
- 13,844
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
Pretend? No, it's a very real thing. "Keep the government out of my *insert issue here*" is not an unfamiliar phrase to many.What I understand is people ignorantly like to pretend that limited government means "no government" when it suits their purposes to attack such people.
Even if we limit the scope of this particular discussion to abortion, it is dishonest for a pro-lifer to assume only their position is the "correct" one, which is essentially the argument you made in your last post. In other words, you're saying the "limited government" crowd is not hypocritical because they believe government should protect "citizens unable to defend themselves". But it is dishonest for said pro-lifer to assume their position is the only one on the issue. Those who are pro-choice make an equally legitimate argument regarding government intervention into a woman's medical decision. Even if you see the unborn as humans in need of government protection, you simply cannot preclude the other side of the argument. And, in this discussion, those who claim they are for limited government are still advocating for a fairly intensive governmental invasion of a person's private medical decisions, as compared to the opinions of their opposites.Sadly, words have meanings. There is very few iteration of political ideology that adhere to the idea of limited government that disagrees with the belief that one legitimate role of government is to protect the inalienable rights of its citizens when said citizens are unable to defend them themselves. Such a notion is in no way against such a "limited government" ideology.
Only if you ignore any argument to the contrary of the pro-lifer's. The pro-life argument doesn't exist in a vacuum. While I understand the argument you're making, it requires the assumption of only one argument on the abortion issue. On this issue, there is a big government and a small government crowd and the pro-lifers are on the big government side.While absolutely, some that adhere to such an ideology do approve of expanded/bigger government action outside the consistent scope of what their claimed ideology actually stands for. However, in the case of abortion, so long as their thought process is born from the foundational belief that the unborn is a human, complete with inalienable rights and innocent of any transgressions that could reasonably suppress said rights, it is an entirely consistent and internally logical stance as it relates to their belief in limited government.
No, to call them hypocritical, all you have to do is point out they favor larger government to make the medical decisions for women, whilst railing about big government in situations they don't support. Essentially, they favor small government only when it's convenient for them. Even if you accept one of the responsibilities of limited government is to protect citizens, it still doesn't change the fact that, on this issue, they are the ones advocating for large-scale government intervention. Just because the reason for larger government fits into one of the principles they believe government should stand for, it doesn't change the fact they are arguing for larger governmental intervention into citizens' private lives.To call them hypocritical in this instance would require one to believe they are also hypocritical for supporting the governments ability to protect a child from a parent who is raping or attempting to murder them.
We must read his OP differently, as his own commentary in the opening post never once really mentioned abortion (unless you count his congrats to the judge). I see his opening post as railing about the supposed hypocrisy of the "limited government" crowd, using a current event as the discussion starter.While the argument you speak of may not begin and end with abortion, the argument in THIS THREAD that is about THIS TOPIC absolutely does. If he wanted to make his point about homosexuality or drugs, he could've made a thread about it. He made a thread about abortion, and made a stupid and arrogantly naive argument based off that topic, so that's what I addressed.
If you can direct me to where, in his opening post, he either A) spoke of abortion specifically or B) limited his attack on hypocrisy to only abortion I'll happily acknowledge that. But I don't think you can do that, because I simply don't see it there.
Last edited: