[rayiner]

The idea that republicans profess to believe in personal freedom in all respects is something libertarians made up to malign Republicans. Republicans, like Democrats, believe that government should regulate the morals of the people when necessary. For Republicans, small government is a means to particular, mostly economic, ends, not an overarching ideological imperative as it is for libertarians. Thus, there is nothing internally inconsistent about Republicans preferring that government intrude minimally into private markets while also preferring a large and strong military apparatus.

[narrator]

The fiscal responsibility part of the Republican ideology is largely insincere. Sure, the people who vote Republican believe it, but the elected officials don't. During the Bush years, when the Republicans controlled congress and the presidency, federal spending grew enormously.

[gozur88]

>Sure, the people who vote Republican believe it, but the elected officials don't.

... which is why the Republican Party is set to lose an election that should have been an easy lay-up.

>During the Bush years, when the Republicans controlled congress and the presidency, federal spending grew enormously.

That's how we ended up with the budget sequester, which is the only thing that seems to have actually worked since the Gingrich House in the mid '90s. Now that the sequester is gone federal spending will grow in leaps and bounds no matter who is in power. It's built into the system.

[asnyder]

Intrude minimally into private markets? I don't believe the actions over the past years as pertain to women's access to healthcare and reproductive services is minimal. Republican governments across a myriad of states have been anything but minimal into their intrusion of private markets that don't align with their core beliefs.

[rayiner]

If you believe that abortion is immoral, then it cannot be the subject of legitimate markets. We don't allow private businesses to discriminate against black people, use child labor, or buy and sell babies or organs, etc. Nobody sees those restrictions as being intrusion into private markets, because they don't consider those markets legitimate in the first place.

Which goes back to the original point: Republicans don't profess that personal freedom and free markets should apply in all circumstances. There are some things that are the proper subject of markets, and some things that are the proper domain of government. Things that are the proper domain of the government's right to regulate morality (e.g. pornography, abortion, drugs), are not within the proper domain of markets.

[AnimalMuppet]

> If you believe that abortion is immoral...

Stronger: If you believe that abortion is murder. We don't deregulate the market for hit men just because we believe in the free market.

[tremon]

That's not stronger, that's narrower.