[hodwik2]

Progressives move forever more to the left, and then accuse the right of "moving right" because we didn't move to your new definition of center fast enough. Excuse me, conservatives have not actually managed to get signed any major conservative initiative in the US in 50 years, because of that line.

Our government is bigger than it has ever been:

-we haven't privatized schools or gotten vouchers,

-we haven't abolished any major departments of governments,

-we haven't been able to abolish any major social program,

-we haven't been able to cut costs in the welfare state,

-we haven't abolished government marriage,

-we haven't opened immigration to wealthy foreigners,

-we have only lost ground on gun rights and religious rights,

-we have not been able to slow the judicial activism of the courts,

-we have only gotten passed minor deregulation efforts,

-we have not limited the unions,

-abolished the minimum wage, ended zoning laws, and so on.

To a conservative of the Goldwater years the Republican party of today would look like a bunch of socialist fascists. The closest Republicans get to doing anything conservative these days is to slow your guys roll.

[wfo]

So you list a number of hyper-extremist radical points, many of which even HAVE happened (vouchers and charter schools are everywhere, immigration is open to wealthy foreigners, unions have been devastated and barely exist, gun control barely exists, the welfare state has been cut enormously, by Bill Clinton in fact! because the left has shifted so far to the right the Democrats are accomplishing your radical tasks for you!), all of which almost no other country in the world even considers, most of which were at no time in American history even close to politically viable, and then when you don't get your insane libertarian wish list fulfilled you complain the country is leftist?

[hodwik2]

>"So you list a number of hyper-extremist radical points [...] then you complain the country is leftist?"

No. I listed a bunch of things which were not extreme positions 50 years ago to show that politics is indeed becoming more leftist. The fact that you see these as very extreme positions is exactly my point -- the center has moved left, not right.

[wfo]

Removing the minimum wage is so extreme it's barely even under consideration anywhere outside libertarian-only econ conferences. And it always has been. Your positions (the few that have not already been enacted, because of how far right our system has shifted) are hyper extreme, they have always been hyper extreme, they always will be hyper extreme, even in conservative circles because the vast majority of people simply do not want them to happen and have never wanted them to happen because they would be awful for almost everyone.

The only items on your list you have NOT gotten because of our extreme rightward shift in the last 60 years have been the points about removing pieces of the government wholesale (and removing government-recognized marriage, which near zero percent of the population has ever wanted, which isn't even a conservative position). Because government agencies were created for a reason, to meet a need and those needs have not ceased to exist.

Gun and religious laws have not really changed much. Deregulation has happened massively and destroyed huge sectors of the economy. The only point there that withstands even casual scrutiny is judicial activism.

You could have just replied "Yes".

[hodwik2]

>"Removing the minimum wage is so extreme it's barely even under consideration [...] And it always has been."

Then you disagree with Eleanor Roosevelt on history, who, speaking of the Republican party's desire to end the minimum wage in 1959 gave the congressional testimony: "The arguments raised against establishing any legal minimum wage were the same as those which have been used by employers over the past 50 years."

And liberal think-tank The National Employment Law Project, who writes: "The criticisms raised by minimum wage opponents display a remarkable consistency over the past 100 years" Source: "100 Years of Broken-Record Opposition to the Minimum Wage"

You can disagree with these positions, but at least have your facts right about basic points of history. Points of history that your party doesn't even disagree with.

[dragonwriter]

> Progressives move forever farther and farther to the left, and then accuse the right of "moving right" because we didn't move to your new definition of center fast enough.

The individual mandate for purchase of private insurance + subsidy system adopted as "Obamacare" was first proposed by the Republicans and insurance industry lobbyists in opposition to healthcare reform efforts under the Clinton administration.

Today, its a Democratic achievement seen as socialism by the Right.

> -we haven't privatized schools or gotten vouchers,

Both traditional public schools and traditional private schools are losing enrollment to homeschooling and public-funded, privately-operated charters -- both of which are things that have been pushed by the right.

(The right's also unsuccessfully pushed vouchers and drastically cutting public school funding, but when your pushing for multiple and mutually-exclusive things, you can't really characterize it as your opponents winning when you get some of the things that your side is pushing for instead of the others.)

> -we haven't been able to abolish any major social program,

Well, in the 1990s you got to abolish AFDC, one of the biggest social programs in the country, and replace it with the more-restrictive TANF.

> -we have only lost ground on gun rights and religious rights,

Actually, the federal "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" and state laws modeled on it have advanced religious rights to discriminate which had previously been found to violate laws which existed prior to those.

And, on 2nd amendment rights, major advances were made by the right in the Supreme Court in D.C. v. Heller (2008) -- holding that the 2nd Amendment created a personal right in federal enclaves -- and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) -- holding that the 2nd Amendment created a personal right incorporated against state restrictions by the 14th Amendment.

> -we have not been able to slow the judicial activism of the courts,

And the left really wishes you would slow the judicial activism of your courts, such as the bizarre ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius that Congress can't set the terms for State participation in a program (Medicaid) which is otherwise within Congress power to establish.

> To a conservative of the Goldwater years the Republican party of today would look like a bunch of Socialists.

Well, we could ask a conservative of the Goldwater years about that, like the one that's the odds-on favorite to the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States in 2016. Well, except someone did, back in 1996 (on NPR, 1/13/1996):

"SCOTT SIMON: I mean, did you ever back in the ’60s, between when — I believe you were a Goldwater girl —

HILLARY CLINTON: That’s right.

SCOTT SIMON: — and whenever you became politically –

HILLARY CLINTON: That’s right. And I feel like my political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with. I don’t recognize this new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not conservative in many respects. I am very proud that I was a Goldwater girl."

[hodwik2]

>"The individual mandate for purchase of private insurance + subsidy system adopted as "Obamacare" was first proposed by the Republicans and insurance industry lobbyists in opposition to healthcare reform efforts under the Clinton administration. [...] I don’t recognize this new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not conservative in many respects. "

That's exactly right.

The Republican party of today has found itself only reacting to liberal policies. We're basically forced to put forward alternative, smaller, liberal policies to stave off the big ones. Rather than arguing to draw down Medicare, we're sitting here talking about establishing alternative socialist policies.

>"The right's also unsuccessfully pushed vouchers and drastically cutting public school funding, but when your pushing for multiple and mutually-exclusive things, "

Vouchers are in many cases cheaper than public schools -- they are not mutually exclusive.

>" you got to abolish AFDC, one of the biggest social programs in the country, and replace it with the more-restrictive TANF."

Taking a $22b/yr (out of ~$240b in social welfare programs), and replacing it with a $17b/yr program doesn't seem the big win to me that you make it out to be.

>"Religious Freedom Restoration Act"

That law limited religious freedom. It says that if you can prove a compelling interest, and can prove a law is the least restrictive way to do something, you can do it even though it steps on a person's constitutional right to free exercise.

The pro-religious freedoms version of that law, which would have been supported by a liberal reading of the constitution, would have read "The government may not limit a person's free exercise of religion, unless that freedom kills or maims another human being, or severely damages their personal property."

That was yet another example of a statist law put in place with the hope that it would stop additional statist laws from coming down the pike (of course, to no avail).

>"NFIB v. Sebelius "

Medicaid and Obamacare are not legal programs to begin with in a strictly constitutional sense. Their constitutionality was predicated on a very strange, and wishy-washy reinterpretation of the Commerce clause. (Albeit a popular one, for obvious reasons.)

Commerce, as written, was clearly denoting treaties of trade between governmental bodies (read tariffs and trade restrictions), not saying that the Federal government has a right to establish any new laws they desire, so long as they relate to money -- even requiring someone to purchase something they don't want:

[Congress has the right...] "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." That's all.

[dragonwriter]

> That law limited religious freedom.

Well, sure, in that it allowed powerful private entities to engage in religious discrimination adversely affecting the practical religious freedom of less powerful entities and individuals, but in terms of government power, it limited government action more than it was prior to the law (which is why the right pushed it).

> It says that if you can prove a compelling interest, and can prove a law is the least restrictive way to do something, you can do it even though it steps on a person's constitutional right to free exercise

No, it didn't. It said that if you couldn't do that, you couldn't enforce a law affecting religious exercise; it didn't allow government anything that was previously prohibited. (This, in practice, tightened the standards on government from what had been established in case law.

> Medicaid and Obamacare are not legal programs to begin with in a strictly constitutional sense.

Ruling that either the ACA as a whole or Medicaid was unconstitutional would be, while both radically inconsistent with generations of case law and hard to justify textually, at least coherent. Ruling that it was constitutional for Congress to establish Medicaid, initially set standards for participation, fund it by annual appropriations, and set new standards and funding, but not apply the new standards to states that wanted to continue operating under the old standards and only take the share of funding that was attributed to the caseload which would be covered by the old standards was completely incoherent from any perspective related to applying any kind of Constitutional principal, and clear and unmistakeable arbitrary legislation from the bench.

[hodwik2]

It, in no unclear terms, says that you can limit free exercise, so long as you live up to two pretty low standards:

--------

"b. Government may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest;

and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."

--------

This is much less binding than the first amendment: "Congress _shall make no law_ respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

The constitution provided no exceptions whatsoever. By definition, a law which adds exceptions has moved the bar textually. It is, by definition, unconstitutional.

Again, it was a bad move by conservatives using liberal laws to protect themselves, rather than just pushing for conservative laws.

[dragonwriter]

"only if" is restrictive, not permissive, "if" is permissive, and "if and only if" is both permissive and restrictive.

> This is much less binding than the first amendment:

I understand you view it that way, however, the author's of the bill did it because it was more restrictive on government than the first amendment had been applied by the courts, as it applies to neutral and generally applicable laws with incidental impacts on religious practice.

> The constitution provided no exceptions whatsoever.

OTOH, the constitution provides no qualifications whatsoever on various grants of power to government that it provides, either. The various scrutiny levels (strict, intermediate, and rational basis) serve, at least as regards federal action, to resolve conflicts between unqualified restrictions and unqualified grants of power (its true that other modes of legal interpretation are conceivable -- a strict "newest wins" rule, say, could be applied, in which case the first amendment grants would trump all powers in the "base" Constitution, but all powers granted by later amendments would completely ignore restrictions imposed by the First Amendment. So, say, commerce clause action would be completely prohibited from any impact on religious exercise, but income tax could be deliberately constructed to suppress a given religion with no Constitutional difficulty.)