I assume they're not that big into politics and just wanna appear moderate.
"I dont mind the gays, but I keep voting for Fascists because right wing talking points about how Unions make the prices of eggs go up."
I think they're a goddamn idiot. I like it more when people tell me that they don't have enough time to think about this shit and so they don't have an opinion.
I prefer to use the term fiscally responsible.
It's fiscally irresponsible to cut taxes for the billionaires and corporations when we have record deficits.
It's fiscally irresponsible to cut the IRS budget when that results in less revenue.
Republican voters have been brainwashed into thinking that Republicans are somehow more responsible with the economy and budget, when history shows that Republicans drive up the deficit with irresponsible tax cuts.
"I believe good things but don't want to actually sacrifice anything or be responsible for any of my actions that my prevent good things from happening"
I don't want to be included with the rest of the domestic terrorists in my political party.
"Socially liberal" right up until the point that we start talking about worker's rights, the dignity of poor people, and the exploitation of cheap slave labor on the other side of the world
Every discussion I've had with someone who said this has led me to expect ignorance. I think its something people who don't know much like to say because they think it sounds good.
Usually they are lying. It means they hate poor people.
Racist. It’s always dogwhistle racism.
I think the person saying it wants to avoid family or acquaintances giving them shit for not sharing their political views.
Most of my family is very conservative stereotype vile people. I've heard that exact phrase from the few left leaning relatives as they try to wigle out of unconfortable conversations. I myself am the black sheep that just tells the repugnicans that their views disgust me.
You have no party if you are American as our conservative movement abandoned any form of fiscal responsibility 30-40 years ago. When was the last time a tax cut was paired with a reduction in spending? Oh yeah that last happened in 1983
C-c-c-conservative combo-breaker!
Edit: Sorry, I just wanted to say that. But I do think that falls under right wing with a sprinkle of social moderate leftism but even so, the debate of "can gays have the same rights as all of us" takes away from the ultimate leftist pov of "we should all have better material conditions as a class, including minorities".
Edit 2: and fiscally conservative is ofc "you keep whatever pennies you may or may not have, I got money Idgaf I'm not giving it away" which is the misunderstood antithesis of the concept of the far left.
"I'm simple and don't bother to look deeper into anything"
I won't waste my life savings on hookers and blow but you should absolutely have the freedom to do so without judgment
I think in terms of American politics this means you are buying the shit that both sides are peddling to distract you from what the actual problems are and what is actually causing them
As someone who calls himself that:
"I am a liberal but the liberal want to go after the upper middle class instead of after the top 0.1%"
P.S: I'm from Switzerland, so don't tell me about Trump. I knoe he's a fascist and I would have voted against him. But here in Switzerland we have more moderate choices.
I think "I want to keep my money and let you get gay married"
"I'm an uninformed idiot."
Conservatives are fiscally reckless. Look at every conservative president's deficit spending, and economic crashes. Look at the states most dependent on federal funds.
Even if you had zero morals and voted 100% on fiscal policies, the best choice is very clearly not conservative.
Conservativism, in all forms, is not a real ideology. It's narcissism. A conservative will redefine conservative values based on their own identity.
So the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" idiot is lying to themselves about who they are. They want fiscal policies that benefit themselves, and they don't want to be labelled a bigot, but they are fine with bigots in office as long as they get the fiscal policies that benefit themselves.
Ask them what they mean by "fiscal conservative," and they will probably vaguely gesture and say "lower taxes." What they mean is "lower taxes for me." Fiscal conservatives still want to spend government money on programs they like. They want boondoggles in their backyard, earmarks and pork barrel projects, and social safety nets as long as they are the recipient (Medicare, Social Security, Veteran benefits, etc.)
They want to frame it as responsible restraint. Pull funding from programs they don't understand, like scientific research, or don't like, like foreign aid (except of course if strong ties to their home country).
And when they say lower taxes, when pressed, they will describe how their property tax or income tax or capital gains tax or death tax is really bad "for the economy." They want good schools and roads and infrastructure, but they want someone else to pay for it.
Calling themselves conservative gives them license to be as selfish as they want to be without having to admit that they don't actually have any values.
“I don’t hate women and minorities but I don’t see anything wrong with an economy built off of their exploitation.”
"I don't actively hunt members of marginalized communities with one of my many obnoxiously customized firearms but I still have a weird kink for giving tax cuts to billionaires in exchange for a worsened quality of life because I have a 12 year old's understanding of how the world works."
So many people with such brutal takes on it -- helps to quantify who the audience is on lemmy I guess.
Socially liberal fiscally conservative, to me at least, means that the person is in favour of equality in the sense of equality of treatment from the government, but is not in favour of additional big spending projects to try and have equality of opportunity. They're pro-choice, but likely against the government funnelling money into providing abortions for women (so abortions available, but not gov subsidized). They're pro-trans rights in terms of being fine with whoever doing whatever they want with their body/partners of choice, but against government paying for trans-specific gender affirming procedures and parades to highlight those groups. They're in favour of things like universal medicare/dental care, because those programs are shown to be a net benefit fiscally and socially.
In general, they support socially progressive ideas, so long as they're fiscally costed out and beneficial to the public purse. They're against increased government spending / reach, preferring 'small government', with the social components placed more on individuals to fund directly.
"I pay lip service to minorities, but don't want to allocate resources to their needs"
"I don't care about minorities enough to sacrifice anything about my way of living."
As someone who has used the term before.
Social liberal: I think you should be able to do whatever you want in your personal life, even if it harms yourself. I'm willing to negotiate with harming consenting adults while recognizing the possibility, even likelihood, of an imbalance of power making it difficult to properly give consent, or for it to be recognized by the public at large, e.g., maybe Amazon workers aren't really okay with peeing in bottles because they don't have enough time or facilities for bathroom breaks, just because they accepted the job. Doing things that harm those you have guardianship over is not acceptable because they are not in a position to give consent.
Fiscal conservative: I want money in the public trust to be spent effectively. This doesn't mean I want less taxes, I'm in fact okay with more. A city near me has 30% of its budget dedicated to police services, yet we have some of the highest violent crime in Canada. The simple fact is, a lot of crime is driven by poverty and lack of opportunity. So why are we paying to catch and jail poor people with no skills who are trying to survive and not paying for skills training, robust childhood education, and at least minimal supports so people don't have to be desperate enough to risk their lives and mine so they can survive? It doesn't make sense and there's no indication it's working. FYI, school meal programs tend to help the local economy to the tune of about $7 for every $1 you spend on them. That sounds terribly fiscally responsible to me...
Euro perspective - When I hear fiscally conservative, that means supporting a governmental policy that is frugal with spending and responsible with public assets and finances.
This has several parts, here are some of the most important:
a) Keeping a balanced budget - the government should not be spending more than it is collecting from taxes and income. (A little debt in dire times is fine, but that should be payed off when possible)
b) Responsible management and long term planning - the planning horizon should be counted in decades
c) Focusing on core tasks: national security, infrastructure, healthcare, education etc.
d) Not raising taxes unless strictly necessary, lowering them if it is permissible according to the above.
Socially liberal => supports personal liberties
Now why does government debt even matter? Well, because debt is owed somewhere, and if it becomes large may mean that the government is beholden to other parties for the debt.
I used to say this. And I believed it. It’s a lie people tell themselves because they’re voting for terrible things and don’t want to take credit for half of it.
“I kill the poor but I’m sad about it” gtfo
I will get high with you, and then turn you into the cops when you can't pay rent.
"I'm a liar, pretending to be a libertarian. Fund the police so they can shut down the protests for things I don't like."
"I'm not gay, but $20 is $20."
They don't want to pay money for social spending they don't realize they benefit from while wearing the costume of an ally.
"I'm a dumb cunt"
“i vote MAGA, but im too much of a wuss to admit it out loud.”
'I'm conservative and racist and I'm fully aware of that. However, I have enough sense not to say that in polite society... Unless you're cool with it? "
That you don't understand how capitalism works.
They want to virtue signal trivial social issues to avoid admitting they're just plain conservative.
“Sure the problems are bad, but the causes? The causes are good.”
Bellend
"But in practice, I almost certainly vote Republican."
That they're a Democrat
Just buncha utter bollocks
"I smoke weed but think you're lazy if you make less money than me"
Probably racist but hides it
"I don't understand what those words mean and I'm taking the coward's way out of this conversation."
Isn't this kind of a roundabout way of saying "I'm a libertarian that isn't into wearing tinfoil hats?"
“I like to have my cake and eat it too”.
"You've been duped". Because people like this never acknowledge the amount of corporate welfare going on in America, if you want to be fiscally conservative, stop paying for profit companies from government coffers. Don't go after food stamps, that is just veiled prejudice
Assuming they're American: they're an idiot. Sorry. They don't understand how things are intertwined, and you can't have social justice for free. If you let laissez-faire policies be, you don't get socially liberal outcomes. You get capitalist dystopia.
"I'm going to say I'm late for something to get out of this conversation."
This is my father. Like, I'm happy that he doesn't hate me because I'm bi and poly. He's pretty open about how he thinks the Republican party is cruel and shitty.
His problem is that he associates fiscally progressive policies with California's creaking and inefficient bureaucracy. In his career, he spent a lot of time interacting with various CA governmental departments and he grew to loathe them intensely. Whenever I discuss progressive policies with him, he always relates it back to his experiences living and working in California and then just shrugs and says "I hate both parties for different reasons."
It's funny, because like, shit man, I kinda agree with him on a superficial level. California's state and local governments sucks at their jobs in a lot of ways (see the notorious San Francisco public bathroom). I agree that unions (of which there are many in California) can sometimes impede quick and efficient work (although I don't fucking care, I just chill out and am patient with folks and the shit gets done eventually. The process would be more efficient if the company tried to have a more harmonious relationship with the union).
He just doesn't seem to understand that as far as progressive polities go, California is a terrible example. There are plenty of places around the world that that have implemented progressive and socialist policies while still preserving the things he cares about (efficiency and relative frugality), but he's never been to those places. He hasn't engaged with those governments. All he can think of is the "progressive" state that caused him so much anger.
So basically, I think most people like this are fundamentally nice and decent, but they're ignorant and are blind to the underlying dissonance between their social and fiscal philosophies. My dad has never voted for Trump (he wrote in a friend's name which was basically a vote for Trump, but fuck man, it's at least a little better), but I don't believe he'll ever accept that voting according to his fiscal philosophy directly contradicts his social philosophy.
EDIT: apologies if this is rambling or poorly written. I'm sleep deprived and distracted and very stressed, and I probably shouldn't have commented at all.
I used to think this, because I was against government waste. But I also supported welfare programs, so I was just using the wrong terms for my ideas.
"I'm not a fan of murdering women, people of color, and LGBT people, but I still believe that Trickle Down Economics work! Long Live Capitalism!"
Or maybe it's Arnold Schwarzenegger who still want to pretend the repepublican party still exists and play RINO. Like... Dude just leave already, its a nazi party. 🤦♂️ (Maybe he's doing a deep-cover Terminator Infiltration? 🤔)
"I don't like being held responsible for the outcomes of the fiscal policies I fully support"
I think "You're a fucking liar".
They voted for trump and agree with everything he says but don't want to own up to it
A walking example of privilege
Well this is what I think since I often fall into that kind of thinking and kind of reflected on how I recently voted on a proposition.
It was increase to the sales tax to make the area "safer and vibrant" and touted as a major way in this prop was providing help for affordable housing. My brain went immediately jumped to the more progressive leaning side and went, I'd love to help those who can't afford housing and yeah, I don't mind paying a bit more tax even though I don't particularly like the whole more regressive taxation kind of thing but overall it would be a great thing. Then I looked at the break down and saw that only 17 percent of the funding would actually go toward affordable housing.
That's where the more fiscally conservative part went, huh, well that doesn't pass the sniff test if you're making this about affordable housing and making things "safer" for them and the community dafuq is it only 17 percent of the budget there? Well digging in, 45 percent of this would have gone to cops and first responders, heavy emphasis on cops with articles going on about how the cops were looking forward to buying a helicopter. That fiscally conservative part of me went, yeah, that's wasting my god damn tax money then.
At that point my NWA part of the brain went, you assholes want to hire more cops with no change in hiring standards where we already have a problem with way too many racists ass police, give them cars, helicopters, more tasers and guns, and body cameras that we don't have access to the footage and no consequences if these assholes turn them off during an their encounters with the public? ACAB you bunch of tone deaf jackasses and Fuck the Police.
Needless to say, I did not vote for that increase in taxes.
Greedy cunt
Raging asshole.
I would think they want to not get caught up in a culture war, but also don't want a ton of government programs and costs and don't want to incur debt.
But people have no idea what anything means anymore and they just use words, like woke, and they use them wrong. So who even knows if people are talking about the same thing.
Screaming from the far left, there are a lot of people in scarcity or precairity in our society, a society that would collapse if they all suddenly fell incapacitated from their want.
It is our fucking duty as fellow citizens to stabilize them.
Conservatism at its core is ignoring their need in the name of tradition. To the ninth charnel circle of Hell with that.
'You're lying to either me, yourself, or both. You're a full on conservative and don't want to admit it.''
It means "i'm not a racist, but i still prefer billionaires getting all the money"
They do not want anyone to have authority over them in any capacity. They want to fuck who they want, do what drugs they want, shoot what they want, exploit financially anyone they want, hire and fire anyone they want, control and manipulate markets however they want. They do not want any limitations placed on them by law, regulation, ethics, or morality. They feel no responsibility to anyone but themselves, do not value others that do not benefit them directly, and see society only as a means to serve their interests. They are the definition of narcissists.
To an extent, you can make an argument for each individually. But they don't mix. After a while, you'd be a walking contradiction. For a fun *exercise, try to imagine the opposite.
They pine for the Blue Dogs and haven't updated their policy preferences since the early 90's.
My friend who managed to be as right as it could even be in a political compass test which I thought was impossible, the man was a hyper capitalist
Housing and human rights matter and we should stop spending so much money on bombing houses and killing people.
🤔
"I haven't thought about politics for more than 30 seconds in my entire life but I don't want to admit that and don't want to sound like a complete asshole" is about the most charitable way I can translate that sound bite.
Assuming that the person saying that is an American, I think that they don't understand economics and probably aren't as socially "liberal" as they might like to think they are ... or they haven't thought that hard about either topic. I think that based on the numerous people I've heard say that to me in the past.
It's fine to not really have thought about these things that much. Not understanding economics isn't a moral failing either. The people preaching about the economy usually have an agenda that isn't well-served by accurately describing economics and it can be hard to know where to find good information. I would rather hear "You know, I think those are important topics but I'm not sure where I stand on them yet" though.
I think we have countless words. We should use our words.
We all have a spectrum of social and economic and other ideals.
Those who want to lead us have theirs too, and they’re the ones who need us to commit and compartmentalize into ideologies and macro definitions that get twisted.
Just like every other liberal they are a nazi sympathizer.
these words are all broad strokes. without specific examples, i'll just put it as lip service and move on
nod and say "okay" or "cool brah"
-- my head
Translation: "The limits and bounds of my intelligence are the same as that of an LLM."
“US politics new speak, can't relate.”
In the U.S. "fiscal conservatism doesn't exist" so I hope you are voting against the hate mongers and trying to reform their opposition into balancing the budget (difficult when the hate mongers keep fucking the tax code in favor of the ultra-rich).
It depends what country they are in
yeah. whatever.
Extreme centrist
I am socially liberal and with my personal budget, fiscally conservative. Government money? Different priorities, plenty of stuff would be cheaper when we pool our money like that, so I'm not sure what fiscally conservative means. My gut reaction is that this person isn't socially liberal because regressive government fiscal policies harm the population, you can't really split it out like that. I guess it's someone who doesn't care who you marry or how you dress but also doesn't care if the schools are any good or if there is any enforcement of the rights to do the socially liberal things.
Libertarian
Understands the importance of kidness and empathy but doesn't understand economics
Me as an ESL being utterly confused by people's replies when apparently I understand "conservative" as per Merriam Webster dictionary definition 2.a "marked by moderation or caution"
😵💫😵
