[Phlyer]

No matter how conservative someone might be, there will be a person pop up and start ranting about RINOs and traitors.

That's because the conventional left/right spectrum is inherently flawed. The true spectrum is between statists and anarchists: Those who want the state to 'do' something on whatever their pet rock issue is versus those who don't want the state to 'do' anything at all.

The challenge for real societies is to find the balance between the two. The US Constitution describes a wonderful balance, far superior to the system we live under.

So there are 'conservatives' who demand the state 'do something' about abortion, or who demand the state 'do something' about foreign aggressors who (ultimately, like Hitler) may threaten their view of their own nation, or those who demand the state 'do something' about voter fraud.

And there are leftists who demand the state 'do something' about transexual kids (whom they assume know what they are better than their own biology), or 'do something' about those nasty gun owners, etc.

My own view (if it's not obvious by now) is that the federal government should only 'do something' about those responsibilities explicitly established in the Constitution, but do those things very well.

So as much as I hate abortion, it's not a federal government job to 'do something' about that (see the 10th Amendment). By the standards of many on this forum, the fact I don't want the federal government to outlaw abortion immediately means I'n not a conservative.

And perhaps they are right.

[DesertRhino]

“So as much as I hate abortion, it’s not a federal government job to ‘do something’ about that”

It’s murder. That should not be allowed at any level of law in America.

[griswold3]

“I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism,” Reagan said in 1975.

“The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

[joshua c]

statists are anarchists

they call themselves anarchists to hide their statism

anarchy is a temporary condition

the anarchists want anarchy so it can be replaced by statism