Replies

A small sampling of MGL’s comments during his short (so far) tenure on FR:

“I of course welcome small government, but much of social conservatism advocates the nanny state: the drug war and prohibiting other victimless crimes, not letting consenting gay adults enter a marital contract. I’m sure there are more examples but you get my point...”

“I think government should stick to the bare minimum. Telling consenting adults what kinds of marriage contracts they may enter should not be one of them. It is always tempting to say government should get involved in (...whatever one’s pet peeve is), but unless it involves force or fraud or clear present harm to others, butt out.

Even if government was GOOD at that kind of thing I’d object on principle”

“Let’s take them one by one:

group marriage: as long as it is
a reasonable contract by consenting adults, not my problem, not the state’s role to either encourage nor prohibit

, adult brother & sister “marriages,”: there are good biological reasons to prevent this (or at least procreation). If a brother and sister want to enter into a contract of shared property, rights and obligations, that is their issue.

porn shops next to high schools: I see a place for reasonable (minimal) zoning laws, note sure about this case, especially if porn shops are for 18+ (I do believe in age of consent restrictions -no booze buying for six year olds)

unchecked gambling-on-demand: like state lotteries? casinos? We already have that. It is up to individuals to restrain themselves.

the overwhelming percentage of users of guns, alcohol, other recreational drugs, gambling, porn, etc., are peaceful and otherwise law abiding. Outlawing those activities on the grounds of a few bad actors is even less justified than outlawing guns because some people shoot people unjustly, fail to secure them, etc.

Lots of things cause problems: sugar, trans fats, tobacco, inter-racial or inter-religious marriage, fast cars. I just do not think it serves us well for a nanny state to micro-manage our lives. Other Freepers believe otherwise, but I question the consistency of their small government claims”

This one is cute:

“Substitute “”Jesus” and Jehovah” for “Mohammad” and “Allah” and you’d feel right at home in Iran, where the theocracy protects people, from oogie things like porn, gambling and gays. You may have hard there are no gays there. You’d fit right in

Too many Republicans are just fine with authoritarian theocracy as long as it happens to reflect their particular reading of their particular holy book

I prefer limited government as the ultimate safeguard against tyrrany”

And this one, comparing anyone who is opposed to the normalization of homosexuality to Nazis and Mullahs:

“fights over how consenting adults choose to live, how they define a family or what otherwise reasonable contracts they enter into, takes “conservatives” into the realm of big government nanny state-ism. It is a stupid distraction from what conservatives ought to be really focusing on”

“If you and you church members do not want to perform or recognize gay marriage go for it. Teach your kids it is a sin. Mke gay jokes, hand ouy anti-gay pamplets

Let me ask you this: Nazis, bin Laden, the Iranian mullahs, they all love and embrace gays right? Uh no, gays are easy scapegoats for passing all kinds of oppressive laws and just like all oppressive laws, come back to bite us.
Tyranny loves scapegoats that it can demonize and use to justify oppresion (”thank goodness they’re protecting us from *those* people”)

Our so-called small government major party is wasting so many resources on this boondoggle; meanwhile our economy is being socialized, so many real problems go unsolved because they have no credibility, no principles

I wish you people were smarter than that”