That's just so simplistic...and in great part...quite wrong. Tyranny's have arisen MANY times from anarchy and inept government...moreso than from some "big government" situation. The Czar's in Russia were actually holding quite loosely on to most of the nation...though oppressive in the big cities...when the country spun apart. Weimar was failed and incompetent, but calling it big government would be a terrible misnomer...as another modern example. The new oppressors always BECOME big government, but not through some evolution from what preceded them. And for the record, everyone here opposes big government as a concept.
Nah. A small government is scared of its subjects. A big government enslaves its subjects. The government that is big enough to 'help' is big enough to enslave. And it will. Conservatism 101.
And your "liberty stream" is drying up because you've facilitated the Left's assumption of power. The REST of us have been fighting alongside the MAGA movement and President Trump for liberty and to sustain that stream...you've done...well...nothing but undermine that movement. I get that you do so out of good intentions...but we all know where good intentions get us when not coupled with wisdom and common sense. Nowhere.
I have facilitated nothing. And you have sustained nothing. And I get that what you do, you do with the best of intentions... But then, don't they all. The bottom line:
You got nothing. Government GREW. Government went LEFT. And it cost tens of trillions.
And you wonder why I will not support that.
I fight for small government, I believe in making as much of government local as can be done, I fight for liberty and every inch of the Bill of Rights...hell...I fight for fiscal restraint. What I don't do is take a position that would politically destroy conservatism...say...instantaneously expecting a balanced budget and paydown of our debt. Such an effort would lead to generations of liberal supremacy in our political system and decades of exponentially worse fiscal policies...balancing the budget has to be a long term process, not an instantaneous imposition as you wish it to be.
I don't expect anything instantaneous. But I expect it to go in the right direction.
I DO expect a budget. I DO expect that budget to be balanced. I DO expect debt to be addressed.
None of that happened.
Throw the paper to the wind and start printing money. That'll fix it.
That ain't fighting for anything.
Can you name even ONE Republican "potential" candidate who is perfect enough to garner your support in 2024? Its so easy to sit on the sidelines and point out the flaws, and much harder to back a horse and have a stake in the outcome. You've done nothing but the former and none of the latter...all while sitting in an ivory cabin condemning fellow conservatives for not being pure enough. THAT is the problem with conservatism as a movement...too many of us lack the foresight and wisdom to understand that, when the Huns are pounding at your gates, you don't quibble with each other about rearranging the furniture.
I would have voted for Cruz. I would vote for Rand Paul off the cuff, probably Cotton too. And there you go again spouting bullshit lines about perfection/purity.
Where I stand is upon the STANDARD of political Conservatism. it is the standard Standard. It is what we ALL agreed to fight together to support. The only people claiming that to be unattainable are those who don't want it in the first place.
And the Huns ain't the problem. There's a gate between us and them.
It's the Republicans that are the problem. THEY are the ones claiming to defend, that don't defend a single damn thing. Which leads to the dilemma of the OP.
HEAR ME:
Liberalism is not winning on its merit - It has no merit.
Liberalism is winning because it has no opposition.
Think that through.
Y'all ain't no damn different than any other hyphenated Conservatism.
