Comments on: [politics] Being Americans who speak our minds http://www.jlake.com/2012/07/04/politics-being-americans-who-speak-our-minds/ Jay Lake's Official Web Site Sun, 19 May 2013 01:35:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: The Conservative Menace, Part 2 | Brad R. Torgersen http://www.jlake.com/2012/07/04/politics-being-americans-who-speak-our-minds/comment-page-1/#comment-53173 The Conservative Menace, Part 2 | Brad R. Torgersen Thu, 05 Jul 2012 19:06:51 +0000 http://www.jlake.com/?p=19520#comment-53173 [...] a follow-up to Jay Lake’s response to my most recent post in this space, I wanted to specifically address something Jay wrote: I want [...]

]]> By: John Chu http://www.jlake.com/2012/07/04/politics-being-americans-who-speak-our-minds/comment-page-1/#comment-53115 John Chu Wed, 04 Jul 2012 15:57:54 +0000 http://www.jlake.com/?p=19520#comment-53115 I think there was a time where conservatives and liberals had more or less the same goals but disagreed on how to achieve them. E.g., conservatives and liberals used to think that universal healthcare coverage was a good thing. As liberals are fond of pointing out, the individual mandate was actually proposed by the Heritage Foundation. Our employer-based healthcare system came to fruition during the Nixon administration.

Now, though, it’s not obvious to me that conservatives and liberals want the same things. That is, we’re not just arguing over the best way to do something but over whether something is worth doing in the first place. Witness the “repeal and replace” rhetoric. It’s heavy about repeal but not a word about replace. While liberals still think universal healthcare coverage is a worthy goal, conservatives no longer think so.

Discussion is hard enough when everyone agrees on the goal. If the goal itself is up for debate…

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