re: Can you be fiscally conservative and socially liberal?

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Any standard created by a human is subjective by definition and cannot be objective in relation to other humans.

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A natural right exists outside of humanity.

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Absolutely not. If God is irrelevant then animals also can have natural rights (we're participating in animal slavery with our pets!) since in a truly atheistic worldview (practically speaking, at least)

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Animals do indeed have natural rights. They enforce them individually or through a social structure every day. Some are successful, others are not.

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we are just animals and have no intrinsic value that is greater than any other animal

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We have greater intrinsic value over other animals in the fact we have moved beyond enforcing natural rights individually through combat to enforcing natural rights through the social contract that is government.

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Yes, but it has no objective basis if you remove God from the equation. If you do that, it's just one opinion among many.

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Yes, it does. It is the very definition of a natural right.

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I'm stating my religious beliefs and the beliefs of the founders that were the ones talking about inalienable rights.

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The founders beliefs were not based on religion. They were based on a history of enlightenment political philosophy that moved beyond justifying everything as the will of god.

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You've given a secular, subjective opinion about what you think we should base our understanding of human rights,

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If you continue to hold that this is my argument, you have failed to understand what a natural right is.

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If you think government should protect your subjective standard of human rights,

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Again, I reject your premise that government is protecting a subjective standard.

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If it doesn't protect your standard or it directly infringes upon on it, government is acting immorally and you are free to judge it so based on your standard.

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No, government is not acting immorally. Government (as it should be) is inherently amoral. Government in this case has simply failed to function as designed.

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Your standard for role of government would therefore be transformed into a moral standard by which you, personally, hold governments accountable to in order to determine if they are acting rightly or wrongly. I think it's kind of ironic, actually.

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Morality, again, has nothing to do with it. Government has a function. It either performs this function, or it does not. Government is nothing more than a complex if-then statement.

If person does x, then y happens.

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There are many definitions of government and what their purpose is for.

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Yes, but we are talking about the foundation of the US government.

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If rights have a moral quality to them

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They do not.

This is probably pointless, as I categorically reject just about every one of your premises.

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And it's wrong. Why? Because people you disagree with may come into power and decide to enforce their morality

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So? That happens today and it's how many if not most people believe government acts and is supposed to act.

For example, Democrats and Republicans fight on what pieces of legislation should be passed based on what they think is morally right for the government to regulate. For example, Dems generally want to force redistribution of wealth (through taxation) because they think it's moral to use those funds to help the less fortunate. Reps think it's immoral to redistribute wealth for all sorts of purposes regardless of how noble or morally upright those purposes are because it's immoral to forcibly separate people from their property. Therefore, they fight over both if taxes are raised or lowered and what those dollars are used for.

But that aside, what objective reason do you have for saying it's a bad standard just because it can change over time? We've got a Constitution that was specific and limited and it's been updated over time. And then you have the debate about what that means. How do the externalities standard apply to various aspects of life? Government gets involved to decide.

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Govt does a lot of things it shouldnt, but it doesnt make it wise

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Who defines what they should and shouldn't do? Who defines what is wise and unwise? My point is that these terms are subjective and it's a battle over whose standard wins out.

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A natural right exists outside of humanity.

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Yes, and how can such a thing can even exist is up for debate. I assert that natural rights exist outside of humanity because of the God that created humanity endowed humanity with those rights by our creation. If we are a cosmic accident, then we should not expect to have any objective rights at all.

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Animals do indeed have natural rights. They enforce them individually or through a social structure every day. Some are successful, others are not.

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Rights are a human concept and are closely tied to law or jurisprudence. Animals don't naturally have rights because animals don't have justice or morality. They act because they can or because they must, not because it is right or wrong or because of some obligation. Humans have systems of government and justice to enforce notions of rights and laws; animals have no such thing. The "rights" animals have only exist because of what humans decide.

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We have greater intrinsic value over other animals in the fact we have moved beyond enforcing natural rights individually through combat to enforcing natural rights through the social contract that is government.

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Just because we do those things doesn't mean we have greater intrinsic value, and that's my point. If there is no greater power that gives us objective standards, we have to create our own standards, which makes them subjective. Subjective standards have only the authority to be enforced as the enforcers have the power to enforce it ("might makes right").

If we have intrinsic value, it has to be because we are made that way. Otherwise we have no intrinsic value as humans and our value is derived by what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about others, making our value extrensic.

The social contract is just an agreement within society that trades some freedoms for protection and order. It exists because humans allow it to exist, and if some sort of chaotic event were to occur, it would go away, at least in part, based on how society re-establishes itself. If humans created it and humans have to agree to participate, it's not objective, as it doesn't come from without but from within.

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Yes, it does. It is the very definition of a natural right.

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Within philosophy, there is debate about where natural rights come from. If there is no objective source (outside of humanity) that declares that those rights exist then those rights only exist because us humans say they do; we are creating rights for ourselves out of preference. That is the definition of subjectivity and thus we can define for ourselves what we want to have as rights and that can change over time. The only objective rights are the ones we cannot change out of preference.

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The founders beliefs were not based on religion. They were based on a history of enlightenment political philosophy that moved beyond justifying everything as the will of god.

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Not quite. The founders understood political philosophy in light of religion, or rather a religious belief in humanity's origins. They understood the concept of natural rights having their basis in a creator, which to them was a religious concept, even if they all didn't base their beliefs about government in a religious text or specific religious organization.

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If you continue to hold that this is my argument, you have failed to understand what a natural right is.

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I understand what a natural right is but I'm going beyond the definition to the source. If you want to talk about definitions, that's fine, but I'm making a point that goes beyond quotes from John Locke. I'm talking about the philosophies and reasoning behind those concepts and definitions.

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Again, I reject your premise that government is protecting a subjective standard.

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Unless you can show that the standard they are protecting originates from outside of the human mind, then you can reject it all you want, but you are not refuting it.

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No, government is not acting immorally. Government (as it should be) is inherently amoral. Government in this case has simply failed to function as designed.

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Are you suggesting that governments do not act morally or immorally at all? They are only functional or dysfunctional?

I would be inclined to agree with you if government was not comprised of humans who are moral creatures.

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Morality, again, has nothing to do with it. Government has a function. It either performs this function, or it does not. Government is nothing more than a complex if-then statement.

If person does x, then y happens.

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So you do seem to think that governments are nothing more than computers fulfilling some function without bias or moral influence. You seem to have removed the human element altogether and the human element is what makes governments (as we know them) function.

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Yes, but we are talking about the foundation of the US government.

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You and rusty should get on the same page. He previously said he wasn't talking about the US government but governments in general and now you are saying the opposite. It doesn't really matter but it makes these conversations more confusing.

I've already addressed the founding of the US government. The founders said where they believed our natural rights came from: they were endowed by our creator. The purpose of government was to protect our rights that were endowed by our creator to ensure that the social contract doesn't end up with the governed relinquishing all of their rights to the governor by force through tyranny. They felt that they had a moral obligation to ensure that the government didn't infringe upon the rights of the people that were granted by the Almighty.

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They do not.

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If rights have no moral quality to them then whether or not they are taken away by someone is not a moral issue, though everyone seems to make it a moral issue. It's categorically "wrong" (a moral judgment) to remove someone's rights. How can that be (in an objective sense) if rights have no moral quality to them?

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This is probably pointless, as I categorically reject just about every one of your premises

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You can reject whatever you want; you're a free person. My point still stands: you cannot remove morality from government because actions are always judged morally or immoral. So long as governments act, they will be judged accordingly.

I've heard it said, but most people aren't "socially liberal" as much as these snowflakes.

I think their mindset is do what you want. Less government overall. Which is opposite of liberal in a sense, but somehow not. I'm confusing myself...

Yeah

Its very possible. Honestly it makes sense if you take into account that people's personal life's are not always tied to their need for government.

I can have friends who are atheist and still be Christian. I can manage my money for a home without having to rely on welfare to support myself.

That being said everyone wants big government in some form, even conservatives.

I heard this a while back but have never really thought about it. I used to not be into politics much as for really paying attention to it. When Obama was elected I started listening more to what was being said.

I will be the first to admit that I’m nowhere close to knowing and debating like you guys. I read the comments mostly and try to take away information from each post. Some I agree with and some I don’t, but I agree with republicans and libertarians almost always.

Yes.
I consider it to be more of a mater of protecting private property rights and allowing people to make their own life choices. It’s not my responsibility to tell you how to live nor is it my responsibility to pay for your choices.

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How is being anti-death penalty, with the exception of open and closed zero doubt cases, costing the taxpayers money?

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You answered you own question.

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Multiple appeals processes

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Of course you can

The problem is a large portion of fiscal conservatives are also deeply religious and, by extension, social authoritarians. They want the government out of the financial sector but desperately want the government to legislate personal behavior.

Now don't get me wrong, strict libertarianism is untenable because it's essentially anarchism with a bow on top. But the basic idea of keeping the federal government out of our lives as much as possible in all areas is a good starting point.