[The Orthodox Heretic finally finished his dissertation. So finally, some more blogs!]
It is common to believe that the Republicans are ‘libertarians-light’ in the same way the Democrats are ‘socialists-light;’ that is, Republicans are generally in favor of small government, but not to the extent that libertarians are, and the Democrats generally favor large government, but don’t want to go to the extremes of socialism.
This is what I used to think. Now, I see things as significantly more complicated – so much so that it turns out my initial analysis was just plain wrong. I want to spend a few weeks 1) describing what appear to be the four major theories of government involvement – libertarianism, socialism, and whatever the Democrats and then Republicans believe, 2) arguing that a morally responsible person should desire a society that considers its most vulnerable members, and 3) arguing that this kind of society is the one that fosters non-state involvement but is willing to involve government when appropriate.
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