Another contradictory idea is that the government should not
be handing out subsidies or freebies to poor people because it is an
inefficient use of tax dollars that does not benefit the whole and creates dependence.
However enormous financial breaks systematically placed in the tax code for wealthy
individuals and large corporations is quite alright even if those subsidies
mean abandoning previously stated ideals about the free market.
Neoconservatives generally feel that the words of the nation’s
founding fathers should be infinitely praised and relied upon for creating a perfect
Christian nation even though ‘God’ wasn’t added to our money or included in our
Pledge of Allegiance until the 1950s, they granted us the freedom of
individuals to choose their own religion in the very first amendment of the
constitution, and they wrote in passages about how the government they were
creating with their words will not always be relevant. For example, the one
from the Declaration of Independence that goes “…whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness,” meaning that the
founding fathers knew that at least some of their words would have shelf life and
would need to be adapted as society progressed.
Now, the predominant thought among progressives (people who
naively want to make the country great for everyone) about these contradictory
Republican viewpoints described above is that each is either a way to extract
money from the poor into the pockets of the ruling class, or a way to garner
the vote of uninformed, easily-influenced people, which really just serves to assist
the first reason. While it is entirely possible that this is the case I think there
might be a little bit more to it.
