Comment 99294

By StephenBarath (registered) | Posted March 28, 2014 at 10:15:33 in reply to Comment 99288

I’m not always positive which labels best apply to me or not, but I can quite easily put myself in the shoes of someone who identifies to one degree or another as a “fiscal conservative”. And I think those people could be forgiven for interpreting “A Challenge to Fiscal Conservatives” as a challenge to them. I know many people who are conservative in a variety of ways, and will oppose any public investment that cannot be proven to have good ROI, even if it personally benefits them; and likewise are open to any idea that can be shown to save or provide better value for tax dollars. I like to think I’m one of them most of the time, but can’t claim to always understand every issue as thoroughly as possible.

Justin, thank you for your response and the one above. I think your label of “fiscal hypocrites” is accurate, and the other one I like to use for some people is “selfish”. I would call you a fiscal conservative much sooner than I would people who rant about public funds being spent on People Who Aren’t Them. A lot of these people do not seem to be interested in taking any time to learn the true costs of how they live, and to educate themselves about how much they contribute and how much they consume. That doesn’t describe fiscal stewardship.

I think the fact is that conservatives of many different colours can and do support investment in densely-populated cities as places that use resources efficiently, and provide great opportunity for individual creativity and freedom. I don’t see it as a natural (and far less a desirable) outcome that “progressive”/ “liberal” / “big government” types should live in and support dense communities and “conservative” / “libertarian” / “right-wing” types should live in and support inefficient divided-use sparse communities. Part of what makes cities great is that they are places where different ideas and ways of thinking intersect.

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