Thread by @Gitabushi

Brainfertilizer's/Gitabushi's 2nd Law:
Everyone is Progressive/Socialist about their Biggest Financial Worry.

I started developing this one when I saw several college-graduate "conservatives" arguing that the GOP should back student loan forgiveness.

It deepened and strengthened when I saw "conservatives" talk somewhat happily about how they were going to spend their stimulus check.

It seemed even more correct when I recalled conservative boomers saying "Fuck you young people, pay my Social Security, *I* was *promised*."
...ignoring the fact that young people were *also* promised.

A conservative in an expensive blue city complaining that the GOP repealing SALT exemptions was raising his taxes also contributed to my conviction this observation was correct.

Sure, it isn't *everyone*.
Just like not everyone is Conservative about the topic they know best (which is Robert Conquest's 2nd Law, which mine is a corollary of, which is why it is also MY 2nd Law).
It's a proverb. It doesn't have to be 100% true. It just has to be true enough.

It happens often enough to be a decent law, tho.

People *do* respond to incentives. Money is one of the strongest incentives there is.

Sure, there's the argument for the stimulus and social security that "I paid into it, and the Leftists are going to take it, so why shouldn't I get some of my money back????"

Why not, indeed?

Full disclosure: I spent the stimulus money I received, and I'm not writing a check to the govt giving it back.

But principle *does* matter.
We should take the check and then get pissed that the GOP contributed to this lose-lose option we face. We should be even more pissed that Democrats pushed it and will push it again.
Sure, accept the money, but get ANGRY about it.

Get ANGRY enough that we can block it from ever happening again.
Make sure politicians know it was a mistake that should never be repeated.

Talking happily about how you're going to spend the money doesn't send that message.

"Rich" is pretty much universally understood to be "about twice as much money as I have right now".

So no one is ever rich.

Democrats don't get this.
Or maybe they do:
They promise to "tax the rich", knowing that the rich don't see themselves that way, and so it's two wolves and a sheep voting to eat mutton for dinner.

We need to cowboy up and recognize that ANY money from the govt is Progessivism, Socialism, and furthers the Democrat agenda.
We have to fight like hell against future payouts of any kind.
This law is INTENDED to shame conservatives who accept govt money without guilt.

We have to keep it mind.
We have to hold to our principles.
We have to work harder to live within our means so that we don't have problems that we can use a $1200 check to get out from under.

We have to clean our own house so we don't HAVE financial worries that can be exploited to buy our integrity fail.