I went through several version of this response full of profanity, but I'll trim it down to be appropriate. Absolutely not, and it's really harmful to think this. Hillary Clinton was a full supporter of the active military intervention, overseas CIA action, and domestic spying programs. Delusional tribal politics is a big part of the problem.
I voted libertarian in part because of the concerns you're mentioning about Clinton, but I think it's disingenuous to somehow imply that Trump isn't worse, or that this didn't start with the Bush administration's response to 9/11, or that unbridled GOP power concentrated in the executive and legislature isn't a horrifying thing.
I (1) don't think Clinton would have been worse policy-wise, (2) think Clinton would have been more psychologically stable and competent, and (3) the GOP in Congress would have actually criticized and raised concerns about what she was doing to score party points.
The current situation is terrifying to me. I'm tired of being labeled a liberal or conservative, because I don't fit in to either camp, and get accused of being one by the other, and am tired of these arguments about who's at fault. It just needs to stop.
I'm not sure Hillary Clinton is a good stand in for "liberals" in this argument, for the same reason (if not to the same extent) that I think Trump wouldn't be a good stand in for "conservatives".
To clarify, your point may be entirely correct, I just don't think using Hillary Clinton advances your argument usefully.
The last President to shrink the NSA, CIA, etc was Jimmy Carter. Every other one increased it. Reagan got them into arms deals with Iran. Bush Sr, former CIA director, was a staunch ally. Bill Clinton expanded ECHELON, tried to regulate cryptography (remember the Clipper chip?), Bush Jr passed the Patriot Act, Obama expanded the NSA and in pursuit of leakers filed more acts under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined.
At what point can we conclude that the problem is bipartisan? Of all prominent nominees this time around, only Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz said anything against the continued expansion of the surveillance state. Of all prominent nominees for 2012, only Ron Paul spoke out against the surveillance state. For 2008, only Kucinich and Ron Paul spoke out against the surveillance state.
If Hillary Clinton were an isolated example, then your point would be good. But she is not. She squarely represents the political mainstream.
The last President to shrink the NSA, CIA, etc was Jimmy Carter.
It was also under the Carter administration - and under Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate - that the FISA Act was passed, which is what eventually led to all this secret surveillance.
No, the FISA Act restricted warrantless domestic surveillance by criminalizing it in response to abuses, largely by the Nixon Administration, before there was any statute law addressing the issue. What legally opened the door for subsequent warrantless surveillance was the passage of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 which loosened the FISA restrictions to make legal what the Bush Administration had already been doing.
> In 2008, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
And neither of the major US parties (and especially not the Democratic Party, whose major factions include both a center-right faction and a moderate left faction) are unified cohesive parties with strong discipline as you might find in a multiparty parliamentary system; the FISA Amendments Act passed with every Republican that voted in either house (except one in the House) and a minority of Democrats on each house supporting it, and the majority of Democrats in each house opposing it.
> the FISA Act was passed, which is what eventually led to all this secret surveillance.
That's like saying speed limits led to to the problem of people driving fast. FISA was a set of limits put in place because the surveillance was already happening. Oversight where there was none prior.
>The last President to shrink the NSA, CIA, etc was Jimmy Carter. Every other one increased it.
And why was Carter able to shrink them? Because Nixon was caught using them to gain political power. The problem is beyond partisan politics. You either support the intelligence agencies, or you don't get elected. Simple as that.
Carter was able to shrink the intelligence budget because the 1975-1976 Church Committee hearings publicized bad practices by US intelligence agencies.
The Church Committee was a response to things that came out during the Watergate scandal, and I find it hard to believe that the public cared more about that than the things that than the Watergate scandal itself.
I'm merely pointing out that in a discussion about liberals and conservatives, picking one person to represent the liberal point of view and then arguing against that person instead of addressing goals of the party in general is not a constructive way to proceed.
She just won the popular vote by a large margin with a D next to her name. She has a ridiculous amount of evidence to show that she is the core of the Democratic party and the only person I had as an alternative to Trump to vote for. She isn't a stand in for every wing of liberalism in the US, but she is definitely the center of the liberal wing with any real influence.
> She just won the popular vote by a large margin with a D next to her name.
So? It's not like we have an unlimited pool of candidates of every possible variation such that we can choose the one that best averages all the views of a party. Consider that we were fairly closet to having Bernie Sanders and not Hillary Clinton be the person in that position. That should illustrate how ridiculous it is to use a single person to stand in for the entire group.
> She ... the only person I had as an alternative to Trump to vote for.
That's irrelevant. There was a discussion about liberalism and conservatism, and someone replied with criticisms about Hillary Clinton instead of liberals in general or liberalism (note this wasn't about Democrats and Republicans, so that D is a red herring). Even if Hillary were more representative of the norm in all mainstream liberal ideas, using her specifically would not be appropriate. As it is, she diverges fairly heavily from traditional liberal ideas in some aspects, which makes it even more of a bad idea.
Like conservatives, liberals are not a unified bloc. Look at the Bernie and progressives, who roundly criticized Hillary for her support of expanding executive power and the war on terror.
Big government moderates on both sides are to blame. Liberal / conservative is the wrong axis
I prefer the two dimensional grid with 'authoritarian' on one axis and 'social conservatism' on the other. It does a much better job of defining the factions within the two dominant parties in the US.
> I went through several version of this response full of profanity, but I'll trim it down to be appropriate. Absolutely not, and it's really harmful to think this. Hillary Clinton was a full supporter of the active military intervention, overseas CIA action, and domestic spying programs. Delusional tribal politics is a big part of the problem.
"When it comes to civil liberties, smaller government is always a good thing but literally no party supports that. :/"
The fact you missed the importance of that statement and got angry is, ultimately, on you.
"Uh, that's not the silver lining from my POV. The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power. "
The context of the first half of my comment that triggered you was responding to was specifically blaming liberals. (i.e. the tribal politics you despise)
So I'm uncertain what part of my comment caused you to believe I believed Hillary Clinton (or even a majority of democrats) genuinely believe in less government is better for many forms of civil liberty. However, any literal reading of the text should make it clear you misunderstood my comment.
So for the sake of clarity, I'll rephrase what I said in the comment you responded to in the hopes you'll better understand:
Both Democrats & Republicans believe "big government" is the solution to civil liberties problems. They just do not agree with "which liberties" deserve that solution.
Examples:
There is no legitimate government interest that justifies government intervention that restricts the 1st amendment (or passing judgment on people based on the contents of their religious beliefs). Both parties engage in it from different directions.
Same is true of privacy (as I assume you were attempting to mention with domestic spying programs).
Literally no "tribe" that holds elected office shares my belief system or values to a degree substantial enough I genuinely feel represented by the US Government.
I have no interest in misrepresenting your opinion so I will happily narrow my comment.
> Conservatives are the ones that created this nightmare in the days after 9/11. "Liberals" simply did not remove it.
What reason is there to believe that the core of the Democratic party was not fully supportive of activist intervention overseas and domestic spying? Why portray this creation as a result of Conservatives?
> Delusional tribal politics is a big part of the problem.
As opposed to the delusional GOP supporters who are always suckered into the small-government-yay/taxes-are-evil meme and then sit idly by while spending is increased after cutting revenue.
