That's a central flaw in right-wing ideology. Society has never been fair, and probably never will be. People don't have the same opportunities in life, if nothing else due to the birth lottery. Adopting laissez-faire or "bootstrap" policies doesn't address this problem. As such, it very much is an irrational stance because it is incongruent with reality.
In other words, the right focuses on duty over rights, in extreme cases making welfare punitive. The left goes the other direction, focusing on rights over duty: government handout programs with few stipulations for the receiver.
The difference between the right and left here is that people on the right tend to presume fairness, and the left prescribes fairness - and conversely increasingly presumes oppression.
> the fruits of someone else's work
This is another, ignoring that we're social creatures and only thrived as a species because of co-operation. The left exaggerates in the other direction, pretending like we don't have a selfish gene and nowadays confusing outcome with opportunity. Individualism versus collectivism.
> efficiency
Yet the following are right-wing policies: teaching abstinence, the war on drugs, budget cuts to education... You might be right in some areas, but your definition of efficiency would need to be narrowed down specifically to budgetary efficiency.
In the context of your example, yes, it it more efficient to help someone financially while they're unemployed. It's also more efficient to decriminalise drugs and prostitution, to inform kids about sex and drugs, and to invest in education (as a proxy for success in life).
> common decency
Which has no objective definition by default.
I don't think there is such a thing as a political stance that is free from emotional axioms. At best, the political ideology can be internally consistent, with one point logically flowing from the basic principles, but there is always an external dependency on emotion. That said, there definitely is value in right-wing principles, just as there is in left-wing principles. The key is not becoming too entrenched or foaming at the mouth.
As a conservative, its not that educated conservatives think society is "fair", in that their aren't people with more or less advantages. Rather, we accept that life is "fair enough", and true equality, in the sense that everyone has the exact same capital/life outcomes is worse for society than it is good.
To be more fair, is better, in the sense that rewarding meritocracy is the goal, but even here there is a fundamental unavoidable unfairness born out of the natural talents and genetic predispositions of individuals making them uniquely advantaged for a given sport, field, career, etc.
That's a central flaw in right-wing ideology. Society has never been fair, and probably never will be. People don't have the same opportunities in life, if nothing else due to the birth lottery. Adopting laissez-faire or "bootstrap" policies doesn't address this problem. As such, it very much is an irrational stance because it is incongruent with reality.
In other words, the right focuses on duty over rights, in extreme cases making welfare punitive. The left goes the other direction, focusing on rights over duty: government handout programs with few stipulations for the receiver.
The difference between the right and left here is that people on the right tend to presume fairness, and the left prescribes fairness - and conversely increasingly presumes oppression.
> the fruits of someone else's work
This is another, ignoring that we're social creatures and only thrived as a species because of co-operation. The left exaggerates in the other direction, pretending like we don't have a selfish gene and nowadays confusing outcome with opportunity. Individualism versus collectivism.
> efficiency
Yet the following are right-wing policies: teaching abstinence, the war on drugs, budget cuts to education... You might be right in some areas, but your definition of efficiency would need to be narrowed down specifically to budgetary efficiency.
In the context of your example, yes, it it more efficient to help someone financially while they're unemployed. It's also more efficient to decriminalise drugs and prostitution, to inform kids about sex and drugs, and to invest in education (as a proxy for success in life).
> common decency
Which has no objective definition by default.
I don't think there is such a thing as a political stance that is free from emotional axioms. At best, the political ideology can be internally consistent, with one point logically flowing from the basic principles, but there is always an external dependency on emotion. That said, there definitely is value in right-wing principles, just as there is in left-wing principles. The key is not becoming too entrenched or foaming at the mouth.