zlacker

>>YeGobl+(OP)
I’m always confused why conservatives tend to support the death penalty. The conservative ethos is to reduce the power of the state to prevent abuse, but giving the state the right to kill a citizen clearly goes against that. How can you mistrust the state in almost every aspect of society, yet trust it to only kill people that “deserve” it?

>>dimal+zl
That’s not the conservative ethos. Conservatives historically support the maintenance of what they see as natural or divinely ordained hierarchy, including via the power of the state.

Libertarians being called conservatives is a strange Cold War aberration emerging from their mutual opposition to authoritarian Marxism. Now that the USSR is gone and that type of Marxism is mostly very fringe, conservatives are reverting to their historical mean and kicking out libertarians. This is what national conservatism and to some extent MAGA is about.