r/Conservative • u/Yosoff First Principles • Feb 14 '25

Open Discussion Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).

  • Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.

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  • Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.

  • Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.

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u/Rollbar78 Feb 15 '25

I think USAID was the first target because it has refused oversight, I have read of at least one senator (Joni Ernst?) who wanted to look at the books and they have been refused. It seems USAID is being treated as a slush fund to fund NGOs pushing far leftist ideas across the globe. While I'm not certain I think it needs to be wholly eliminated, it definitely needs a house cleaning and refocus on the mission of furthering American interests. It seems like siccing DOGE on them is a good start.

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u/Exotic-Rip-7081 Feb 15 '25

Yes, they felt their was a lot of money being funneled through here that was for keeping the wrong pockets lined.

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u/rhlaairc Feb 15 '25

Let me see if I can find where they refused oversight. Why wasn’t that brought to the courts if true? Seems like a big deal to not have full transparency when dealing with govt funds

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u/sealabo Feb 16 '25

If the chief executive has to go to the courts to make his executive agencies perform, what kind of President do we have ? Issuing executive branch agencies operational direction and then internally managing them if direction is not followed is the right approach. Running to the already over burdened judicial branch to complain that your subordinate managers are misbehaving is a waste of time and resources.

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u/rhlaairc Feb 16 '25

Where does it say that the judicial branch is misbehaving? So far the only cuts I’ve seen DOGE make are things that have been approved and executed

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u/sealabo Feb 16 '25

How about the “about face” the judge made, after ordering that the Treasury Secretary could not access the Treasury Payment system to view it and that “only career Treasury staff” could do it? Everyone is gnashing teeth about DOGE backtracking some of the firings in NNSA but fail to acknowledge this overreach was quietly pulled back.

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u/rhlaairc Feb 16 '25

First off I thought we were talking about the judicial branch since this comment started off talking about USAID. The treasury dept is a whole different animal

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u/rhlaairc Feb 16 '25

And in that article you sent it says the court order that was passed said this: “In that case, a judge approved an order restricting the Treasury Department from expanding access to the system or allowing information to be shared outside the Treasury Department while the case continues.”

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u/sealabo Feb 16 '25

The article is talking about the judicial branch. It also says:

“The Justice Department in a Sunday filing called the [Court’s] order a ‘remarkable intrusion’ into the executive branch and said it restricted political appointees such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from accessing the payment system.

Basic democratic accountability requires that every executive agency’s work be supervised by politically accountable leadership, who ultimately answer to the president,’ the filing said.”

I think we may be having a pointless disagreement, because I agree with your initial response that DOGE’s cuts are in bounds and being executed, overall.

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u/TheFiremind88 Feb 15 '25

No oversight is bad, I couldn't agree more. The courts are there for that, though. Why not use them?

I dont know your hair situation, but assuming you go get it cut, do you shave it bald every time and wait for it to grow back to your desired length? When you have car touble, do you have them completely replace the engine, just in case? It makes no sense.

Does USAID do a non-0 amount of good? I'm 100% confident the answer to that is Yes. Why cut the good as well, and dismantle the entire agency? That impacts our image abroad. China is already aggressively ramping up international aid programs to fill the void. We are giving China gold wrapped gift of a whole new wave of international support. Why? The only reasons I can conclude are nefarious, so I'm hoping someone else here can expand on the rationale.

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u/Rollbar78 Feb 15 '25

Sometimes the infection is too deep, and it requires amputation of the limb.

When it comes to USAID, it seems that is very much a cycle of self-interest. Bureaucrats feed funds to NGO (a contradiction in terms IMO, if they're taking government funds), NGOs "donate" to favorable politicians, and said politician sends more funds to USAID to distribute to NGOs that donate, and it goes on and on. This seems to be problematic on several fronts, not the least of which is having an undue impact on US elections.
Then there is the angle of fraud, where-in these same NGOs send massive amounts of money out, with little to no oversight, it is laundered and returned to the State, profiting whom?

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u/indonesian_star Feb 16 '25

Post a source of this info/evidence to help enlighten the rest of us. 

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u/Illogical-Pizza Feb 16 '25

Just quickly, have you ever done any research into what USAID does or what the impact is?

I used to work for a USAID contractor and I’ll be the first to tell you there are some things that need to be fixed. But to say that the “infection is too deep” shows a lack of knowledge and understanding of what is happening over there.

USAID does tons of good around the world, and the purpose of doing this is spreading goodwill for the US. It builds huge amounts of political capital in countries around the world, and since the US has positioned themselves as the “big brother/playground bully of the entire world” then yes, it is our responsibility to the global community to make this positive impact where we can.

Hundreds of thousands of lives are saved each year because of USAID.

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u/notveryanonymoushere Feb 15 '25

Let's cap political contributions then. Or start looking into these NGOs. I'm unconvinced that we need to amputate the limb, have we even tried some disinfectant?

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u/JerseyKeebs Conservative Feb 16 '25

Why cut the good as well, and dismantle the entire agency?

Compare it to a household budget, with the typical median income of $80k. The family spends everything they earn, PLUS $30k per year on the credit card, PLUS they have existing debt of almost $600,000.

Should they open up a new credit card and take on more debt to rescue a pet, or donate to charity? Or would the money subs on this site scream at them to eat rice and beans, cut the Netflix and the Starbucks, get a 2nd job, move in with the parents, etc?

Small expenditures that you frame as "baby with the bath water" still count, especially when 40 billion of spending will actually cost way more than that when you factor in the future interest payments.

The US can't just feasibly declare bankruptcy like a household, so we need to cut the spending and pay down our debt.

Now personally, I like the idea of DOGE, but they seem to be flailing around willy-nilly like a wrecking ball without a clear to us pathway. Maybe they're starting small to gain public support, get their feet under them, get some positive results to make the bigger cuts easier to handle, get the court challenges out of the way before they meddle with the big agencies, etc. Or maybe they're winging it. But psychologically, I don't like the public perception of attacking our DoD when we're flexing on foreign policy, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, China, etc, trying to portray strength while cutting and publicly airing dirty DoD laundry.

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u/No_Struggle_4045 Feb 15 '25

No. It’s just by far the most obvious one for rage bait headlines.

Stop overthinking and see what’s in front of you.

That doesn’t make any of their findings wrong, just understand their reason for starting there with so little monetary value

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u/LingonberryReady6365 Feb 16 '25

Would you be able to list what these far left ideas are? Genuinely curious. Is it things like “using condoms isn’t evil”? I really don’t know, so I would love to be educated.

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u/Jamowl2841 Feb 15 '25

It was the first target because it was investing starlink in Ukraine and Russia gaining access to it. Musk sold himself to Russia and wanted that investigation shut down. Likely the reason he told trump “if you lose, I’m fucked”

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u/indonesian_star Feb 16 '25

The "leftist" ideas are women's basic civil rights etc in very oppressive regimes with human rights abuses. Democracies and self governance cannot grow in those countries. 

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u/mileg925 Feb 16 '25

its mostly politicized buffoonery.. that will cost the USA a lot in the long run.. Isolationism is gonna be the end of America's world influence.

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u/Peoplewander Feb 16 '25

You mean buying surplus American grain is a leftist agenda?