My comment in #125 may be harsh in the context of this discussion, but I was thinking of a lot of issues across the board. “Today’s leading conservatives” (and I don’t necessarily include present company in that) are happy to pay for multiple wars, but bitterly oppose safety net programs. In Arizona, they continually support and re-elect sherriff Arpaio running his jail like a concentration camp, even though it’s always vastly over budget not even including the $41M in successful lawsuits and settlements the county has been forced to pay out. When it comes to energy, all they’re interested in discussing is petrochemicals and nuclear, and seem to pretend that wind/wave/solar doesn’t even exist, regardless of comparative opportunity costs in either the short or long terms.

At some point, one has to look at all of that and conclude that they’re all for spending money on causing harm of any kind, and bitterly opposed to spending money on mitigating harm of any kind.