Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal is an Oxymoron

Fiscally conservative, socially liberal is an oxymoron. Here’s why. To be fiscally conservative is to oppose economic reform while also being opposed to government intervention in general. For socially liberal policies to work, that requires a lot of economic reform and government intervention to be put in place. Being fiscally conservative is antithetical to those practices.

For example, if I were to say that I support socially liberal policies like gender-affirming healthcare for transgender people, but then go fiscally conservative and oppose the idea of universal healthcare for all people who would otherwise be denied access to inexpensive medical care on the grounds that privatized healthcare is the best option a common person can have, then I’m not actually being socially liberal. I’m just simply being socially ignorant of the consequences of what I support. Likewise, if I were to acknowledge that climate change is a real problem and say that social liberals are not fear-mongering about the pollution of the Earth’s atmosphere by Big Oil when they talk about about unsustainable CO₂ emissions, but then go fiscally conservative and oppose policies to regulate pollution causing businesses on the grounds that deregulation is the best way to run a healthy economy, then I’m not being socially liberal. I’m just being dogmatic towards my own views about how free markets should be allowed to function and about capitalism in general. In conclusion, socially liberal policies can only work when there are also fiscally liberal policies put in place.