Thread: lilberal v. conservative

I know a thread has been closed which addressed this issue. It's not my intention to stir things up, but perhaps to offer a resolution.

When I was in high school, I wondered what the difference was exactly. A magazine (The Nation?) printed a couple of articles that have guided me ever since.

It's been forty or so years, but this is what I recall.

A conservative respects the past. A conservative understands that tradition can, at times, have wisdom that simple logic has not. There is a reason our fathers and their fathers believed in and did things a certain way. We may not understand those reasons, but we should not abandon them cavalierly. When, however, it becomes clear that the old ways no longer are useful or viable, a conservative is willing to move on. He or she is not bound to the past. He respects it, but understands that he must live in the present.

A liberal believes that all human progress arises from new ideas and institutions. While old beliefs and ways of doing things have value (they would not exist otherwise), a liberal is willing to consider alternatives. When it becomes clear that present realities no longer conform to past verities, a liberal is willing to consider novel ideas and policies. He respects the past, but understands that he must live in the present.

If only we, whether "conservative" or "liberal," accepted and respected these very reasonable orientations, I believe we could create productive dialogues between us, rather than than the animosity that presently divides us.

We are not so different. We want our children to be well. We need to unite, and oppose those who have neither respect for the past, nor confidence in the future, but are focused only on personal gain and immediate self-gratification.

Really, they are few. And we are many.

Want a definition???

Here's one

A Liberal constitutes all the wackadoo's on the left...
A Conservative constitutes all the wackadoo's on the right...
They make up about 20 % of the population on a good day combined...

We on the other hand make up the other 80% of the population that gets pulled one direction or the other usually by no more than 3 specific issues...

Ain't life grand ????

oh, come on glen, we all know you're a single issue man
man up stick to your principle!

Unfortunately, that "personal gain" and "immediate self-gratification" you speak of is exactly what a very large percentage of politicians are focused on. Don't get me wrong, they are doing what they believe is right, but they aren't going to prioritize that over themselves. It's human nature, so they are not completely to blame, but I'm sure most of the politicians don't question themselves as much as they should.

MMM mmm!! I think I'll be roasting some marshmallows over this thread!

I must admit I agree with Glen here.

There are a good number of conservative ideals that I agree with, and there are also a good deal of liberal ones.

I think as soon as you start branding yourself in one camp or another you lose that critical element of common sense and rationality to see the positives and negatives of a point of view. Then the debate descends into "XYZ=bad because it happens to be against my conservative/liberal ethos".

What we (and the politicians!) should be doing is looking at the pro's and con's of each side of the argument and making a decision based on that. What usually happens is both sides become more concerned about winning the argument and the actual problem becomes lost against a backdrop of point scoring.

Originally Posted by bknesal

Unfortunately, that "personal gain" and "immediate self-gratification" you speak of is exactly what a very large percentage of politicians are focused on. Don't get me wrong, they are doing what they believe is right, but they aren't going to prioritize that over themselves. It's human nature, so they are not completely to blame, but I'm sure most of the politicians don't question themselves as much as they should.

Here in South Carolina (enough said) I know a number of state officials personally. They are decent human beings. But they have power, prestige, and position. When faced with a choice between the commonweal and personal gain, whether in popularity, wealth, or the projection of power, they make the selfish choice. "Yes, this is wrong, but I must endorse it, and thereby conserve power so that at some distant point in time, I may do good. No one else can be trusted to do so."

This is the common narcissism of public servants, be they community activists or tea-partiers. Because they are narcissists, they strive to be elected. Because they are narcissists, they believe they should be entrusted with power, and by their personal magnetism they convince others to grant them such power.

We would do better, I think, to have a national and state lottery. Every citizen enters, and representatives at the state and national level are elected by chance. I'd rather have an auto mechanic or sandwich maker decide how to run this country than the overpriviledged, wealthy, indifferent politicos that we currently entrust with these jobs.

The offiice of the President would be different. Need a smart, tough SOB there. Anyone with an IQ over 145 could apply; cage match eliminations would determine the winner. Think any of our recent Presidents would have survived?

Maybe i am more liberal but if it is about the politics then i do not want to hang myself into single one ideology but rather use my own brains instead. Both ideologies have some good, some bad and lot of crap.
Besides here in Europe our political field is not divided into conservatories/liberals but there are more than 10 parties with their own ideologies. They all have to get along and co-operate with each other.
Also terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' have bit different meaning here in Europe than in USA.

I'd like to say up front that I already hate myself for diving into this thread.

There are two philosophical concepts that concern me the most - and they can be embraced by conservatives and liberals alike.

They are the concepts of social justice and social engineering. In my opinion they are the cornerstones of what has always been bad in human nature.

Social justice requires that one group of people be made to pay for the sins committed by another group of people against yet another group of people. The people that must pay may or may not even be related to the group that committed the sin - but pay they will -either financially or with freedoms and liberties. This is one area that both groups derive much of their power. The offended groups can easily be swayed to give anyone power who will offer to be the broker between the people who pay and the people who receive.

Social engineering allows a group to take it's ideology and force conformity to it. Again, both conservatives and liberals do this - although one group does it more radically and with little regard to personal liberty. So there is a struggle at the ideology level to determine how a society will function and behave, and often with unintended consequences. Again - much power is on the table for anyone that can convince a group that they will benefit more by relinquishing freedom for security and to trust them to benevolently broker it.

In social engineering, there is also danger in the societal sub-division. Witness the last election. Liberals and conservatives had to be very concerned to be able to get the "x" vote. X being, black, Hispanic, white women, Muslim, white Christian male, far left, far right etc., etc.. Each group wants something different socially. They have subdivided ideologically and yet they want to vote for only one group or another that will drive their specific ideology and make everyone else conform. This is why Governments have no business socially engineering it's peoples to a specific ideology. What they do need to do is make sure that it's peoples are free to live their own ideology with the understanding that it will not interfere with another's ability to do the same.

Ok that's it - bring it on

Originally Posted by Alembic

Social justice requires that one group of people be made to pay for the sins committed by another group of people against yet another group of people. The people that must pay may or may not even be related to the group that committed the sin - but pay they will -either financially or with freedoms and liberties. This is one area that both groups derive much of their power. The offended groups can easily be swayed to give anyone power who will offer to be the broker between the people who pay and the people who receive.

I would really like you to give an example of this. When I think social justice, I think equality. I think of the biggest tax breaks going to the poor and middle class, the idea of upward class movement (which is at an all-time low right now), etc...

And I don't think those are negatives, I think that's what seperates us from 1400's Europe.

Originally Posted by Alembic

Social engineering allows a group to take it's ideology and force conformity to it. Again, both conservatives and liberals do this - although one group does it more radically and with little regard to personal liberty. So there is a struggle at the ideology level to determine how a society will function and behave, and often with unintended consequences. Again - much power is on the table for anyone that can convince a group that they will benefit more by relinquishing freedom for security and to trust them to benevolently broker it.

It seems clear to me that you watch too much Beck. Social engineering? You mean like church? Absolutely everyone tries to force it's ideology on everyone else, even if that ideology is pure freedom. Pure freedom is probably the worst idea ever, because it would result in anarchy, which would then result in warlords. Right now, we're allowing the financial markets to fall into anarchy, to "Preserve the Free Market", and the problem is we're creating financial warlords who control the market. The richest 1% control 34% of the wealth, and that percentage is only increasing. Call me a Secret-Lefty-Socialist-Nazi-Communist-Kenyan, but I think that's wrong.