# Areas of agreement between conservatives and liberals **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 5, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435 "2014-12-05T19:09:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/41 "2014-12-06T17:38:55Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Err, you do realize that the common line among congressional republicans is that global warming is a hoax, right? Cite? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/42 "2014-12-06T18:36:07Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Cite? To be precise most claim that they do not know anything and deny that humans are responsible in large part. > **[Meet the Republicans in Congress who don't believe climate change is real](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/17/climate-change-denial-scepticism-republicans-congress)** > > On Tuesday, the Senate will vote to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. With Republicans now in control of both chambers in Congress, here’s a round-up of some of the most prominent climate sceptics (and deniers) in the GOP ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/43 "2014-12-06T18:42:51Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Me either 😛 > > Oh, I thought you meant like about nuclear energy when you started to say lying about science. Yeah, I know. But thank you for illustrating my point for me so well…appreciate that. I have linked many times to this for 2 reasons, to show that while there are Democrats that dis nuclear energy when clean energy bills appear they usually do include support for nuclear power, and to show that Republicans are so off base they are nowadays willing to toss the nuclear baby with the bath water when time comes to support a bill that increases research and deployment of green energy. [http://www.nei.org/Master-Document-Folder/Multimedia/Advertising/New-NEI-Ad-Democratic-Leadership-Supports-Nuclear](http://www.nei.org/Master-Document-Folder/Multimedia/Advertising/New-NEI-Ad-Democratic-Leadership-Supports-Nuclear) > **[Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012 Introduced - OurEnergyPolicy](https://www.ourenergypolicy.org/clean-energy-standard-act-of-2012-introduced/)** > > Senate Energy & Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) has introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012, which would require electric utilities to derive increasing percentages of their supply mix from low-CO2 sources. The bill would... > [@](#): > > Sources eligible under the legislation include: renewables, such as wind and solar, “qualified” renewable biomass and waste-to-energy, hydropower, natural gas, and nuclear. Facilities with CO2 capture and storage, and some combined heat and power facilities, are also eligible. The bill establishes a market-based credit trading scheme, within which utilities could purchase compliance credits from other utilities. > > … > > **The Act was introduced with no Republican support.** Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the top Republican on the Energy & Natural Resources Committee has said that she will “only get behind such a standard if it replaces federal climate regulations.” [The Hill] Related and getting back to the issue: Can not find that link now, but I do know that regarding solar power the majority of conservatives and liberals are really piss against efforts from ALEC and the old energy companies to put taxes and extra charges when they want to add solar power to their homes. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/44 "2014-12-06T18:49:34Z")
Hey look, another red tribe/blue tribe thread. The most vicious hatred comes when the other guy is so similar to you. I guess we’re not talking politicians, because if you put three libs in a room you get five opinions. Plenty of pro-gun and religious libs would go hunting or BBQing with cons, for example. Plenty of rich cons interested in high art like the stereotypical urban effete libs. Are we just talking extremes? Where the spectrum bends to form a circle is woo, especially alternative medicine and conspiracy theories. The only one from the OP I’d agree with is the media being against them. The rest have too much disagreement from too many sectors. A lot on both sides agree with more spying, which is why it’s standard policy (I guess you could include that as an agreement too). Not everyone agrees everyone should go to college, and the right tends to dismiss it as just supply and demand anyway. Plenty think America will be a hegemon going into the future. A lot of people couldn’t even tell you what STEM is, and the main place I see that concern is from the technocratic left. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/45 "2014-12-06T18:59:04Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Conservatives feel that the working poor only deserve a CHANCE at earning a living wage. I hope you understand you are drastically misrepresenting the conservative side of this issue. Conservatives would tell you that everyone should make the amount of the money their skills are worth, and that a free market is the best way to go about this. In addition, a free market has faster growth than a regulated market, and is ultimately better in the long run even for people who would earn more with a minimum wage. In addition, almost everyone except for those with mental or physical disabilities have the ability to earn enough to survive. The idea of a living wage is also something that a conservative would take offense to, since plenty of people earn below one and aren’t dropping off like flies. > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The job’s wages should be determined by the employer’s willingness to pay wages in the free market, and if the employee can’t survive on that much, they should train to get more lucrative skills and find another job. If they stick with the low wage job they must, at some level, find it meets their needs. Society does not owe anyone a living wage. We are all individually responsible for attaining the level of well-being we find acceptable, and if we can’t or won’t, it’s our individual fault and we need to suffer the consequences. The rest of this is at least an idea shared by some conservatives, but it would be misleading to say that everyone agrees with this. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/46 "2014-12-06T21:17:16Z")
Both liberals and conservatives agree the federal government is spending too much money. The outliers being the ideological panty-sniffers a la Krugman. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/47 "2014-12-06T23:20:34Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Both liberals and conservatives agree the federal government is spending too much money. > > The outliers being the ideological panty-sniffers a la Krugman. It is stuff like this that leads me to believe that the question in the OP misunderstands the issue. I don’t think that many conservative/liberal divisions reflect agreement or disagreement on policy matters (although there certainly are those). For many people, like this person, I do believe it is more of a Manichean world view. How else could you explain a statement that is not only fundamentally wrong, but so ridiculously odious? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/48 "2014-12-06T23:45:17Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Both liberals and conservatives agree the federal government is spending too much money. Due to the cost of providing retirement benefits to the baby boomers, US federal spending per capita, in real dollars, has to go up for the next couple decades. I don’t think that’s a liberal-conservative issue, but an issue of realism vs. wishful thinking. What if we put that aside? Is the federal government spending too much money on everything else? Now that’s a liberal-conservative issue. Exceptions could maybe be found in highly conservative states where liberal politicians are afraid to say what they think. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/49 "2014-12-06T23:52:45Z")
My dislike for Krugman’s spend-free nonsense makes me a manichaean? Okie doke. Maybe there’s a level of judgmental projection going on here. For what it’s worth, economists of either political bent agree large deficits are unsustainable… ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/50 "2014-12-07T00:27:17Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > My dislike for Krugman’s spend-free nonsense makes me a manichaean? > > Okie doke. Maybe there’s a level of judgmental projection going on here. > > For what it’s worth, economists of either political bent agree large deficits are unsustainable… With the caveat that they are ok as long as ‘my’ party is in office. And that’s the crux. [QUOTE=GIGObuster] I have linked many times to this for 2 reasons, to show that while there are Democrats that dis nuclear energy when clean energy bills appear they usually do include support for nuclear power, and to show that Republicans are so off base they are nowadays willing to toss the nuclear baby with the bath water when time comes to support a bill that increases research and deployment of green energy. [/QUOTE] See, this is exactly what I mean. The discussion is about ‘conservatives’ verse ‘liberals’, but you jump immediately to Democrats verse Republicans. Then you go further to equate what SOME Democrats use as justification for why they ‘dis’ nuclear power while painting all Republicans are anti-science knuckle draggers and in lock step about global warming denial. And you do this because: [QUOTE=XT] 8. My side has all the answers, the other side is totally and completely wrong about everything. 8A. Oh, and did I mention they are evil as well as being wrong? [/QUOTE] Along with: [QUOTE=XT] 7. That the other side is bad/evil/out of touch. [/QUOTE] You are a smart guy, Gigo. You know that not everyone on your side is always right and, I assume, you know that not everyone on whatever the other side is is always wrong…nor is your own side in lock step about every issue, nor the other side either. Yet you did exactly what wolfpup did as soon as I brought this up…you automatically defended your side while attacking the other. It really is the only thing conservatives and liberals agree on. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/51 "2014-12-07T01:33:50Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Oh, I thought you meant like about nuclear energy when you started to say lying about science. Yeah, I know. But thank you for illustrating my point for me so well…appreciate that. > > Rather than point out all of the flawed conclusion Democrats come to by starting with a premise and then working back I’ll just point out that not all conservatives do this (or even all Republicans), and, again, you are basically making my point for me. Of course, one could point out that not all conservatives or liberals think the other side is wrong or evil all the time either, and mostly I was saying that tongue in cheek, but it’s funny that you reacted exactly as my own strawman said. And so quickly, too. 😛 No, no, thank **you** for allowing me to now make my point even more clearly! 😉 And of course I’m aware that your comments were obviously tongue-in-cheek – hence my opening sentence “I can’t resist…” because what I found so amusing is that one can find examples like climate change where those intentionally hyperbolic statements, intended to mock extremist characterizations, are in fact quite literally true when applied to a majority of conservatives, something that can be easily illustrated with a quick look at some facts. First of all that’s an interesting red herring about nuclear power. Even if it were true that liberals tend to oppose it – it’s certainly not, as we’ll see in a moment – are you under the impression that taking a position for or against nuclear power is in any way equivalent to the flat-out denial and misrepresentation of factual science on which there is overwhelming evidence and an overwhelming consensus? Really? I have to say that as a liberal on most issues (and something of a fiscal conservative) I myself have always been a strong supporter of nuclear power. The province I live in, Ontario, would be considered very liberal by US standards, and it produces more than 50% of its electricity from nuclear power with the blessing and approval of the voters. And to take this to US politics, President Obama stated in the 2010 State of the Union that clean energy “means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country”. The Barbara Boxer and John Kerry sponsored climate bill (Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act 2009) provided for “expansion of nuclear technology by establishing research and development programs for waste management and to safeguard aging existing power plants, and a program to train workers in the nuclear industry”. If that sounds like blind opposition to nuclear power, coulda fooled me! And furthermore, there’s a huge difference between taking a value-based position and outright denying and misrepresenting scientific facts like many Republicans do with climate. Yes, let’s get back to that climate thing again. [In a recent survey](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/17/climate-change-denial-scepticism-republicans-congress), Politifact found that of the 278 Republicans currently in Congress (prior to last month’s election), only 8 can be found who are somewhat supportive of the basic _incontrovertible facts_ about climate change, and of those, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen is so tepid about it that it’s really more like 7, out of 278. That’s less than 3%. The rest? Anti-science denialists and unwavering supporters of coal and oil interests; their poster boy is James Inhofe, who famously called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” and claimed that “only God” can affect the climate. And how many of the last batch of Republican presidential candidates acknowledged the problem of climate change? Answer: 1 – Jon Huntsman – who never had a chance, so that through most of the primaries the real answer was: zero. How many of them lied about it? All of them. And to those who would tell me that this is supposed to be a discussion about “liberals and conservatives”, not “Democrats and Republicans”, I would point out that much the same pattern can be observed elsewhere – I see politically aligned climate change denial in Canada and Australia, for example. This must be so damned embarrassing for any intelligent conservative, especially in the US where the partisan divide is so extreme, that I wanted to make at least one conciliatory remark. While the percentage of liberals (or Democrats in the US) who accept the consensus of climate science is significantly higher than the percentage of conservatives who do, most polls show that among self-identified Republican supporters a significant minority do accept the science. At least that’s something. It seems that the Congressional leadership is out of step with their base, and is still too terrified to publicly admit reality, but things are slowly changing. Sadly, the latest newly-elected batch is mostly the sort that will set things back again. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/52 "2014-12-07T01:33:53Z")
> [@XT](#): > > You are a smart guy, Gigo. You know that not everyone on your side is always right and, I assume, you know that not everyone on whatever the other side is is always wrong…nor is your own side in lock step about every issue, nor the other side either. Yet you did exactly what wolfpup did as soon as I brought this up…you automatically defended your side while attacking the other. The difference is that I pointed to their sorry claims in a subject where the evidence is that the leaders of the conservative party are not right. And that is a common position among almost all the Republican leaders, as I pointed before in a past political thread you are actually confirming my point that many Republicans and conservatives that are more moderate and do accept the science **are really unaware and ignorant of the levels of wrong the leaders they selected really are up to**. > [@XT](#): > > It really is the only thing conservatives and liberals agree on. 😛 And avoiding the evidence in the disguise of “proving my point” is very underwhelming. In any case I made reference to one important item where conservatives and liberals do agree on who is evil. > **[The Tea Party Wants to Help You Go Solar](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/oklahoma-sb-1456-why-the-tea-party-is-fighting-for-solar-power.html)** > > Last week, with little fanfare and even less debate, Oklahoma lawmakers quietly voted to reverse a nearly four-decade-old law that had barred utility... > [@](#): > > The Tea Party Wants to Help You Go Solar > Utility companies are waging war on the solar industry. But the clean energy movement has found an unexpected ally in their fight. > [@](#): > > Then, on Tuesday, to the surprise of pretty much everyone involved, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Mary Fallin, issued an executive order largely undercutting the provision, dealing an unexpected defeat to major utilities and their deep-pocketed backers—a group that includes the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful national membership group for conservative state lawmakers. > > Perhaps the only thing more surprising was who had helped defeat Oklahoma’s power companies. Tucked among the usual green suspects were the type of advocates that typically don’t associate with the clean energy movement but have nonetheless proved crucial to securing a political victories in a string of dark-red states: Tea Party conservatives. > > “Monopoly utilities want to extinguish the independent rooftop solar market in America to protect their socialist control of how we get our electricity,” blasts the website of Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed, known as TUSK for short. That’s not the type of rhetoric you expect conservatives to fire at the power industry. Then again, this isn’t your typical renewable energy advocacy group. This is just to clarify that while you are making fun of where I was coming from, IMHO the current republican leadership is overwhelmingly wrong on this, but the hope is in the people and businesses (both liberal and conservative) that are not swallowing the miasma of mistaken efforts and anti environmentalism from their congress leaders. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/53 "2014-12-07T01:35:24Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Both liberals and conservatives agree the federal government is spending too much money. > > The outliers being the ideological panty-sniffers a la Krugman. Yes I’m sure a Nobel-Prize winning economist at Princeton is just a “panty-sniffer” while “liberals” to you are spineless Broderite Moderate Heroes who think everything would be kumbaya as long as the two parties would just _compromise_-compromise meaning of course implementing savage austerity cuts and gutting Social Security in exchange for an Assault Weapons Ban and shutting up about gay marriage. > [@Stringbean](#): > > My dislike for Krugman’s spend-free nonsense makes me a manichaean? > > Okie doke. Maybe there’s a level of judgmental projection going on here. > > For what it’s worth, economists of either political bent agree large deficits are unsustainable… As does Dr. Krugman and every other Keynesian_in times of prosperity_-remember that he called out the Bush administration when it was running up deficits by cutting taxes during the Iraq Wars . The problem is that right now we are not in a normal circumstance and there is a severe deficit in demand which calls for government spending to make up for it. As to the OP, there is a reasonable amount of agreement between the two parties on National Security issues-both parties by and large supported the Cold War, an intervention in Afghanistan after 9/11, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/54 "2014-12-07T01:38:12Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > My dislike for Krugman’s spend-free nonsense makes me a manichaean? > > Okie doke. Maybe there’s a level of judgmental projection going on here. > > For what it’s worth, economists of either political bent agree large deficits are unsustainable… Your characterization of his views is wrong and fundamentally ignorant. Your choice to foist your fundamental ignorance upon others while framing it with"ideological panty-sniffers" is Manichean. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/55 "2014-12-07T01:46:23Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Yes I’m sure a Nobel-Prize winning economist at Princeton is just a “panty-sniffer” while “liberals” to you are spineless Broderite Moderate Heroes who think everything would be kumbaya as long as the two parties would just _compromise_-compromise meaning of course implementing savage austerity cuts and gutting Social Security in exchange for an Assault Weapons Ban and shutting up about gay marriage. > > As does Dr. Krugman and every other Keynesian_in times of prosperity_-remember that he called out the Bush administration when it was running up deficits by cutting taxes during the Iraq Wars . The problem is that right now we are not in a normal circumstance and there is a severe deficit in demand which calls for government spending to make up for it. > > As to the OP, there is a reasonable amount of agreement between the two parties on National Security issues-both parties by and large supported the Cold War, an intervention in Afghanistan after 9/11, and so forth. Well said. Krugman has been very clear that the point is not that debt is not a problem, but that it is less of a problem than unemployment and recovery of the economy. He’s been correct at pretty much every turn, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/56 "2014-12-07T08:14:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Really? _ **Any** _ type of policy? So you know liberals whose basic motto is “the health of a society is measured by how many abortions it has – the more the better”? Seriously? On what planet is this? How about this, then. Can you think of a hypothetical policy which is meant to reduce the abortion rate, which would not be opposed by at least a significant minority of liberals? > [@](#): > > The only thing that actual liberals object to are underhanded attempts to circumvent Roe v. Wade via slimeball legislation that forces women, for example, to watch ultrasounds of their unwanted baby as a kind of psychological warfare to make them change their minds, or any of the other meddling with the most basic personal rights that nutcase legislators like to throw in their way. No sane person thinks that an abortion is a happy thing, it’s just the least bad outcome of a bad situation. The more that they can be prevented from being necessary in the first place, the better. This isn’t true. Plenty of sane people don’t see anything wrong with abortions, and argue against the notion of abortion being the “least bad” option. They’re not even a particularly small minority. It even makes sense, to be honest. By referring to abortion as some terrible ordeal, or an awful solution to an even worse problem, all you’re really doing is giving more ammunition to pro-lifers. All it takes for abortions to be restricted or even illegal is for most of us to agree that we probably ought not to allow abortions. The first step to doing that is to change the terms of the debate. Instead of a common, safe, and not particularly invasive medical procedure, call it the “least bad” outcome of a bad situation. That plants the seed of “abortion = bad,” in everyone’s mind, and forces pro-choice arguments onto the defensive. By the way, I never even remotely suggested that any sane person would argue “the more abortions the better!” You invented a position that I did not take, and then argued against that position. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/57 "2014-12-07T09:19:23Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > How about this, then. Can you think of a hypothetical policy which is meant to reduce the abortion rate, which would not be opposed by at least a significant minority of liberals? 😕 Morning-after pills. Sex education. Availability of contraceptives. All of these abortion-avoiders are opposed by the right, not the left. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/58 "2014-12-07T09:47:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 \*\*Morning-after pills. \*\* Sex education. Availability of contraceptives. All of these abortion-avoiders are opposed by the right, not the left. One reason for opposition is that many people consider the morning-after pill to be a form of abortion, if fertilization has already taken place. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/59 "2014-12-07T09:48:40Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Both liberals and conservatives agree the federal government is spending too much money. True, but they both say, “Don’t cut my budget; cut theirs.” ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435/60 "2014-12-07T22:46:13Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > How about this, then. Can you think of a hypothetical policy which is meant to reduce the abortion rate, which would not be opposed by at least a significant minority of liberals? **Septimus** already answered that. > [@Velocity](#): > > One reason for opposition is that many people consider the morning-after pill to be a form of abortion, if fertilization has already taken place. True, and the same delusional logic has been used to oppose the use of contraceptives, and sex education should be banned because sex is dirty. Those all tend to be the moralistic positions of the religious right, not liberals. It’s perversely mostly the same crowd that wants to ban abortions that also opposes the means of preventing it. > [@Mosier](#): > > This isn’t true. Plenty of sane people don’t see anything wrong with abortions, and argue against the notion of abortion being the “least bad” option. They’re not even a particularly small minority. > > It even makes sense, to be honest. By referring to abortion as some terrible ordeal, or an awful solution to an even worse problem, all you’re really doing is giving more ammunition to pro-lifers. All it takes for abortions to be restricted or even illegal is for most of us to agree that we probably ought not to allow abortions. The first step to doing that is to change the terms of the debate. Instead of a common, safe, and not particularly invasive medical procedure, call it the “least bad” outcome of a bad situation. That plants the seed of “abortion = bad,” in everyone’s mind, and forces pro-choice arguments onto the defensive. > > By the way, I never even remotely suggested that any sane person would argue “the more abortions the better!” You invented a position that I did not take, and then argued against that position. No, I argued against exactly what you said, that “Many liberals would oppose any type of policy that was meant to reduce the abortion rate” which as noted above clearly isn’t true. And I don’t buy the rest of that argument that I’m somehow giving “more ammunition” to pro-lifers. It’s the kind of argument you presented above that does so, by characterizing abortion as a moral issue. To a liberal, it’s a personal medical issue, and the idea of promoting or championing abortion as you suggested is every bit as ridiculous as championing hernia repair or foot surgery. It’s nothing more or less than a medical tool that is there if you need it. It’s conservatives who have made a huge moral deal out of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-agreement-between-conservatives-and-liberals/706435.md?page=4)