Wherefore the fundamental liberal/conservative gap, and can/should it be bridged?

Great Debates
41

I think the reaction of the SC case has little to do with political philosophy and more to do with tribalism. Fox News and Christian broadcasters and NASCAR are on one side and Starbucks, Apple, and NPR on the other. Once one side adopts a stance the other is obliged to oppose it.

The big changes in recent years has been which side is “populist”. The Republicans took that over when they adopted the Southern Strategy. The Dems could have taken it back by attacking the banks and big business, but first they would need to embrace the cultural values of the teabaggers. I don’t see it happening.

42

No worries. :slight_smile:

Fair enough, though I disagree that my own statements were mis-characterizations of, broadly speaking, the majority of the people who self identify with one political view point or the other. I will agree that my own assertions were not very clear, and not very precise. To clarify, I think that the spirit or the embodiment of liberal ideals IN THE US has a top down, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT oriented view point, where as conservatives IN THE US has a more bottom up, local government or private citizen orientation. Which isn’t to say that large blocks of self identified liberals or conservatives don’t cross the lines on various issues, depending on their own world view.

But looking at the big picture, and the ideals of both political philosophies in the US, liberals, by and large DO believe more strongly in solutions that come from the top down, i.e. from the government. Nearly all of their programs and planks revolve around government oriented solutions to our various problems. Health care. Education. Environmental reform. Civil Rights. Oh, this isn’t to say that all liberals feel that all solutions come from the government…and of course on some issues (say, legalization of currently illicit drugs, stem cell research, prayer in schools, etc), they are definitely oriented more towards wanting local or private citizens to make their own choices.

On the conservatives side, and again looking at the ideals of the philosophy, US style, they do believe more strongly in local government or private citizens/free market based solutions to problems, instead of a top down, federal government imposed one. Think about their views on those listed for the liberals…Health Care, Education, Environmental reform, Civil Rights. Of course, on OTHER subjects they DO seem to lean towards a top down, federally imposed solutions (legalization of illicit drugs, stem cell research, prayer in schools, teaching creationism in the classroom, etc).

Sorry, have to run to some meetings and no time to make the above a bit less incoherent. What I’m driving at is that, broadly speaking, I think that one can characterize the two different political philosophies in this country, and that by and large, people who self identify with those philosophies have at least some of those characterizations in common. Individually I think that most people will swing back and forth between one stance and the other, depending on segregate issues.

-XT

43

The two groups look at the world differently:

http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/bnosek/faces/study/StudyPage.xhtml?studyId=39998

This gets to the heart of why Liberals do not understand Conservatives. The Liberals are not using all of the same measures - only 2 of the 5 identified in this study.

Haidt has a website on being a bit more civil:

http://www.civilpolitics.org/

Interesting readings if you want to dive a little deeper into why we seem to talk past each other.

44

Interesting that this thread, in and of itself, is a perfect example of the liberal/conservative gap. If we can’t bridge it, how can the entire country?

45

My post on Locke/Rousseau was meant to illustrate a low-level difference in outlook. If you want to use government to constantly tweak and tune society to push it to a ‘better place’, you’re probably a liberal. If you want to use government to protect your individual freedom and property rights, you’re probably a conservative.

Now, once you get into the real world of party politics and partisanship and all that, the divide gets a lot muddier. In practice, people are pushed into the opposing camps because of single issues, or because one side has allowed itself to be captured by special interests to the point where it no longer represents their point of view.

I favor individual freedom on all counts. I oppose drug laws, I oppose ‘blue’ laws and attempts to control sexual and other moral behaviors. But I also strongly defend the right to property and the right to keep the fruits of your own labor and to live for your own means and goals, so I strongly oppose forced wealth redistribution, government interference in education and the arts, etc.

Republicans tend to support constraints on social behaviors, while Democrats support constraints on property rights. So why would I be a Republican rather than a Liberal, when neither one really meets my ideals?

In the end, it comes down to the primacy of property rights. Property rights are the core of all freedoms. Without property, citizens are serfs. For me, Democrats are far too eager to take things that don’t belong to them. The rich are treated as resources to be milked, not free citizens who just happen to be very successful. Democrats tend to divide people into special interests and play one against the other. Unions vs business, black vs white, men vs women, poor vs rich, etc. Government is then all about telling each group what they can and can’t do in order to equalize outcome for all and build a better society.

I don’t hold to that. I find Democrats to be far more intrusive, far more likely to regulate my life and tell me and my family what we can or can’t do. I resent being told that I’m not a good citizen unless I give half of what I earn to the state so they can give it to others. This is not ‘greed’. I felt the same way when my economic circumstances were such that I’d be a net beneficiary of wealth redistribution. I turned down many offers of ‘help’ from the government, feeling that it was not my right to take it. It’s really something that I believe deep in my core, and have since as early as I can remember.

BTW, I’m very happy with the Supreme Court ruling. I thought McCain-Feingold was an abomination.

46

And pretty typical of the apologists for the Right on this board, that they say things like “hilarious” without actually bothering to counter my arguments. But then, arguing that such a blatantly nasty and intransigent group of people as the American Right are really nice people willing to compromise isn’t possible without looking like an idiot. So, you resort to content free mockery instead.

Just because we are all supposed to pretend that all sides in an argument are equally well meaning and rational doesn’t make it true.

Oh, please. And when the opposition’s arguments are consistently irrational, dishonest, and incoherent, like those from the Right? You don’t win arguments with people like that, because they won’t acknowledge the truth, or just don’t care. You are trying to play chess with people who aren’t interested in rules.

It’s impossible, because the Republicans really are that bad. Trying to compromise with people who aren’t interested in compromise, and who generally regard him as subhuman or demonic ( in some cases, literally ) was his biggest mistake.

Garbage. Conservatives are very top down. They want to run your life. They want to control every aspect of your beliefs, actions, everything; right down to whether you live or die. They are rabidly authoritarian and hierarchical. This idea that they are more “bottom up” is pure propaganda.

47

Wow, xtisme, fast on the slander! Since you don’t know me, I hesitate to smoke whatever you’re smoking. But thanks anyway, and for thoughtfully considering the point I was making.

People are apparently too stupid to stop the partisan infighting and actually work to make our nation better.

48

I mostly agree with your characterizations of left versus right. I also hold similar views to you on the just-leave-me-alone issues and agree that neither party is very strong on those issues.

Where we differ is on where the greatest threat to our freedom comes from. I think it comes from the accumulation of power in corporations rather than from government. To be clear - I don’t want either to have that power over me and I resent the chipping away at my freedoms that both parties favour - but the real power and the real threat to democracy is from corporations.

Another difference:

I am a liberal who does not want to equalize outcomes. I’d love to see a little more equalization of opportunity though. Not just for fairness sake - I think it’s wasteful when people are not able to contribute to society because of lack of education or health care.

49

First of all, I am not on the far right…or even the right.

Secondly, there is no argument in the statement I found hilarious.

You say the right shouldn’t be compromised with because they have zero interest in meeting anyone halfway. If you don’t want to compromise with the right, then you also have zero interest in meeting half way. I just thought that was funny is all.

Also, if you are going to categorize the right as “blatantly nasty and intransigent”, you should not act that way yourself, lest someone think YOU are on the right. God forbid.

50

Sam Stone interesting post. I believe in property rights as well, but I also think that most people would not have property at ll if it weren’t for some sort of occasional intrusion of society as a whole (i.e., govt). When left to themselves, money and power aggregate. You get monopolies and oligopolies and an entrenched class that passes on money and power to their descendants.

IBM had a near monopoly on mainframes. They didn’t do anything “wrong”, but the fact that they bundled HW and SW together made it hard for other companies to enter the market. This was bad for consumers and bad for entrepreneurs. The govt made them unbundle the HW from the SW and the plug compatible mainframe market opened up. Later, when IBM put out the PC, they unbundled the SW from the HW. The result was an explosion of the market as multiple vendors put out PC-compatible machines that could run the SW from Microsoft. This created an enormous number of millionaires and billionaires, many of whom think that the govt shouldn’t have a role in future business practices.

So free market/property rights is great as a philosophy and as a goal, but I think that the govt needs to intrude now and again. Not to create a level playing field, but to preserve a playing field at all.

So thanks to the govt I can’t sell toys with lead, or set up a pig farm next to a residential area, or buy up a bunch of land, strip mine it, and leave it as a barren landscape. I guess that restricts my freedom, but what good is freedom if you don’t have the means to feed your family or get an education?

51

Please refrain from potshots at other posters.

Der Trihs, magellan01, if you want to have another ‘Republicans are evil!/Democrats are stupid!’ argument, please do so in another thread so you don’t derail this one.

52

I hold similar views as well.

I disagree. I believe that big business can be a threat to democracy, but it is big government that is certainly more of a threat to freedom. Government can compel you to act in ways that big business can’t. Don’t want to do business with a corporation? Find someone else to do business with. Don’t want to support big government? Good luck not paying your taxes. The state can compel actions from citizens that big business never can.

That said, I think there are two great threats to freedom in this world: big business and big government. Worst of all is when the two work in concert… exactly what we have now with the two major parties in the US.

Though I register with neither party, and have voted for both, I trend right for a different reason Sam. I’m convinced that the social freedoms the left in America trumpets will win out, regardless of my input. I feel that the momentum is building, and is heading in the direction of more social freedoms for more people. However, I am not convinced that the 21st century will bear witness to greater economic freedom. In fact, I am afraid that government will only grow, taxes will continue to rise, and economic freedom will continue to be curtailed. That’s why I trend right and hope to see an expansion of economic freedom in my time.

53

As you wish; but the problem is, for the people who actually believe either or both of those things, it isn’t a derailment at all; it’s the answer to the OP’s question. And forbidding mentioning it means the question can’t be answered.

54

That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Thanks for going along with it.

55

I don’t think we are so far apart.

My nightmare scenario is that the corporations become more powerful than the government and they get to drive policy (more than they do already) and choose the government (more than they do already). You won’t be able to avoid the tax collected by government but the corporations will set the tax policy.

I agree with you that we are trending towards more personal freedoms of the kind that the left champions (though I had a bit of a scare there around 2003/4) but I disagree about the economic freedoms.

We were certainly trending towards higher taxation in the 50s, 60s, 70s but I think Thatcher/Reagan halted that trend. There will be a little bit of tweaking up and down with the ideological tides but the trend to ever greater taxation is done - even in the social democracies of Europe.

56

Given the debt hole that Republican spending and tax cutting for the wealthy has dug us into, I doubt that higher taxes can be avoided. Although since taxing the rich is politically unacceptable in America, and they have most of the money, I expect the end result will be higher taxes for the majority of the population that still won’t be enough to stave off financial disaster.

57

This is what my history teacher described as the classical Liberal/Conservative difference. Classical liberalism is the idea that government can an instrument of change. By that definition the last conservative president was Hoover. Both Republicans and Democrats have used government to enact their agenda instead of to fulfill the limited functions spelled out in the Constitution. Democrats may push for civil rights and social programs, but Republicans push for moral control and corporate subsidies.

Jonathan

58

I’ll do my best, but honestly the post I was commenting on was so full of deep, dark, dank government CT that it would take massive restraint on my part. I, however, will attempt such restraint of my less savory impulses in the future…and I’ll also try not to let my own somewhat twisted sense of humor get the better of me again.

Apologies.

-XT

59

That’s why the conservative call for smaller government is disingenuous. The military establishment, corporate subsidies, and morality controls are not what they consider big government - they consider such things essentials to society, at least to the part of society that butters their bread.

But they know they can’t admit it to the voters, so they disguise it all in nested frames.
*The inner framing: *military establishment becomes “strong defense”; corporate subsidies become “economic incentives”; morality control becomes “family protection.”
The outer framing: all the above are strictly off limits to any discussion of what constitutes big government.

60

If we want to bridge the gap between liberals and conservatives perhaps the first thing we could do is stop slapping labels on people and actually discuss the issues. Calling people liberals and conservatives is about as helpful as calling people niggers and crackers. Not all liberals agree with every liberal idea and not all conservatives agree with every conservative idea.