Roy and Me
Posted April 5th, 2008 by Clicheophobe
I’ve come to the conclusion that all of the issues liberals and conservatives disagree over, from environmentalism to social programs to taxes to foreign policy, boil down to a disagreement over just one underlying issue. That issue is a moral criterion for deciding who is deserving and who is undeserving. What’s more, the moral sensibility that determines our politics has been handed down to us almost unchanged from at least as far back as the Middle Ages, perhaps farther. But we have no consciousness of it, nor of its historical origins, at all.
You know what happens when we 'assume'...
Posted April 8th, 2008 by polyglot
I think the irreconcilable difference lies at some very basic assumptions each group makes about life and how people behave as members of society, and the two groups profoundly mistrust one another's underlying assumptions. Conservatives tend to believe in the primacy of the individual, and that the interests of the group will work to the detrement of individual liberty and prosperity. Liberals tend to believe in the primacy of group membership, and that the integrity of society must be protected against unscrupulous individuals. (Soviet-era Communism expands this dynamic of group integrity into group-on-group class warfare, but that has not been the typical experience in the US.)
Sorry for my smartass answer
Posted April 6th, 2008 by love2byourz
um, because they are on opposing sides, of course they do.
