Roy and Me
Posted April 5th, 2008 by Clicheophobe
I think that all of the conflicts between liberals and conservatives, covering issues from environmentalism to social programs to taxes to foreign policy, boil down to a disagreement over just one underlying issue. That disagreement is not a rational debate, but rather a moral one. Ideological left and right clash over a particular moral criterion for deciding who is deserving and who is undeserving. What’s more, the moral belief that divides our political landscape has been handed down to us essentially unchanged from at least as far back as the Middle Ages. But we have no consciousness of that belief, 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.
