Conservatives vs Liberals

Conservatives divide the world in terms of good and evil while liberals do it in terms of the rich and poor.
- Dennis Prager

Last night I chanced into a conversation about Conservatives. Someone had written, "Conservatives support the King and are opposed to freedom".  Huh, I replied? I was told this was part of a college paper about France just before the revolution. OK, that made more sense but I then tried to explain that Conservatives are not anti-freedom. Instead they are anti-change (usually) and particularly anti-anarchy.

Conservatives believe their world is good and things can only change for the worse.
Liberals believe the world is in bad shape and that things can only change for the better.

Both are half-right, half-wrong. Not everything is good, there is suffering and misery, but not all change is for the better. Conservatives need to do a better job of explaining why certain liberal ideas are dangerous (based upon history and experience) and do a better job addressing problems instead of living in the status quo.

This morning I came across a blog with a different comparison of Conservatives vs Liberals. It comes on the tail of the story about popular Democrat Anthony Weiner who was accused of sending a picture of his crotch (in shorts) to a girl via Tweet. At first he denied it and said he was hacked. Some left-leaning media blamed the right-leaning Andrew Breitbart for framing him or making it up. But then under mounting evidence and the account of several women, Weiner admitted it and apologized to Breitbart. So what was the Liberal media response to being wrong? Apologies? No. Instead they counter attack with "At least Weiner is not a hypocrite".

What does this mean, asks a blogger named Zombie.



How can this be? Why are conservatives hypocrites when they err but not liberals? Zombie expands his diagram to show the unspoken assumptions behind the argument.

"Remember, that’s not my characterization of liberalism — that’s liberals’ own characterization of themselves when they use this argument", says Zombie. In the extreme liberal world everything is tolerated and allowed, there is no "wrong", so there is no sin. The hypocrite defense claims that only people who believe in sin can be held accountable for sinning.

Bottom Line

Zombie comes to a close with a nice analogy:

Consider these two statements from two different potential husbands:

“I know I promised to stop drinking forever, honey, but I fell off the wagon again; please forgive me, and I’ll really really try to stay sober from now on, but no guarantees.”

vs.

“I’m a tertiary alcoholic, a stone-cold drunk; always have been, always will be. You’re not likely to ever see me sober. Take it or leave it.”

If you had to choose, which would you marry?