RickWhite
Well-Known Member
There are a number of ways of defining what it means to be Conservative Vs Liberal. And I'm sure many of these are valid in their own way. I would like to explain what I see as being the key difference between someone on the Right Vs the Left.
People on the Right tend to be humble and to respect humility. They tend to believe, religious or not, that they are minuscule in the grand scheme of things and that their own ideas are equally as minuscule when compared to the great thinkers of history and the wisdom of the ages.
For these reasons, Conservatives see things like the US constitution, the free market, our culture and social norms as being monumental institutions that must be handled with the utmost care and respect. To a Conservative, making a sweeping change to any of these things is like haphazardly wiping out an entire species without knowing the consequences.
The Left, by and large holds the opposite view. Those on the Left, feel that everyone's opinion is equally valid and that everyone alive today is light years smarter and wiser than all those that came before them. They believe this is so because today we have the benefit of so many modern discoveries. Where as the focus of Conservative thinking is humility, the focus of Liberal thinking is hubris.
The Left believes that all ideas that are old are outdated and inferior. They believe that all age old institutions are based only on ignorance and serve only to oppress. Because the Left sees no value in anything more than 4 decades old, everyone on the Left not only feels qualified to dictate how the World and everything in it ought to work, they feel they have a responsibility to fix the thinking of those poor ignoramuses who refuse to accept their omniscient vision of everything.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in this forum. Just about every thread is comprised of Conservatives saying that although some things need tweaking, most things work pretty well the way they are. Conservatives also take the position that in general, our Government is doing the best it can and that while the US isn't perfect, it has been a force of good in the World and is a great success.
Liberals on the other hand claim that the Government is an abject failure and that everything should be scrapped and rebuilt according to their Liberal omniscient ideas. They see everything as a scam, a rip off, a system of oppression and a stacked deck.
And to top it all of, most of the people who are outspoken on these issues don't have any real knowledge in the areas they are adamant about. When it comes to war, Conservatives say "hey, let's listen to the Generals - they know what they are doing." Liberals on the other hand all suddenly develop, through osmosis, a PHD in geo-strategic planning from West Point. When a radical President wants to re-write a health insurance system that is one sixth of our economy from whole cloth, Conservatives naturally say "slow down there, let's take things one step at a time so we don't mess this up." Liberals on the other hand all suddenly become experts in health insurance and the macro-economic implications there of. The pattern is the same for every topic. Conservatives mention that male-female marriage and the traditional family has been the bedrock of every successful culture throughout history and therefore deserves respect and careful consideration. Liberals see no reason to be respectful of such an obsolete and outdated institution and see such views as ignorant. After all, if they in their personal omniscience think we ought to just shit can it and make a new definition, let's just do it and not look back.
I guess this could be summed up by saying that Conservatives believe things are the way they are for a reason and that the people that came before them know what they were doing. Liberals believe that everything is the way it is due to ignorance, greed and oppression and that it is up to them and their omniscience to fix the mess left by those before them. It is humility Vs hubris.
People on the Right tend to be humble and to respect humility. They tend to believe, religious or not, that they are minuscule in the grand scheme of things and that their own ideas are equally as minuscule when compared to the great thinkers of history and the wisdom of the ages.
For these reasons, Conservatives see things like the US constitution, the free market, our culture and social norms as being monumental institutions that must be handled with the utmost care and respect. To a Conservative, making a sweeping change to any of these things is like haphazardly wiping out an entire species without knowing the consequences.
The Left, by and large holds the opposite view. Those on the Left, feel that everyone's opinion is equally valid and that everyone alive today is light years smarter and wiser than all those that came before them. They believe this is so because today we have the benefit of so many modern discoveries. Where as the focus of Conservative thinking is humility, the focus of Liberal thinking is hubris.
The Left believes that all ideas that are old are outdated and inferior. They believe that all age old institutions are based only on ignorance and serve only to oppress. Because the Left sees no value in anything more than 4 decades old, everyone on the Left not only feels qualified to dictate how the World and everything in it ought to work, they feel they have a responsibility to fix the thinking of those poor ignoramuses who refuse to accept their omniscient vision of everything.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in this forum. Just about every thread is comprised of Conservatives saying that although some things need tweaking, most things work pretty well the way they are. Conservatives also take the position that in general, our Government is doing the best it can and that while the US isn't perfect, it has been a force of good in the World and is a great success.
Liberals on the other hand claim that the Government is an abject failure and that everything should be scrapped and rebuilt according to their Liberal omniscient ideas. They see everything as a scam, a rip off, a system of oppression and a stacked deck.
And to top it all of, most of the people who are outspoken on these issues don't have any real knowledge in the areas they are adamant about. When it comes to war, Conservatives say "hey, let's listen to the Generals - they know what they are doing." Liberals on the other hand all suddenly develop, through osmosis, a PHD in geo-strategic planning from West Point. When a radical President wants to re-write a health insurance system that is one sixth of our economy from whole cloth, Conservatives naturally say "slow down there, let's take things one step at a time so we don't mess this up." Liberals on the other hand all suddenly become experts in health insurance and the macro-economic implications there of. The pattern is the same for every topic. Conservatives mention that male-female marriage and the traditional family has been the bedrock of every successful culture throughout history and therefore deserves respect and careful consideration. Liberals see no reason to be respectful of such an obsolete and outdated institution and see such views as ignorant. After all, if they in their personal omniscience think we ought to just shit can it and make a new definition, let's just do it and not look back.
I guess this could be summed up by saying that Conservatives believe things are the way they are for a reason and that the people that came before them know what they were doing. Liberals believe that everything is the way it is due to ignorance, greed and oppression and that it is up to them and their omniscience to fix the mess left by those before them. It is humility Vs hubris.
