Right Vs Left

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The Left believes that all ideas that are old are outdated and inferior.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.

i am soo sick of theese political threads. fuck the left and right wing, and the gov. in general. this is a marijuana website, so take this cake ass political shit to cnn, or at the very least stop making new threads about it, post in the already existing ones.

Good post, Rick ... and right on.

Only 5% of those in Obama's administration have experience in the private sector. They mostly come from careers in politics, or community organizing or from academia. And yet, they know exactly how to restart the engine of prosperity. Right!

chitownsmoking said:

i am soo sick of theese political threads. fuck the left and right wing, and the gov. in general. this is a marijuana website, so take this cake ass political shit to cnn, or at the very least stop making new threads about it, post in the already existing ones.

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Then why would you post in the politics section?

RickWhite said:

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.

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Conservatives see things like the US constitution and rub their ass with it if they THINK so. Conservatives tend to pass legislation without really analyzing the grand consequences. For example, The Patriot Act.
The right doesn’t respect humility, they respect fear-mongering, and grand-standing.
The left identifies problems that are REAL, and tries to fix them. It recognizes where the government or society is failing in comparison to the rest of the world and it does something about it.
I see big, private, extremely wealthy and powerful corporations as a threat to national security. They have become so influential in so many areas of business that the government is no longer looking out for the people, they look out for corporations. Even if corporations engage in very questionable practices to get short-term success, they are encouraged, bailed-out…

And you do not see men-women marriage as a bedrock for anything. You see it as the way ‘god’ intends it to be. The fact that you won’t even recognize it as a ‘civil union’ supports this. Society has to evolve to meet the needs of the population. If gays want to marry and be miserable too, let them. Marriage is not a party, it’s not all that great. And yes, gay couples can have children too. Theres thousands of kids waiting for adoption. And it would be a compromise to that other great conservative fear: ABORTION. That’s another thing that really should not concern anyone but the mother, father and doctor. Everybody knows an abortion is a tragedy, it shouldn’t happen, but not everybody can know about safe sex and birth control if conservatives keep that education out of schools. And conservatives screaaaam at the thought of government intervention in their lives, but they vehemently defend the governments control on this.
It’s bullshit… you just defend the bible and youself… say it like it is….

liberals see everything as a scam and a ripoff? have you heard the debate on global warming? world government? al gore's scam? WTF? give me a break

RickWhite said:

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.

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What forum are you reading? The conservatives here are doing everything short of claiming Obama is personally shoving ice picks in their genitals.

When it comes to war, Conservatives say "hey, let's listen to the Generals - they know what they are doing

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."

Is this before or after we invade a country based on lies, costing a trillion dollars, and the lives of over 5,000 troops?

, Conservatives naturally say "slow down there, let's take things one step at a time so we don't mess this up."

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LoLz Yeah we saw how well the previous administration did that. but thanks for the laugh

Rick, you got it right painting broad strokes. As for specific policies, I'm sure no one is completely liberal or completely conservative. Except ann cuntler.

My attempt to sum it up would be that conservatives believe that anything can be accomplished with the right motivations and mindset, despite the fact that THE WORLD IS NOT AN EQUAL PLACE AND NEVER WILL BE. Conservatives have humanitarian values, however conservatives know that everything outside of their own personal intelligence, will power, and emotional energy they have 0% CONTROL over. Note: control and influence are different words. Any attempt to better someone else's life while negatively impacting your own is futile, even if successful. This is called lose-win behavior. I lose they win. Another way to look at this is being taken advantage of. Win-lose behavior is manipulating someone else for your own gain. I win they lose. Win-win is when both parties benefit. An example would be a wealthy person (enough wealth to feel secure with sacrificial loss, charity money for example) who gives money to charity. The charity wins and so does the person who gave to the charity. So we have 100% Control over ourselves, 0% control over everything else. Conservatives know that without the successful individual, their would be NO successful whole.

What's 0+0+0+0? That's four individuals, but they aren't worth anything, are they? Maybe we could give them 1 point since everyone has at least SOME use.

Compare that to 4+3+5+8? (the numbers simply being a level of intelligence or expertise with a certain subject)

Who's gonna get the job done faster? Who's going to contribute to the whole more? The 4 who are nearly worthless or the 4 who are experts?

Liberals on the other hand think the collective whole comes before the individual. This cannot be a success because a whole bunch of nothing is still worth nothing. Liberals (at times) care more about others than themselves, even to the point where it degrades their own life. This is LOSE-WIN behavior. The individual loses and the other person wins, therefore canceling each other out, meaning no one won or lost. Nowhere is this more clear than the mass spending currently being pushed through congress. No one should ever be obligated to pay for anyone, even themselves. Well we are obligated to buy auto insurance, aren't we? Yes, but we aren't obligated to have a car. Bush spent 1 trillion on the wars? in 8 years? This is amusing to me because Obama has spent more than that already, so liberals can't even begin to use that as an argument. Their whole progressive movement is mass spending based and in its entirety an unbearable amount of debt leads to a redistribution of wealth.

Difference between bush spending and obama spending?

Bush spent less and spent it in response to a national security threat, which any president would do. it wasnt as if he said hey i got 1 trillion to spare i'll go start a war. obama says i don't got 1 trillion to spare, but these rich folks do lets take it from them and try to help out the poor

what a joke, even obama's base is slipping. some (certainly not all) are starting to realize (finally) that the WHOLE (as in America) cannot be strengthened through redistribution of wealth. Remember, this is simply lose-win behavior. Why? because the rich person isn't choosing to redistribute his/her wealth, s/he is obligated. when it is ones choice to redistribute their own wealth, it is win-win.

conservatives are so irrate because we understand the value of free will. it is the only one of our three inalienable internal resources that can be taken, but only in the form of pure injustice. this is textbook psych, and our founding fathers realized it too, they just put it differently.

We are all endowed with our inalienable rights. Life (experiences, intellect), liberty (free will), and pursuit of happiness (pursuit of positive emotional energy).

so you see, liberty is the one thing that cannot be taken from us unless the government knocks down our door and puts us in a cell. why would they do that unless they put in government mandates and by exercising our free will to say NO to an unjust law, we are then informed that we can no longer make our own decisions except whether or not to sleep face down on our cell bunk.

these are the what ifs that lead to a dim future.

redivider said:

The left identifies problems that are REAL, and tries to fix them. It recognizes where the government or society is failing in comparison to the rest of the world and it does something about it.
I see big, private, extremely wealthy and powerful corporations as a threat to national security. They have become so influential in so many areas of business that the government is no longer looking out for the people, they look out for corporations. Even if corporations engage in very questionable practices to get short-term success, they are encouraged, bailed-out…

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This is exactly what I'm talking about. Do you really believe the US economy is so simple that you can sum up its problems with a couple of sentences? Do you really believe you even have a solid understanding of this subject? Do you really believe you are qualified to judge such issues and suggest ways to correct it? If so, how is this possible? Do you have a graduate degree in economics? Even if you did, do you really think it is reasonable that any one man, or any group of men would be qualified to micromanage the free market system? Can you not see that this is pure hubris?

redivider said:

And you do not see men-women marriage as a bedrock for anything. You see it as the way ‘god’ intends it to be. The fact that you won’t even recognize it as a ‘civil union’ supports this.

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Wrong and wrong. My position on re-defining marriage has nothing to do with religion and I do support civil unions.

My respect for traditional marriage has to do with my belief that men and women are very different and that each gender fulfill vastly different needs in the lives of children. A woman contributes things that no man possibly can and the reverse is also true. That is the primary reason for concern with preserving the traditional family structure.

See, in both cases my respect for things greater than me is demonstrated and in both of your replies your hubris is equally as obvious.