It seems the original postulation of who we care for stems from a deeper question, of whether caring entails responsibility and involvement. So I think that if I give someone their college tuition, they should be accountable to me either for their academic performance or their field of study. This would place me in the conservative camp by this label. My gifts come with strings attached, therefore I have to limit them to the number of people I can actually monitor, and they indeed diminish as they go further from me. If someone feels a gift is not a gift if it has strings attached, they are likely to be unable to give very many gifts. Then there is the extreme of this, that if anyone has more than you, they must be withholding a gift from you. Reciprocality of measure is another issue. Do I think all people should or must act as I do? Do I reject the possibility that there may be a better way for me to think or act than I do? Assuming I am even thinking and acting in the best way that I am currently aware of? I’m a big fan of M. Scott Peck’s definition of evil (paraphrased) as a person unwilling to admit that they could be wrong. So I propose conservatives see individuals as responsible for what they get in life. Liberals believe society is capable of bearing this responsibility. It goes from there into the territory of whether a person believes society is an entity that can bear responsibility. This serves the first postulation that conservatives feel family, church, and communities are such entities. While acknowledging the federal government may be such, they do not wish to feed its strength.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
Basically, liberals and conservatives usually have the same end goals—everyone playing nice with each other and prospering—but are resigned to get there by different means.
For example: a consservative and a liberal come to a river. Both of them want to provide a means for others to cross the river later, and need to maintain residual income for maintenance of the means. So, the conservative builds a boat, and charges five cents a trip for each crossing (five cents one way, and five the other). The liberal builds a bridge, charging ten cents only in one direction.
There may be some people who will wind up paying the full ten cents to one or the other in order to cross, but most people will be of a mind to take the conservative route one direction, and the liberal in the other (paying five cents total for a round trip).
Posts: 6907 | Registered: Nov 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
