A Liberal’s View on the Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives

I should state here that because I am a liberal it is difficult to examine the differences between liberals and conservatives without being biased against conservatism, and I apologize for this almost inescapable context.

There are distinct differences between conservatives and liberals. Most of the behavioral differences seem to be philosophical in origin. The causes of particular behavioral traits can only be speculated. Parenting, environment, emotional life events and perhaps even the organization of the brain can all be contributors in the differences between liberals and conservatives.

As neurology relates to behavior U.C.L.A. has provided some evidence resulting from studies using magnetic resonance imaging, in conjunction with imaging, to observe levels of emotional response in subjects. From a New York Times Magazine article, 2007:

" our most compassionate (or even cowardly) feelings are as much a product of the brain as ''rational choice'' economic theory is. They just emanate from a different part of the brain -- most notably, the amygdala, the almond-shaped body that lies below the neocortex, in an older brain region sometimes called the limbic system. Studies of stroke victims, as well as scans of normal brains, have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy. . . . as The Times reported not long ago, a team of U.C.L.A. researchers analyzed the neural activity of Republicans and Democrats as they viewed a series of images from campaign ads. And the early data suggested that the most salient predictor of a ''Democrat brain'' was amygdala activity responding to certain images of violence: either the Bush ads that featured shots of a smoldering ground zero or the famous ''Daisy'' ad from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 campaign that ends with a mushroom cloud. Such brain activity indicates a kind of gut response, operating below the level of conscious control.”

That the amygdala reacts with greater compassion and fear in those identifying themselves as liberals makes some sense when considering liberals are known to be concerned with elements of society that may harm the vulnerable. In addition to empathy, fear of those elements can create a healthy drive to change the harmful. In this editorial I will focus only on the evident philosophical differences that can almost predict the behavior that would arise from these two frequently opposing and distinct personality traits.

Conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. Both hold family of great importance. Both have faith. Both are patriotic and want what they feel is best for their country. Both see hypocrisy in much of the actions of the other. Both feel the other is morally corrupt and each blames the other for what is wrong in society. Many liberals and conservatives accept as literal fact what they are told is true, often due to biased and selective news presentations on both sides helping to cement dichotomous views of the world. Both tend to exaggerate numbers in their favor. Both experience righteous indignation and can be zealot on an issue.

A conservative tendency is to value one's self, more so than he or she values others. On reflection at end one’s life, a liberal will be most satisfied or not, with the way that he has treated others and his family in his life time, the good that he has done for other people. A conservative will be most satisfied, or not, with what he has done for himself and his family in his lifetime.

A conservative wears rose colored glasses to see the past, forgetting the negatives and imagining a past society of Norman Rockwell appearance, of traditional conservative values where Donna Reed is a good housewife and Marcus Welby is the family doctor, where kids are good and wars winnable, and centralized government plays a minor role in the order of society. A liberal is likely to view the past with red flags that remind of poverty, sickness, inequality, and businesses run amok without regulation or labor laws.

A conservative is less likely to have an open mind when facing something new or something changing when preconceived judgments take priority over critical thinking and general intellectual curiosity. A good example of this is the David comparison. Suppose a liberal and a conservative are viewing Michael Angelo’s statue of David at the same time. The liberal is more likely to be impressed and intellectually satisfied with the nearly perfect depiction of the male human body. Quickly drawing on past lessons of shame and humility the conservative is instantly embarrassed at the full nudity before his eyes and would chose to hide David from the eyes of children.

Their differing views on entitlement programs such as food stamps are stark. A conservative will say “teach a man to catch fish and he'll fish for a life time. Give a man fish and he'll never learn to fish on his own.” While a liberal would say “teach a man to fish, but show him where the fish are and give him fish when he is without.”

Conservatives believe in “trickle down economics,” the socio economic hypothesis that tax breaks for the few wealthy will cause unselfish generous spending that will fall upon the many poor and provide jobs and happiness. Whereas a liberal subscribes to “a rising tide lifts all boats.” That providing more economic advantages (lower taxation) for the less affluent citizens benefits all – lifting all boats. This redistribution of wealth is a major point of contention between conservatives and liberals. The conservative believes that a wealthy person deserves every dime they have. Where the liberal sees that the poor have to spend every dime they have to survive.

There are foreign policy differences. While both sides exhibit patriotic behavior the conservative position in the world is jingoistic, arrogant, and proud and the good ole’ U.S. of A can do no wrong. Extravagant spending on the military is unquestioned and given priority in every budget. We have a spiritual manifest destiny guiding our place in the world because God has blessed our country above others less well-off then we are. When we act militarily we were right to do so. The U.N. is a socialist plot toward one world government. Immigrants take our jobs and are changing our way of life and we should close the borders completely. The liberal takes a more humility garnished pathway to foreign policy, realizing that we are one of many nations, one no more deserving than the other. Though a liberal is not shy about funding the military, a liberal leader is more likely to dispatch our military to end suffering such as genocide, starvation, or to keep peace. A liberal sees the U.N. as what it is intended to be, a peace orientated democratic body providing a neutral ground for nations of the Earth to settle differences.

Conservatives and liberals have distinctly differing views of what is justice and how it is hindered or progressed. Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed and want change and justice, even at risk of chaos. Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions and want order even at cost to those at the bottom. A liberal would be more likely than a conservative to come to the defense of the prosecuted or incarcerated. A liberal might argue that the founders of the United States wanted to place great emphasis on protecting the innocent from the tyranny of bad criminal justice, including unlawful incarceration. Conservatives continue to place greater importance on prosecution and increased incarceration than on the defense of the prosecuted.

Of course there are large and many governmental differences between the two dichotomous and alike thinking groups. Many conservatives will claim to be in favor of smaller governmental size and less governmental control over society to promote liberty and the general welfare. Some conservatives go so far to suggest that the government should only be in charge of the defense of the nation. While a liberal would more likely be more optimistic about the abilities of the people through government to promote liberty and the general welfare by a necessary and lawful amount of intervention into society.

Do liberals and conservatives need each other like night needs day, like ying needs yang? Just like a force needs an opposing force to define it’s properties, liberals and conservatives need each other to define each other when each is judging and evaluating the other.

Why a Fair Tax is Flat on it's Face

No matter your economic status when someone says the word “taxes” a few thoughts inevitably occur at the speed of light: “my money I’ll never see again,” followed by “it’s not fair” followed by “wouldn’t it be great if I could keep it all.”

Under current “Progressive” taxation, wealthier folks pay a greater percentage of their income to taxes (or a larger slice/fraction of their own pie) then the poor who pay a smaller slice of their pie and receive in turn the same level of government services. “Regressive” taxation works backwards from progressive taxation in that the poor pay the same slice of pie that the wealthy do, and the wealthy enjoy the same level of government services.

There has existed for more than a decade a proposal called the Fair Tax. It basically imagines a large “flat” sales tax on retail goods and services. The Fair Tax proposal says that instead of paying federal income taxes everyone should have to pay $23 out of every $100 at the state level, except (in progressive fashion) the poor, who earn less than or near the federally established poverty level, would get a monthly rebate which represents the personal value of their spending on needed goods.

The bait for support of the proposal is a plethora of goodies: it forecasts the elimination of all federal taxation, no more capital gains taxes, the end of tax shelters, closure of the IRS, a simple tax form, a repeal of the 16th amendment to the constitution. The proposal imagines that already in place state tax authorities would administer the Fair Tax. To emphasize simplicity one republican congressperson compared the size of a Fair Tax bill, which was initially 133 pages, to the 3 foot high stack of federal tax code currently in place which could be trashed under a Fair Tax.

Who favors the Fair Tax? The term "fair" is subjective, the name of the plan has been criticized as deceptive by liberals and claimed accurate by many conservatives. The proposal was first introduced in 1999 by Republicans, but the bill and several successive attempts have never made it out of committee. The newly organized right-wing group that call themselves the Tea Party favor the Fair Tax. Many of them listen to a conservative charismatic loud and sometimes obnoxious radio talk show host named Neil Boortz, who frequently touts the Fair Tax on the air nationwide, and has written a book called The Fair Tax Book. The website Fairtax.org states that the proposal has hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of supporters including less than 80 U.S. economists.

What is wrong with the Fair Tax? In a regressive manner struggling middle income families won’t have exemptions yet wont be wealthy either so their taxable slice of the pie will be the same as the wealthy. Even with the rebate exemption for the poor who are earning under or near the federally established poverty line, the question remains; is it fair that a middle income person pays the same slice of his or her pie as the wealthy person? The price of consumer goods will rise by 23%, the greatest rate of inflation ever known. This inflation will likely reduce the rate of national consumption. Luxury items will cost far more, motivating cheap-skate rich people to buy overseas and maybe even leave the country. State sales taxes will not be eliminated. The additional taxes can effectively raise the tax burden to 30% or more.

World wide, tax rules share one thing in common; they start out simple and end up complex. Exceptions are born slowly as new realizations of unfairness are discovered and brought to the attention of the governing bodies. Already the complexity of the Fair Tax proposal begins as exemptions pile-up. Beginning with the “prebate” for the poor. Then comes an exemption for families with children. Next, the middle income families feel cheated because they earn too much for monthly prebates and earn too little to be called wealthy. Next, since the Supreme Court now considers corporations persons, folks will begin to demand that they pay the Fair Tax as well. Then particular corporations will petition/lobby for tax exemptions, and get them.

They want to scrap the tax code, which is a very tempting piece of bait. But while they start over with a new tax system we all have to wait for them to learn their lesson and pile on exemptions to the point where our new tax system will look an awful lot like the old tax code.

One good way to think of the flat or “fair” tax is to realize that the same percentage to a rich person is not nearly as valuable as the same percentage to a poor or middle class person. Does that sound fair?

The Mad Haters Tea Party

When the simple folk rise up from political obscurity, be wary for they know not exactly what they want, but they do know what they hate. For the past couple of years the Tea Party out of the United States has been a confused and dissembled group of disenfranchised, disillusioned, economically frustrated, scared of change, narrowly informed, non critical thinking, religious and simplistic conservative bigots and very likely a smattering of racists.

In a measure of their naivety of complex issues and ignorance of how politics works, in a room of some 600 people at the recent Tea Party convention, nearly 80% raised their hands when asked if they “had never been into politics before.”

Mob: a large or disorderly crowd; especially one bent on riotous or destructive action.

The original tea party of 1773 were a mob of merchants and locals concerned with taxation by England without representation (or favor) of the local populace of the colonies. But it was not just tea taxes that upset the Massachusetts colonists; it was a build-up of tension brought about by the Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, and the Boston massacre. The modern Tea Party is a mob made up of right-wing “pure” conservatives angry and hateful at taxation without representation (in Tea Party meaning: taxation without their support) and debt. But it is not just taxes and debt that upsets the modern day Tea Party, it is a build-up of tension brought about by years of watching liberalism and socialism take increasingly prominent positions in society. For an outlet of this tension the Tea Partiers have found scapegoats of programs and people with little ability to defend themselves within the media of the right-wing. Scapegoats like president Obama, government run anything (except for our military), infrastructure based earmarks by congresspersons, gun control laws, regulations of the “free market,” health care reform, welfare and entitlement programs, government overreach into the business of the states, same sex marriage, economic bailouts, abortion rights, RINOS (republican in name only), and religious restrictions by mandate of the U.S. constitution and it’s pesky separation of church and state.

“We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country!” – Tea Party Nation web site

To the Tea Party “limited government” means that government should only protect us and keep us militarily secure from our enemies. They use a Thomas Jefferson quote to justify this ideal: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,” (found on a Tea Party web site). Jefferson was speaking in generality of the purpose of United States government. “Injurious,” in this quotation does not only mean physical harm by a foreign military, but in all matters which could be injurious and in which government intervention, enforced through written law, can protect individuals from harm. Such government interventionist laws as making slavery illegal nationwide, workplace laws that protect the vitality and safety of the worker nationwide, civil rights laws that protect minorities and individuals from harm and unfair treatment nationwide, and business regulation which protects the populace from monopolization and unfair business practices across state borders.

“Free speech” in Tea Party nuance means that the religious should be able to express their faith through government entities like in a public school. Support for the 2nd amendment, means all gun control laws are unconstitutional (never mind that pesky Militia part). Support for the military is support for supreme United States power, empirical status and interventionism toward the favorite enemy of the moment. “Secure borders” is all about immigration, illegal and legal, and supporting English only in all government communications and in the schools especially. Their love of country is jingoism pure and simple (extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy).

The movement and the members of the Tea Party were indeed born yesterday. But their ideas are as old and as wrong as conservatism itself. From Birthers to Gun Nuts to Pro Lifers, the Tea Partyers revel in their own justification of their conservative ideals. Despite the successful history of U.S. style liberalism they are certain they are right. They have even made their own media to further cement their right thinking ways. They now live in a bubble of right-wing media. A comfortable place for a Tea Partier to be
.
The world we live in is not black and white and unfortunately we do not vote by jelly beans in jars labeled with issues as the Tea Partiers might wish. We vote on a huge sundry of modern issues, some complex and some simple, using representative democracy in a republic. And unfortunately for the Tea Partiers we do not live by the literal words of the U.S. constitution, we have a Supreme Court which relates our modern day problems to solutions offered under constitutional foundation – that is clearly how the founders thought it should be.

On United States Socialism

Afraid of socialism? It’s been here a long time. Somewhere between Capitalism and Communism lies the never fully achieved idea of Socialism. The United States is an experiment in combined socialism and capitalism, in a Republic using the tools provided through the practice of democracy.

In socialist fashion the citizens of the United States have collectively determined the need for publicly owned and operated entities such as the local police and fire departments, publicly owned and operated school systems, postal services, and even the military is socialist. All collectively created rules and regulations administered on businesses are socialist practices. All unions are practicing socialism. The shopping clubs are a socialist idea. Our collectively owned and maintained roads and highways are a socialist idea. Social Security is a socialist idea. Medicare and Medicaid is a socialist practice. Collective stock ownership is a socialist practice. So is progressive taxation because it strives toward equality in taxation.

A true conservative in the modern United States favors eliminating all rules and regulations on businesses, privatizing our school systems, tolling our roads and highways, enacting a flat tax system, fully privatizing medical delivery and leaving assistance to the poor entirely up to private charity. A true socialist democratic citizen is optimistic about our collective ability to solve problems after laissez-faire methods have failed; such is the case with health care reform and the rather socialist idea of a publicly owned and operated not-for-profit health insurance company.

Drug Testing and Privacy

Copy and send this letter!

To the editor,

Employee drug testing is a civil liberties violation and a highly flawed practice. The U.S. Department of Labor has reported that 9% of current employees and 12% of job applicants test positive for illegal drug use. Given these numbers, and the fact that drug abuse is estimated to cost business $100 billion per year in lost profits, it is no wonder that many businesses react with knee-jerk simplicity by requiring drug testing.

The urine and blood in my body is sacrosanct, personal, and it is my choice and my business to do with it as I will. That choice and that privacy should not become a personal dilemma under pressure from an employer. This is the primary reason why I will never work for an employer who begins our relationship by testing my body for illegal drugs. There are several other reasons why employees, applicants, and employers should be against workplace drug testing.

Drug testing amounts to unequal treatment under the law. There are hundreds of thousands of employees hooked on pain killers and anti-anxiety medications. Are they compelled to an invasion of privacy and then discriminated against? No. What about alcoholics coming to work with a hangover every day? Are they tested and then discriminated against? No. Fairly distributed employee testing should include pharmaceutical addicts, alcoholics, the chronically fatigued, the emotionally unstable, the attention deficit sufferer, the dyslexic, the hyperactive, and the ill-tempered. Imagine the uncounted trillions of dollars of profit lost to these human flaws.

Human error in the lab, or the test's failure to distinguish between legal and illegal substances, can make even a small margin of error add up to a huge number of false positives. In 1992, an estimated 22 million tests were administered. If 5% yielded false positive results (a low estimate), 1.1 million people could have been fired, or denied jobs because of a mistake.

Drug testing can be abused in many ways. In 1988, the Washington, D.C. Police Department admitted it used urine samples collected from drug tests to screen female employees for pregnancy, without their knowledge or consent.

Drug testing is a slippery slope. If we all sit idly by while this widely-accepted invasion of privacy continues unchallenged, then the genetic traits of you and your family will become the next accepted form of invasion used to discriminate.

Doctors as Bean Counters

Wouldn’t it be nice if doctors stood out of the way, let consumers shape health care reform, and take what they get? After all they are supposed to be serving us, the consumers, right? Not the other way around. And they are supposed to be healers, not social scientists or economists, or “bean counters,” as the President recently exclaimed.

It should go without saying that doctor’s and all health care provider’s care given, should remain the same in quality and quantity, and only be allowed to get better under any new health care reform. Democratically appointed boards or committees of health care representation should see to that, and I don’t doubt that’s what we’ll see when health care universality is complete.

“But we are speaking for our patients! That’s why we don’t want government run health care! For our patients!” Say the doctor’s opposed to change. Gibberish I say. The truth is a doctor in America knows that if he or she takes Medicare recipients, that there is a cap, or a “ceiling” on reimbursement that is far lower than what private insurance pays for its own customers. And that is the measure the doctor’s use to analogize a newer system created by government. And so they fear a money reduction. The answer to how much reimbursement lay somewhere in between. An average perhaps. That average would truly speak for the patients. And in only the interest of the patients, economists and social scientists, who should be the only one’s creating a universal health care system, would be speaking for the people – speaking only for the patients.

We want doctors to live above the average pay line, far above it. We want them to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. We want them to have nice homes, multiple cars, country club memberships and exotic vacations. We don’t want doctors who earn millions. We don’t want them to grow used to mansions, limousines, second homes in foreign lands and luxury motor yachts and tax loopholes.