People who don't follow politics tend to believe that conservatives
and liberals are just flip sides of the same coin. In other words,
conservatives are pro-life, pro-gun, and fiscally conservative while
liberals are pro-choice, anti-gun, and want to tax and spend, but
otherwise, there are no real differences.
However, if you follow politics closely, you'll find that there's a gulf as
wide as the ocean between the average politically active conservative
and the average politically active liberal. We don't just have political
differences; we view the world through very different eyes.
Of course, I don't want to oversell this because as Americans,
conservatives and liberals are more alike than different. There also tend
to be differences between people who are heavily politically involved
and those who aren't. This column focuses on those of us who are more
politically active, as opposed to people who don’t pay much attention
to politics.
I'd also add that in every category, you'll find exceptions that prove
the rule. Moreover, sometimes you'll find both conservatives and
liberals engaging in the same behavior, although one side tends to do it
much more than the other. All that being said, after spending a decade
blogging, here are just a few of the genuine differences that have become apparent over the years.
1) Conservatives are more patriotic than liberals: Conservatives
tend to focus on the positive things about America, while liberals focus
on the negative. If the first thoughts that came to your mind when
you thought of America were “slavery,” "imperialism," and "unfairly
using too much of the world's resources," you probably wouldn't like
America very much either. Conservatives, on the other hand, look at
the fact that we saved the world in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War,
take pride in the fact that we have contributed so much to the planet,
and believe America has had a tremendous positive
impact on history. The conservative view produces love of
country. The other view produces a deep seated dislike of our nation.
2) It's socially acceptable for liberals to lie about conservatives:
Whether you're talking about theNew York Times, The Washington
Post, or the Daily Kos, it's considered to be
perfectly acceptable to lie about conservatives. That's because,
as Charles
Krauthammer once said, To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
If you think your opponents are evil, you tend to be okay with using
tactics that you would describe as "evil" under other circumstances to
fight them. If you're up people you compare to Nazis, it’s easy to tell
yourself that lying to beat them isn’t so bad. If you're in a dispute with
people who you believe are just too stupid to understand what's going
on, you feel compelled to try to explain yourself a little better.
3) Conservatives are results-oriented. Liberals are not: If
you understand one thing about liberals, understand this: Liberalism
is nothing more than "childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues." That's why they don't care very much about whether the
programs they advocate work or not. Proposing programs isn't really
about what will help the most people to liberals; it's about making
them feel good about themselves. On the other hand, conservatives
are results-oriented, which is why they tend to be so down on the
government, which is inevitably slower, more expensive, and less
effective than the private sector at pretty much everything.
4) Conservatives care about the Constitution. Liberals don't:
Conservatives believe that we need to try to interpret the Constitution in the way that the Founders intended it to be read and if we want to change it, then we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment. Liberals believe in a "living Constitution," which is functionally no different than believing in no Constitution at all. If you believe in a "living Constitution," you think it is okay to do whatever you want for political reasons and then come up with a legal justification afterwards, which you'll then call "constitutional law."
5) Liberals are much more misogynistic than conservatives: If you're a prominent conservative woman, you will be deluged
with rape
threats, death threats, attacks on your family, attacks on your looks,
and offers to give you a good screwing as a public service. In
other words, what you've seen with Sarah Palin is actually the same
thing that happens to most prominent conservative women, but on a
larger scale. That's not to say that liberal women don't get some of the
same treatment, but it's several orders of magnitude worse for women
on the Right.
That's largely because liberals claim the "feminist" mantle and so,
if they're feminists, then obviously they can't be "anti-woman" no
matter what they actually say, right? Even worse, most of the actual
feminist women on the Left tend to either participate in the abuse or,
alternately, turn a blind eye to it as long as it's aimed at conservative
women.
6) Conservatives are happier people than liberals: Despite all
the claims you hear that conservatives are angry, cruel, and mean,
conservatives are much
happier people than liberals. This is something that has been
consistently proven in studies and, let's face it -- anyone who
knows a lot of liberals and conservatives will tell you that it's not a
surprise. Conservatives love the country they live in, they're more likely
to be Christian, and they take responsibility for their own lives instead
of griping that the world is terribly unfair. If you want to be a happy
person, you're more likely to be a happy conservative than a happy
liberal.
7) Conservatives are better Christians than liberals: Certainly
there are debates about social conservatism and Christianity on
the conservative side of the fence, but Christian conservatism is
considered to be a honorable and important part of the Republican
base. People are going to hate to hear this, despite the fact it's
absolutely true, but Christianity and liberalism have become largely
incompatible. That's because there are so many liberals who are implacably hostile to Christianity that
liberal Christians are left with one of two unpalatable choices. Either
they can water their Christian beliefs down into thin gruel so as to
be compatible with liberalism or liberal Christians can choose to be cringing dogs and keep their mouths shut while their beliefs are
regularly insulted, demeaned, and attacked by their fellow liberals.
Neither option should be acceptable to someone who has a strong
Christian faith.