Understanding Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives

You may have watched a debate, or heard some differing perspectives on an issue, and you were confused by why the people disagreed. It seemed like they both had good intentions and wanted what was best for society.

Indeed, both liberals and conservatives often have intentions that they believe are what is best for society. There are plenty of conservatives with big hearts, and plenty of liberals who are ill-informed, and vice versa. Moreover, there are continuums of how liberal or conservative a person is (e.g. moderate, strong, extreme, and many points in between). Finally, Republicans are generally conservative, but not always, and Democrats are generally liberal (except for Southern Democrats who are often conservative). However, on any given issue a Republican may vote more liberally and a Democrat may vote more conservatively. For instance, a conservative might argue against a government program one day, but might support a fair housing program the next day.

However, there are important fundamental differences in how liberals and conservatives view people in society, and for what they perceive as the best means for achieving a greater good. For example, because conservatives put a high faith in personal achievement and an unregulated market economy, they often side with big business interests at the expense of people's safety and basic rights. They think by allowing for a free market economy, the profits will eventually trickle down to all people and violations of people's rights will be weeded out by the market. Sometimes this happens, other times it doesn't. For example, the Fair Trade movement is an attempt to weed out unfair labor practices through a market-based solution. Of course, government regulations and strong enforcement would halt those conservative-supported sweatshops in their tracks to begin with. As another example, with high standards of social equality and justice, liberals will often feel it is fair to stop giving financial tax breaks to the wealthy when that government money could go to programs for the poor, sometimes the very people working in the companies of those rich people that are paying them poverty wages while receiving tax breaks. Look at the table below to see a few of these core differences (click the table to enlarge it).Contrary to what conservatives will often tell you, liberals are generally not a fan of big government. Hang out in some liberal circles and you will hear plenty of distrust of government officials and dislike for the system. Furthermore, conservatives are willing to support bigger government bureucracy and spending, so long as it is consistent with their other views (for example, massive military spending and supporting institutions). However, most liberals do favor some government programs, often social welfare programs, to make sure that people are taken care of when traditional societal institutions are unable to provide for them for whatever reason (e.g. the family is without resources or simply fed up, the church is unable or unwilling to help, high rates of poverty exist despite plenty of time for profits to "trickle down" to the poor, etc.).

Accordingly, liberals view social problems as a complex mix of personal choice and outside factors. Take the example of a drug addicted individual who is homeless and mentally ill. A conservative will likely blame the person for failing to achieve and not recognize the forces that have acted on this person (unless of course we are talking about a drug addict who is a conservative radio show host...ahem). While a liberal will certainly still place some responsibility on the person for having made choices leading to addiction, she or he will also view the person's situation, for example, a long history of being sexually abused as a child, lack of adequate mental health services due to slashes in funding (probably by conservatives), lack of affordable housing (partly due to the failure of the private market to provide sufficient opportunity for everyone), substance abuse as possible self-medication for an untreatable disease, and an array of other contributing factors.

For those of you who watched the presidential debates last November or can stomach listening to our president, you can see clear examples of oversimplication (e.g. global warming doesn't exist, Iraq might have the ability to produce weapons of mass destruction so we must destroy them pre-emptively, etc.). During the debates, Kerry's arguments, while not always solid or based in accurate information either, were attempting to deal with the complexity of the issues. Indeed, anyone who has ever begun to look at social policy can appreciate it's complexity and how difficult it is to bring the greatest good or to undo social injustice. Basing policy in black and white ideas will lead to policies that overlook important nuances necessary for effective responses.

Finally, there are of course alternatives to the oft-sickening and morally hypocritical Republicans and the oft-inept and watered-down Democrats. It is always possible to just declare yourself as an Independent and vote based on the issues. If you want to learn more about one third party that is trying to bring some greater truth to the political forum, check out the Green Party's website.