The Oxford English Dictionary defines a liberal as a person “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.” The same dictionary defines a conservative as a person “who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.”
Implicit in those two definitions is this: liberals tend to look forward from the present and embrace the reality of change; conservatives tend to look backward from the present and resist the reality of change. The simple definitions of liberal and conservative however leave out what—in today’s world at least—is perhaps the most fundamental distinction between the two: by and large, liberals have a conscience. By and large, conservatives do not.
That’s a strong statement I know. Why make it? Well, let’s trot out a definition of conscience first. Its dictionary meaning is “an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the right or wrongness of one’s behavior.” Through that prism, my statement means that liberals tend on the whole to listen to that voice and respond to what it says is right. Conservatives don’t necessarily hear the voice and respond to what it says is wrong, they seem rather to simply not hear the voice. Put another way, liberal behavior tends to be driven by pursuit of what is right; conservative behavior tends to be driven by pursuit of anything not demonstrably wrong.
It doesn’t take even a triple digit IQ to know that this country is deeply divided between liberals—generally associated with the Democratic party—and conservatives—generally associated with the Republican party.
When those very different individual attitudes are plopped down on a political stage, at least at this point in this country’s history, they result in a liberal agenda aimed at providing the most right for the most people, and a conservative agenda aimed at providing the most right for those perceived as the most deserving.
Let’s look at a few examples drawn from recent headlines. Conservatives have targeted for elimination a program called S-CHIP, which stands for State-Children’s Health Insurance Plan. It is a program designed to provide minimal health care for disadvantaged children. Its total cost is less than the cost of the tax cut conservatives insisted be maintained for the super-rich. How do you think about those two facts and sleep at night. Simple, if you have no conscience.
Or we could look at conservative support for the mining industry practice of dynamiting the tops off mountains and letting the debris tumble into valley streams, wells and ground water. Why? Well, the coal is obviously easier to get to if you’ve blown away everything that’s covering it up. Regardless of bottom line, when environmental groups provide you with solid science about the devastation that practice is visiting on ecosystems and people, how do you sleep at night? Again, easy if you have no conscience.
Conservatives are adamant about denying global warming, even though every scientist not employed by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, or serving directly in the employ of the Koch brothers agree that the climate is indeed changing world-wide, that it is changing in the direction of higher median temperatures and that the result of that change is more severe weather that is more dangerous than ever, droughts, floods and rising sea levels. Why? Because the short term interests of the fossil fuel industry and all its dependents are better served by not taking the steps necessary to slow global warming. How do you stare hard science in the face and walk away from it to protect industry bottom lines? Easy if you have no conscience.
Conservatives have vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act and have thus far given no indication they would actually replace it with anything. Their reasons? Well, it's a job-killer they tell us, even though every economist not employed by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or in the direct employ of the Koch brothers has called that nonsense. It's also a budget buster they tell us, even though the Congressional Budget Office's non-partisan review of the bill says it will reduce the budget deficit over the next 20 years by about a tenth of what the tax cuts for the rich conservatives insisted on maintaining will add to the deficit. And if you blow off both those arguments, they tell you it's socialism. Actually, Michelle Bachmann and her tea party wing nuts say that; more responsible conservatives hedge their bets by calling it "creeping socialism" and even more responsible conservatives who know it has nothing to do with socialism say it puts us on the infamous "slippery slope." In fact, the biggest beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act are, ironically, private insurers to whom the individual mandate will drive some 40 million new customers. Oh, and yeah, there is no public option.
So how do you reconcile a drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act with the fact that it will do what its title states--make health care available to everyone, not just those who can easily afford it--and won't do any of the things you offer as reasons to repeal it? And then go to sleep at night? Easy if you have no conscience.
I would be the last to argue that every liberal program is both necessary and effective. There are any number that are neither. Nor would I argue that there are not liberal programs that were put in place more to enrich the people who put them there than to aid the people they allegedly serve. What I would argue, however, is that, on the whole, liberals are far more likely to ask their conscience what the right thing to do is—not just for themselves but for society at large—and then act accordingly. Conservatives, at least on the evidence of the years since Reagan, are quite content to do what's best for themselves and simply ignore that little voice that's trying to be heard.
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