Thursday, July 29, 2010

What's the difference?

      Are you a conservative, or a liberal? Is there another choice? In modern politics there doesn't seem to be. Do the people that call themselves by one, and insult people by calling them the other, even know what they mean? For the most part, no! What does is matter, and where did the moderates go?  The basis of the word liberal is from the Latin "of freedom", and conservative is from the Latin "to preserve" Put them together and you get "to preserve freedom". And that is just what it takes, both sides and everything in between.  If this country and government "of the people, by the people, for the people" would have been truly conservative we would have been stuck in the last century, or worse yet stuck in the 19th century and still have slavery. If we had gone on a truly liberal track we would have degenerated into a capitalist aristocracy and from there into a revolution either toward communism or socialism. We need both sides of all the coins, liberalism and conservatism. We need capitalistic conventions and socialist programs. Without the balance, we degenerate into the worst of which ever we fall toward.

Five thousand years ago Socrates taught “all things in moderation” Buddhism teaches “the middle way” Confucianism has “doctrine of the mean” Taoism has “yin and yang”. Everyone knows of the balance of nature. Martial arts, sports, and dance all emphasize balance both of body and mind. It has been said that a healthy nation is a dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government. Yet the human race has been pathetically slow to learn this. People see a problem and jump on a knee-jerk movement to the farthest extreme from it never realizing they passed the solution along the way.

The battle between right wing and left wing rages on, with most people not knowing the difference between their own right and left hands, let alone the intricacies of liberalism, conservatism, forgetting all about the moderate, vaguely remembering hearing about libertarianism and not even knowing the existence of liberal conservatism, conservative liberalism, libertarian conservatism, social liberalism or economic liberalism. And only knowing of socialism, communism, and Marxism, as evils to be avoided, but without knowing anything about them, not having a clue why they should be avoided.

     Many people use the terms conservative and liberal to align themselves with political parties, which also is way off base. No one is 100% liberal and no one is 100% conservative no matter what they say. The big difference in what people who consider themselves conservative and liberal, whether they really are or not, is that those that think they are conservative make most of their decisions based on fear, and those that think they are liberal make most of their decisions on hope. Both are needed to make things work. Base all decisions on fear, and we are back to the 19th century, base them all on hope and things become chaotic and spin out of control.

     So the hard part is deciding which things in America need to be social programs, which must never be, and which can work either way depending on what the people are most comfortable with.  Some for social programs are easy to pick, police protection, fire protection, and education have been social programs for a long time and when managed properly work best that way.   

     Easy ones for free enterprise are any small businesses, any entertainment, anything that is not necessary for basic day to day living, provided it does not become a monopoly. Of course there are already laws against monopolies so that should not be a problem. And there is no reason that private enterprise cannot do the same things social programs do. They should be encouraged to compete with social programs to keep them from becoming fat, lazy and a drag on the budget.

     Some are not so easy but the idea that every citizen should have basic health care is sound.  This can be worked as a social program or as free enterprise provided there is a provision for covering those that truly cannot afford it. Part of the current problem is that people that cannot afford it, wait until their issues are so bad they need a hospital then go to emergency. They cannot afford to pay so never do and the insurance companies make it up with higher premiums to those that can. Fact is if as a country we would have provided basic preventative medical to them, most would not have needed emergency room treatment and it would cost less for everyone in the long run. 

      Albert Einstein said “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving forward. And that is what we have to do. We need to stop worrying about who is conservative, who is liberal and pay attention to what they have actually done. Did the politicians we voted in shore up the needed social programs, did they free up the competition in business, and find a solution that worked for the in between. If not, vote them out!!!

We need to vote for the person, not the party. The classic argument is that we are forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. But it is not a two party system. There are often dozens of candidates from as many parties. They are not taken seriously, not because they are not serious or valid, but because the average person cannot think beyond two possibilities. Everything is left or right, up or down, in or out, right or wrong, black or white. In reality it is all gray matter, pun intended. For almost any situation in the world there are multiple possible outcomes. It depends on what result is desired, what needs to be accomplished, and almost never is that conducive with running to either extreme.

When voting for someone who does not have a track record people need to learn the issues. People need to vote for the candidate that actually knows the issues and has the best answer to the problem, not the best rhetoric. It does not matter if it is the rhetoric you like, it is still rhetoric, do not listen to it. If you really take the time, time away from Monday Night Football, reality shows and soap operas, to learn the issues and to learn what some of the options are. But if you do and be ready to vote for the person with answer, regardless of what party they are from, eventually politicians will come around, they will have to. If they do not, you will know enough to be ready to take their place. After all our government is a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” and you are the people.

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