What are the Real Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives
by I’ve tried to find a conservative to help me write this but I couldn’t. It seems none of the ones that I know want to broadcast their beliefs, for what ever reason. Some of what I say may sound accusatory and that is not my intent. I come from a far left perspective and in that believe that all positions share some sort valuable insight, even those that are opposite of my own. Using a few sources on the internet, I have compiled a list of things that both sides think about themselves and about each other and have saught to break through the rhetoric and understand the arguements for and against each issue.
One of the biggest problems we have in our country is that politicians and pundits use so much rhetoric when speaking that we often don’t know what they are talking about. Many of us, on the left and right, fall into the same trap. I do. Admittedly, I know that the news channels I favor tend to share my perspective and use words and phrases that attack the other side. Fox news is just as guilty of this as MSNBC and thats OK but we’ve reached a point in history where the rhetoric is actually damaging the arguements these people are trying to support.
For example, I have compiled a list of things that Conservatives state that they believe in and analyzed these positions from the perspective of the far left and then I will attempt to state what liberals actually believe and why, hopefully with out using rhetoric or name calling.
Specifically, conservatives seek or support:
- Classroom prayer
Many conservatives I know will state that liberals are against prayer in school and that is inaccurate. We believe in the freedom of religion, which is part of why our nation was founded. We think that teachers who engage in a spiritual act in a class room are violating the religious freedom of some of the students who may not share the same religious perspective. There are many students who follow religions that do not involve the act of prayer and liberals simply want those students to get the same value from school as those of the dominant religion. A conservative christian would not want Buddhist meditations being taught in public schools any more than a Buddhist student would want to be forced to read Christian teachings or be lead in prayer by their instructor.
We do believe that students and teachers have the right to pray when ever and where ever they want. One example is in the religion of Islam, which states that there are specific times of day when you must pray. Liberal groups fought to protect the rights of those Islamic men and women who had to take time out of work or school to achieve this. We love that you have faith in something larger than yourself, many of us do as well, we just don’t want your beliefs or ours to control how the other engages with society.
- Prohibition of abortion
Conservatives believe that life begins at conception and therefore abortion is no different from murder. The problem for liberals is that some women become pregnant through malicious actions of others, such as rape or incest, which hurt the mental and physical health of the pregnant woman which can make her unfit to give birth. Liberals believe that abortion is a very difficult thing for a woman to go through and that the number of abortions will go down as sex education goes up. We simply want the life of the mother to be considered in the equation while conservatives believe that we ignore the life of the infant. We do, honestly. Because there is no scientific proof of a soul it is hard to determine when life begins but liberals have decided that life begins when a being is self aware. Through laws, science and debate, our nation has set a limit on how late an abortion can be performed and we want to protect that law.
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