The Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives

Dear Jim Bob,

When I ask people about the difference between liberals and conservatives I get a lot of different answers.  What’s the best way to understand this Jim Bob?

Interested in Iowa

Dear Interested,

I think the best way to understand the difference between liberals and conservatives is to take a look at their behavior.  After all, behavior is the result of what we think and what we think is driven by what we believe.  So, if you can simply describe what liberals do and what conservatives do it might help you understand what separates them.  Here is what I’ve observed over the years.

WHAT LIBERALS DO: Liberals usually create problems where they don’t really exist.  They are always trying to fix stuff that isn’t really broken.  Even if something is slightly broken, their approach is to throw the whole thing out and start over with something that always involves the government doing it.  It gets even more complicated when you understand that liberals will decide something SHOULD be broken even if it isn’t and try to fix that too.  The Global Warming Hoax is like that.  Finally, liberals rarely, if ever, trust fixing things to individuals, because they want the government to do it through taxes and more regulation. Why liberals do this is another subject.

Now, it’s important to understand that for something to be broken in the mind of a liberal, all that needs to exist is an opinion that its broken.  Liberals are rarely restrained by actual facts.  What they do is assemble a lot of anecdotal information and portray it as a dominant trend.  They also twist facts to fit the agenda they have created to fix whatever they believe is broken.  Our current health care controversy is a perfect example of how liberals operate.  American health care has some problems and they are very specific problems.  The liberal approach is to completely replace the entire system with a government controlled environment.

WHAT CONSERVATIVES DO: Conservatives do not try to fix things that are not broken.  When something is actually broken or looks like it might become broken, a true conservative first examines the extent of the problem based on the actual reality and facts of the situation.  Then, a conservative will create solutions that deal with the actual problem.  Conservatives will always try to preserve the best parts of whatever they are trying to fix.  Conservatives strive for improvement, not destruction.  A conservative will never throw the baby out with the bath water.

So, that is basic difference between liberals and conservatives, as I see it.  Hope that helps.