We’re More Similar than Different
It occurs to me that we on the right are not really all that different from those on the left: for the most part, we want the same things; it’s just that we disagree on how to achieve them. We conservatives want to lift up the poor; we want to ensure that no-one goes to bed hungry; we want health care to be affordable; we want every able student to get a good education—we just believe, based on sound economic principles, that a free market will do a far better and fairer job of ensuring that outcome than will state socialism; those on the left disagree.
We all want to prevent unjust killing: it’s just that those on the left see nothing wrong with slaying infants yet object to executing child rapists or fighting a war against a bloody tyrant. We on the right see things rather reversed.
We all want a clean environment: no-one wants the air he breathes to be filthy or the water he drinks to be foul. We differ on how far to go, yes. And it seems to me that the Right could care a bit more for nature than we appear to (although how much of that is media trickery is another matter).
None of us argues that we should be cruel to animals or wasteful of resources. We do disagree on what exactly is cruel or wasteful—but we agree in principle.
No-one openly advocates racism. There are many on the Left who advocate racism against whites, but I believe for the most part they are in the minority, just as those on the Right who are racists are in the minority (although there are rather more of the former than the latter).
No-one, Right or Left, wishes women to be legally subservient to me.
Even on the issue of gay marriage (very probably the reason we won the recent election), my own perception is that the vast majority of Americans are willing to live and let live when it comes to homosexuals: very, very few would argue that their lifestyle should be illegal. Most would support some sort of civil union carrying with it many of the rights which civil marriage carries.
We all agree that religious freedom is important. Many on the Right don’t see prayer in school as infringing on that freedom—I happen to disagree—while many on the Left seem to think that religious freedom means never being reminded that anyone has a religion. But thoughtful people on both sides, I think, can come to an agreement on most issues.
It seems to me that our similarities outweigh our differences and that if we could recognise this then tempers needn’t run quite so high, as they recently have amongst the ignorant.
