Can't liberals and conservatives come together and make a more centrist approach rather than keeping up the ridiculous 50/50 divide fueled by bitterness and anger?
In his seminal treatise “The Righteous Mind”, Jonathan Haidt, himself a “liberal” masterfully explains the unbridgeable impasse between conservatives and liberals. Briefly, the brains of liberals and conservatives are wired differently. Arguments and debates between the two adversaries are futile, simply because their respective premises are usually invalid. Liberals reason deductively (theocratic), while conservatives reason inductively (scientific).A liberal would begin with the premise “all men are created equal”. Darwinian science and modern biogenetics prove this premise to be absurd. Men are not created__they evolved from the simplest to the most complex of life forms. Furthermore, just look around you and you are struck with diversity, not equality. There are the smart and the stupid, the ambitious and the lazy, the strong and the weak, the leaders and the followers, and so forth. Where is the equality ?Secondly, another favorite liberal premise is that “life is unfair”, consequently there are victims everywhere. No matter how different the input, the only just result should be “equality of output”. The only “fair” way would be to fit everyone onto the Bed of Procustus, make everyone links of sausage, no grades, no judgements, everyone wins, nobody rich__nobody poor, groupthink, complete conformity, feel good, kumbaya. This infantile utopianism rests purely on “modale” reasoning. The liberal looks at life not as it IS (scientific, empirical approach) but as it SHOULD, COULD, MIGHT, OUGHT to be (ethical approach). Here lies the built-in moral judgement that is incongruous to the argument.On the far Right. there are some conservatives that adopt a Hobbsian perspective of life, or “might is right.” Conservatism, left unchallenged tends to concentrate all wealth and power in the hands of the ruling class. Objecting to this, Plato’s brother, Glaucon argued that the duty of government is to protect the weak from the abuses of the strong, but also the minority(be it the poor or the wealthy) from the dictatorship of the majority. Many societies have recognized the impersonality and cold-heartedness of pure conservatism, and have sought to temper this with Judeo-Christian and Buddhist charity and compassion.
Why do you think Nancy Pelosi catches so much incoming fire from the right? Do you think there is a misogynistic component to this, or is this just politics as usual?
She is about as dyed in the wool Democrat as you can be. By the time she was 7, her father was a Congressman from Baltimore. When she was a teenager, her father was mayor. Her older brother was also mayor of Baltimore.She worked on Capitol Hill before running for her deceased boss's Congressional seat (Sala Burton who replaced her late husband Phil Burton). She was so saavy, she got a seat on Appropriations in her first term and she got a seat on the Intelligence Committee as well. She proved to be such a proficient head counter, she took on the Whip job when Richard Gebhart resigned to run for President.There isn't an issue or member she doesn't know. I was walking to the House Floor with my boss for a vote in 1989 and just as we got there, nudged him and said “Frank, say hi to Nancy Pelosi (pointing to her) from California”. Later, when he mentioned this to his Chief of Staff, I got a “good move” look from him. She's sharp, smart, and smoky back room ready when needed.The GOP would hate her regardless.