Friday, October 15, 2010

Uncivil War

The wierd story of the two liberal ladies on the View walking off the set in a huff during a discussion with O'Reilly combines with a couple of big debates this week to illustrate that there's a chasm between conservative and liberal philosophies that cannot be bridged.

The two debates I noticed were senatorial debates in Nevada and Delaware. I caught a bit of both, and both highlighted the stark differences in left and right philosophies. Harry Reid and Chris Coons espoused govenment-centric control to restore "fairness", which they claim will eventually help the economy recover. Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell espoused freedom and smaller government to allow the private sector to restore prosperity through business activity.

On economic, social, environmental, national defense, and foreign relations issues, conservatives and liberals are diametrically opposed. Which makes me wonder about self-identified "moderates", because there is no real middle ground in most of these topics.

You prefer socialism or capitalism. You're for or against gay marriage and abortion. You think a strong national defense and secure borders are vital, or you believe we need to open the borders and show our enemies that we're really nice people. You want to develop all available energy options or drive the cost of carbon-based energy beyond affordability in the hope that "clean" energy will come along to replace oil and coal.

I suppose a moderate agrees with conservatives on some issues and with liberals on others.

The difference between the two camps is in their approach. My observation is that the conservative candidates are focused on policy. Liberal candidates are focused on slinging mud.

Points of proof: The View walkout, Jerry Brown's unapologetic defense of his staffer calling Meg Whitman a "whore". Everybody on the Left and their willing "journalist" friends going on TV to deride Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Sarah Palin (who isn't running for anything) as idiots.

The country is reaping exactly what it sowed. The question is whether or not the citizenry can figure that out in time to make a correction.

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