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Conservative liberals, liberal conservatives? 

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These days, it seems that conservatives and liberals are complete opposites who have nothing to say to each other. But from a longer perspective, they’re just different aspects of the same thing.

Most of us are secretly conservative liberals or liberal conservatives. That probably sounds like an outrageous claim to dedicated conservatives and committed liberals, but it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow just a few years ago. Liberals and conservatives didn’t use to call each other fascists and communists — which still seems silly to real fascists and actual communists.

The essence of conservativism is that current and past policy has reasons, and we should be extremely careful about changing them. In other words, conservatism defends the status quo or the recent past — be it real or imagined. The philosophical problem with this is that change is inevitable, and if you always oppose it, you will always be on the losing side.

Being liberal is the opposite. They look at all the problems and try to find solutions. But the philosophical problem with this is that most solutions have unintended consequences — many of them harmful.

This is not big news. Every reasonable conservative knows that the world changes, and that you can’t completely go back to the “good old days.” Every experienced liberal knows that sensible reforms don’t always turn out as planned.

Furthermore, there are splits within both camps. The conservative side has its libertarian, fundamentalist, and cultural wings. Recently, the Trump phenomenon has created a different kind of conservative that I don’t have time to address in this column. But we all know conservatives include Trumpers and Never Trumpers.

Liberals include people who want to reform capitalism and others who want to move to a European form of socialism — not Soviet or Chinese socialism. But there are many differences in what reformers want to reform first. We used to have all these ideas mixed up in our personal lives at work, at church, and in our social activities. We all knew and respected people who we disagreed with. Unfortunately, today many people never interact with people holding the opposite viewpoint. If everybody you know thinks the same as you, delusions may happen. That’s why some people say: “If I don’t know a single person who voted for Biden, how could Biden have won? There must have been cheating.” That’s how conspiracies get started. There seem to be fewer liberals who know a single Trump voter.

The title for my columns is “Close to Home,” which means I try to relate my points to local issues. So, I tried to think of a local issue with a deep divide between conservatives and liberals. I had a hard time. Usually, Silver City’s council (and those of Bayard, Santa Clara, and Hurley) deals with practical issues. Sometimes this scatters liberals and conservatives on both sides.

We know who’s more conservative and more liberal on the county commission, but it didn’t seem to make that much difference on practical issues, such as management of the hospital.

When we move out to state government, we see bigger contrasts between liberals and conservatives. And congressional races are even more split. You can’t get more divisive than the recent race between Yvette Herrell and Gabe Vasquez. Some neighboring states have even worse partisan divides.

Also, “conservative” and “liberal” change over time. The Republican Party was founded to limit slavery and stop secession. It was considered more liberal than the Democratic Party for many years.

But when we analyze the past, many historical issues aren’t even on the radar now, and many of today’s issues weren’t imagined in the past. Who were the conservatives and who the liberals in our struggle for independence from Britain? Some would describe that war as an impossible contradiction: A conservative revolution. The Civil War was a conservative revolution in a different way. Few conservatives today would think that owning other humans is a conservative value worth fighting for. But that is exactly how many Confederates felt.

On the other hand, the French Revolution was definitely a liberal revolution — like most revolutions. But few liberals today think chopping off the heads of your rivals is a liberal value.

Many historical events don’t fit into today’s simplistic categories. How will future historians look back on our time? I imagine they’ll be confused. Beliefs that we take for granted will probably look downright weird in a few years.

It’s a good idea to have a little humility about what seems obvious, to avoid being ridiculed by our grandchildren after we’re gone.

Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Southwest Word Fiesta™ or its steering committee.

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Bruce McKinney

Bruce McKinney is a Silver City business owner, close observer of local government and occasional troublemaker. In his column, which appears every other Wednesday, he tries to address big questions from a local perspective. Send comments and ideas to bruce@greensilverlinings.com.
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