Almost Perfect Liberal vs. Conservative Infographic
I don’t really write political posts because I believe talking politics on a blog is like talking about your bills while you’re on a tropical vacation. It’s so pointless and boring that the only thing that could possibly motivate you to do it is hate, pride, or some hidden agenda. That being said, let’s talk about politics on my blog. You can’t stop me because if you’re reading this it means I’ve already posted this article and it is now bouncing around the ‘tubes forever.
What is the difference between Left wing vs. Right wing politics? It seems like everyone’s an expert when it comes to this, and most people I have met are either Liberal or Conservative – despising the other party. Liberals hate Limbaugh, Beck, and Fox News. Conservatives hate Gore, Jackson, and CNN. That’s the way it is. Well I consider myself a little different, and I’m not saying this to toot my own horn or to cop out of the debate, but I can actually see both sides! That’s why I love this infographic. Check it out – it’s a beautiful, almost perfect side-by-side comparison of the Left versus the Right when it comes to government. Seems to be very accurate, and easy to understand (click to enlarge):
(Image taken from here)
I know this is a lot of information to take in, but if I can just direct your attention near the bottom of the image under the Beliefs section, you will see what is in my opinion the crux of the matter: freedom vs. equality. They both sound like good things right? But which is more important? The Left says Equality, the Right says Freedom. It’s up to you to decide for yourself what you believe, and it is your right to believe whatever you want.
Now, why did I say this infographic was almost perfect? Because it’s missing the rest of the political spectrum, or more specifically, Libertarianism (and conversely Totalitarianism). Do you want personal freedom or economic freedom? If you want both, then maybe you should look a little closer at what else is out there besides the two-party system (aka one-party system) that you may have trapped yourself in.
There you have it, a political blog post brought to you by TGM. If I have alienated any of my readers (I know you’re mostly teenybopper fangirls of Katy Perry) then I offer this as my consolation: Twitter still sucks. There, now we’re back on track! Twitter’s so fat it uses a dreamcatcher as a belly button ring. Daaaaaamn!
Now I have offended all of the people on the Internet.
The Gimcracker
Well, I can tell you what our country was built on. Freedom.
Libertarians are smart and everyone else likes twitter, Katy Perry and Ikariam.
The freedom depended on who you were. Oddly, to some degree, it still does.
And the Patriots! And eating garbage! And spawn camping!
Interesting picture but if you study even just a little this comes off as a very simplistic and a mostly wrong depiction of the real differences between liberals and conservatives.
A good example would be at the top where the word equality is used.
No distinction is made of what a liberal thinks equality means vs what a conservative means when describing what he thinks this should mean.
Liberal = equality of outcomes.
Everyone gets the same outcome whether advantages such as wealthy parents or good looks or genetics or health are present or not. If you study the ideologies of liberalism and conservative ideals you can't help but come to the conclusion that in a perfect liberal world there wouldn't be rich parents and poor parents because everyone would have the same "outcome" and if they didn't the government would see to it that that was corrected. This also applies to the word “accountability”. In a liberal world there is almost always some excuse for bad behavior or lack of success. There is almost always some sympathetic or therapeutic way to fix this.
(See next post. This was too long for one.)
Conservative = Equality of opportunity.
Opportunities should be there for everyone but the ability to take advantage of them can depend on many variables. The success of any specific individual can depend on factors such as luck, intellect and good decisions, geographic proximity, hard work and perseverance. In short every person should have the opportunity to be all he can be provided he applies himself. But the outcomes would vary a geat deal.
Accountability to a conservative is much more concrete. If you behave badly you pay a penance to society first. Actions equal results period. You reap what you sow. Then therapy may be applied to help you to correct the error in your methods.
The word freedom also has similar differences to the two ideologies. Freedom of the individual vs. freedom of the collective. Both claim that the freedom of the individual is preserved but if you look deeper and study some history it becomes evident that one of these in reality does not favor the freedom of the individual at all.
So simply flicking words onto a piece of paper does not provide a very accurate picture when the opposing sides see such different and many times diametrically apposing meaning in those very words.
this is all bs