Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 133 | Conservatives, Liberals & the Constitution

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

What are some of the biggest differences between conservatives and today's liberals?

Hello, hello. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day, a wonderful week so far. Today we are going to discuss the fundamental difference or the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals. Now, there's a lot that we could discuss in relation to this, but I want to kind of go down to the basics because this summer, what I'm trying to do is to kind of peel back the layers a little bit, get out of the 24-minute news cycle that we are all so caught up in and say, okay, what is underneath all of this? What are the issues and the topics that transcend all of this to help us get a better framework from which we can kind of analyze the problems that we're facing or the disagreements that we have? So I want to talk about the differences between conservatives and liberals from kind of, I don't want to say it's a heart level, I guess just, as I've already said, a basic level.

If you listen to this podcast, if you watch the news, it might seem like the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals is whether or not we like Donald Trump or whether or not we believe that there are 26 genders or just two genders or whether or not we believe in abortion. And all of those are big disagreements that we have and they do kind of dominate what we talk about. But they're really not the heart of our differences. It's true that these are the disagreements that we have today, but they stem from more fundamental disagreements that really go back, you know, all the way to when conservatives and liberals were first birthed onto the world scene. So one of the biggest questions when you are deciding

yourself, whether or not you think that you fall under the conservative or the liberal or the moderate umbrella, the question is, where do you believe that our rights, come from. So where do you think your rights come from? Conservatives in general, and I always want to say that I'm speaking in generalities, because not every single person who identifies is a conservative might agree with my assessment assessment of conservatism. Same thing with the liberal side. But in general, conservatives believe that your rights come from God. Your rights come from a creator. Your rights come from some kind of transcendent power. Liberals in general believe that your rights come not from God, but from the government, where the government has the power to give rights, even if a liberal does

believe that rights come from God. They believe that the government still has the power to give and to take away rights. Conservatives do not believe that. They believe essentially that the government has the power to recognize particular rights. We'll talk about what that really means. So these are really the only two options, whether you believe that your rights come from God or whether they believe that they come from government. Now, some people are going to push back on that and say, no, I just believe that we have rights. I don't believe in God. I just believe that they're just there. And I also don't believe that they come from government. They're just there. They're just here. But that doesn't actually make very much sense. If you don't believe that your rights come from an

authority, why do you call them rights? What are rights? What right do you have to rights if no kind of authority gave them to you. Why do you believe that you have a right to anything? The existence of rights, something that you are entitled to, something that you should be given or should be recognized or should be protected, necessitates the acknowledgement of the existence of some kind of authority. Otherwise, we live in this just completely subjective society where no one agrees to play by the same rules. We have no basis for saying that we have rights. We have no basis for laws and we have total anarchy because you don't have a right to your own body, you don't have a right to your own property, you don't have any kind of rights to life because who says that you do?

Both conservatives and liberals believe that human beings have rights. We both agree on that. We both believe that humans are entitled to certain things. We disagree on where these rights come from, essentially. And because we disagree on where these rights come from and what the government's role is in these rights, we often disagree on what they are. Conservatives believe that rights are inherent, that they are, as the Declaration of Independence says, they are endowed to us by our creator, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, also known as property. So endowed by our creator, these four words are really important to conservatives. The founders believe that the rights of people are inherent, and they are recognized

by a government, by a good, decent government, not given by the government. They are given by God, recognized and protected by the government. Thomas Payne wrote in common sense, but where, says some, is the king of America. I'll tell you, friends, he reigns above and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Britain. So Thomas Payne published common sense at the beginning of 1776. Most of you probably know that it had a huge impact on how people thought about freedom. and tyranny during this time, pain regarding government as a necessary evil that was necessary to restrain our vices. And so that was really the extent of what he thought government control should be.

And that was a very popular idea when the country was being founded. It doesn't exist to give us stuff. It doesn't exist to give us our rights. It exists to recognize our rights and restrain other people or powers from infringing on those rights. There was a place for government, they believed. is a place for government, needed to protect people, needed to protect these rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness or property, needed to bring about justice and to punish wrong.

But the Americans obviously rejected the idea of a monarch. They rejected the idea of an island across the sea, ruling them and taxing them out of their mind, oppressing them. So they formed a new form of government, a government of the people, for the people, by the people. this was a radical concept, somewhat of a radical concept at this time. So the founders believe that the idea that traditional conservatism rests on, the individuals have rights given to them by a creator, given to them by God that shall not be taken away by the government except if you have committed a crime, then you are not entitled to all

the same rights that you were as a law abiding citizen. conservatism holds that the government exists to protect our God-given rights not to take care of us. So government should be as limited as humanly possible. Our God-given rights, as the founders saw them, are listed in the Bill of Rights, which are, of course, the First Amendment's to the Constitution. They are First Amendment, and you can go past this. If you already know, I bet a lot of you probably don't know, and that's perfectly fine. The First Amendment, Congress can't establish religion or prohibit the exercise of religion. they can't inhibit the freedom of speech or the press.

They can't stop people from peacefully assembling. They can't stop people from petitioning the government. Second Amendment can't take away. The government can't take away the right to bear arms. Third Amendment, no forced peacetime quartering of soldiers. Fourth Amendment, no unreasonable searches or seizures. No warrants given without probable cause. Fifth Amendment can't be held accountable for a crime unless indicted by a grand jury.

No double jeopardy. So you can't be charged with the same crime twice. Can't be forced to witness against yourself. can't be stripped of life, liberty or liberty without due process of law or property can't be taken away without just compensation. Sixth Amendment right to speedy and public trial with an impartial jury must be informed with the nature of the accusation, right to counsel. Seventh Amendment guarantees a jury trial for civil cases in federal courts. Eighth Amendment, no excessive bail imposed no cruel or unusual punishment.

Ninth Amendment. There are other rights that may exist outside of the ones that we explicitly mentioned here, even though they are not listed. That doesn't mean they can be violated. Tenth Amendment, any power not given to the government. Federal government is given it to the people or to the states. So as you can tell from this bill of rights, that every one of these rights is meant to protect the people from tyranny, to allow people to legally maintain the rights that founders believed were God given. So the reason why the founders believed in free speech, the right to bear arms, the protection against cruel and unusual punishment, the reason they believe these were essential was because they saw them all as necessary protections from

tyrants and part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. To them, they were all intertwined. You cannot have liberty without free speech or free press, freedom of information. You cannot have life or property if you have no means by which you can protect your life or property. So that is why conservatives, for example, are against abortion. The right to life is God given without the right to life, which is listed first in the Declaration of the Dependents, neither liberty nor happiness can exist. A child is scientifically alive at the point of conception. They immediately have a right to life.

That right, we believe, cannot be given or taken away arbitrarily by the government, conservatives say, because it was never the governments in the first place. That is why we are for the freedom to own guns. We believe that we have a right to defend ourselves in our families because we have a right to life and so on. all of conservatism really boils down to the fact that God is bigger than government and government should not become God. So we should do whatever we can to make government small. Now, there are plenty of people who identify as conservatives who don't identify as Christians and who say that they don't believe in God. Well, I think that's a kind of a hard case to make that you have rights

that transcend what the government can recognize or the government can give and take away if you don't believe that your rights were endowed by a creator to you. You have no right to say that you have a right that the government has it given you if you don't believe in God, but there are people who just kind of believe in some kind of maybe transcendent power that gave them their rights. Again, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to say that your rights are just there. But there are plenty of people who identify as atheist, identify as conservatives. Maybe they haven't thought about where their rights come from. Nevertheless, they just believe that the government doesn't have the power to give and take away all of their rights.

This is also why conservatives are typically for lower taxes. That's why conservatives are for limited welfare. That's why conservatives are for deregulation. The more money you give the government, the more you rely on the government to take care of you. The less freedom that you have, the more tyrannical the government can get. So conservatives don't believe that there's no place for government. There is. Most conservatives believe in some kind of social safety net.

Conservatives believe that one of the government's jobs is to, protect people from harm, from exploitation, from theft, from physical harm, it is to bring about justice. Even the most small government libertarian believes that the government should protect innocent life from being taken or harmed and should punish wrongdoing. Because we often hear the argument from the left that if you're really small government, how can you be against abortion? I thought that you weren't for the infringement of the government onto your life. Yes, but even the most, the smallest governments should have the responsibility to prevent its most vulnerable from being slaughtered. The government has the responsibility as outlined in the Constitution

to protect the basic rights of its citizens because, again, rights come from God and the government is simply a protector of them. So, conservatives' emphasis on law and order also leads them to advocate for a strong border policy. We have an emphasis on law and order because we believe that the government's job is to protect our rights, to protect life and liberty. So that means that we advocate for things like a strong border policy. We believe in sovereignty. We have a low tolerance for lawlessness and anarchy. In general, we believe in the value of citizenship. We believe in our nation's sovereignty, of personal responsibility, of morality that leads people to a right way of doing things. That's also why many conservatives believe in a strong foreign policy. A lot of people

believe that freedom everywhere helps freedom here, protects freedom here, tyranny anywhere poses the threat of tyranny here. Not every conservative believes that, of course, libertarians and conservatives with the libertarian leaning basically believe that we shouldn't be involved abroad. And they also have conservative reasoning in that because it costs Americans money. It limits us from being able to take care of the problems here. So there are two different sides on that that are both conservative. Conservatives believe in the value and the potential of the individual. They are typically advocates of this kind of like up by your bootstraps philosophy or mentality that you can do anything in this country. That's what makes America

so beautiful. You can do anything here that you set your mind to. That doesn't mean you won't have obstacles. That doesn't mean that you, that prejudice doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that things are sometimes going to be unfair or really hard. But if you do work hard, you can do anything that you want. Conservatives are believers in hard work and the necessity. and the dignity of work. It is this self-reliance that, again, protects people, conservatives believe from depending on the government. And we believe, again, that a bloated government leads to tyranny.

That is also why conservatives believe in capitalism and the free market and supply and demand. Don't believe in the government setting a minimum wage or offering universal basic income. It's also why a lot of conservatives don't give a whole lot of credence to things like, racism. Not all conservatives, but it's why a lot of conservatives don't. Systemic racism, not just in general, but being the only or even the primary reason that certain groups have

gotten ahead. That doesn't mean conservatives deny that racism exists. It doesn't mean that conservatives say that systemic racism has never existed, but most conservatives will deny that that is the primary reason why someone hasn't been able to get ahead. Is systemic racism? That's just true of conservatives. Now, conservatives are statistically more religious. than their liberal counterparts. They're more likely to believe in God than liberals are. They're also cultural and social things because of that. They are likely to believe that liberals are not typically believe in the sanctity of biblical

marriage or we're more likely to, I would say, than those on the left. Of course, that's changing. Conservatives typically believe that gender is binary, different things like that. Now, this is all fundamentally, theoretically, ideally what conservatism is. that doesn't necessarily reflect, like I said, in the beginning, today's Republican Party. Maybe theoretically, but not in practice. Plenty of Republicans have added to the size of the government. Plenty of Republicans have raised taxes.

Not every Republican or conservative believes in God, as I've already said. This is a general and ideal description of the foundations of conservatism or the basic aspects of conservatism, I should say. Liberals, and we're going to call them liberals, it's difficult to come up. with a rights term. A lot of people say leftists. Some people say progressives. Some people don't like saying progressives because it denotes progress. I don't really have a problem with that. Progressive has a negative connotation in my mind. And so it's fine to say progressives. I understand that I don't really mean progress. Some people don't like to say liberals because classical liberals or classical liberalism was really part of the foundation of conservatism. But you know what I'm talking about when I say

liberals. So liberals, on the other hand, those that are on the left, believe that the rights outlined by the Constitution are not necessarily inherent, not necessarily. And they can be given or taken away by the government as the government sees fit for the welfare for the rest of society. So an example of this would be guns. It is more important, it is less important that people have the freedom to own guns than it is in their mind that a solution is enacted for people not to be killed gun violence, and they believe that the solution is that people just don't have guns. So individual liberty is not quite as important to the left as it is to the right. Freedom from the tyranny of government not as important to a liberal as what Jonathan Haidt in

his book, A Righteous Minds, describes his fairness and care. Those are the two highest values that manifest themselves in unique ways among liberals. It is more important, more important than liberty. That's not to say that no liberal cares about. liberty, but more important, more important than liberty to many on the left is that the government ensures a fair society and that people are taken care of. The liberal idea of fairness, especially today, is typically described as equal outcome rather than equal opportunity. So this is why you will hear liberals talk about wealth inequality. They don't talk about work inequality.

They talk about wealth inequality, that those at the top have so much more than those at the bottom and they believe that there is a corrupt system that is systemically holding the people at the bottom down. Liberals believe that the government has the responsibility to step in and to do something about that. Liberals typically attribute inequality to oppression rather than choices. Because they see oppression as a limit to people's happiness and well-being, they believe it is the responsibility of bureaucrats to fix it, even if that means limiting the freedom or the rights of someone else. So another example of this would be Jack Phillips, the Colorado cake baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple,

not just any cake, but a wedding cake. Now, this is a guy who also doesn't bake Halloween cakes. Like, he's a very religious person. He didn't want to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The gay couple sued him. Colorado agreed with the gay couple, but then the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips. There's more to the story of the ruling, but we'll stop there for now. The left said in response to this, no sorry. You can't discriminate against. gay people for any reason. This is a marginalized group. The right said, this is the First Amendment. Like, he is a freedom to practice his religion however he wants to. Plus, you could say that his cake baking is artistry. It's an artistic rendering. And so it should be also covered under the

realm of the First Amendment protection of free speech. So the left in general believes that the government should have the power to give and to take away that freedom as it benefits those who they see as being harmed. That is why most on the left, like I said, are okay with kind of limiting or doing away with the Second Amendment as well. Ideally, most liberals would like for everything to be on an even playing field, they would like everything to be equal, that no disparities would exist. Because like I said, they see any disparity as sexism, as racism, rather than just as choices.

We see this when they talk about the gender wage. gap that the average woman makes 79 cents to every dollar that the average man makes. Of course, that number, that ratio has nothing to do with any factors contributing to that. So it doesn't have to do with job title, doesn't have to do with education, doesn't have to do with experience. That's just the average woman compared to the average man. But when you look at it, when all factors are contributed are considered, are factored in, there is no actual wage gap between men and women.

And yet they look at any difference between men and women as sexism rather than maybe a lot of women just choose to stay home because that's their natural inclination. And they don't want to work as many hours as a lot of men do, just average. They don't want to consider that because in their mind, it has to do with discrimination rather than just choices. And that is why they advocate for laws that protect and even uplift who they say. see as marginalized groups. That's why they advocate for things like affirmative action. They really see things as a hierarchy of oppression with kind of like wealthy Christian white people at the top and then everyone else being trampled in one way or another. So in order to make things fair, in order to care for people, the two things that they really believe are important.

They believe that those traditionally who are privileged or who are traditionally in power have to be taken down a notch and those traditionally underprivileged and not empower, need to be lifted up and all of this should be by the government. And so they say health care for all is a right. Free college is a right because the government defines these as our rights and this is fair and this takes care of people. Now the other side of the equation, of course, is that this costs people a lot of money. But they are more willing to take away the freedom of some people, the freedom of some people, for example, to choose their own health care plan in favor of caring for people who don't have health care.

Conservatives would say no one has a right to my money. That's not what the Bill of Rights says. The Bill of Rights is to protect people from too much government, not insure them or not insure more government. So conservatives would also say it's not systemic oppression that mostly keeps people down. They would say, like, we've already established its choices. and the government pushing some people down to lift some people up is in itself unfair and doesn't guarantee equal outcomes. Conservatives, for the most part, know that there's no such thing as

equal outcomes. There's no such thing as a fully even playing field. We don't believe that there's ever going to be complete equal, completely equal outcomes on this side of heaven because that's just never going to be the case. As Thomas Sol said, I think he said geography is not egalitarian. So where people live matters. People's gender matters. The kind of family that you're born into matters. Your IQ level matters. The choices that you make matter. There is no way to eliminate all of those factors to make things equal. So conservatives would say, yes, we should try our best to create a country in which we are all playing by the same rules and where justice is evenly distributed. That's what I believe justice should be evenly distributed. But we cannot guarantee equal outcomes by

pushing some people down in favor of lifting other people up. There will always be winners. There will always be losers, even in a socialist society. Liberals would rather have, they would rather have equal. And I say, what's a better word to say this? That doesn't sound so negative. Equal middleness. I really want to say mediocrity. That's what I'm trying to say. They would rather have equal mediocrity than having huge disparities between the wealthy and the poor. And I think that they would probably openly admit that. Liberals typically base morality on what harms someone. Conservatives don't necessarily base morality on that. There is a higher definition of morality. It's based on what you as an individual are doing or not doing,

not the reaction of someone or not whether or not something offends someone. So these are a lot of the fundamental disagreements between conservatives and liberals. There's so much more to say. Conservatives, believe that more government equals more problems. Liberals believe that more government equals less problems. Conservatives believe that a compassionate, responsible government protects their rights to life, liberty, and property. Liberals believe that a compassionate responsible government ensures equality in suffering. Here's the thing. Giving both sides the benefit of the doubt here. Both sides believe that they care for people more than the other side does. Both sides, think that their side has the correct solution for helping people. Both sides believe that they are

morally superior. The right will point to abortion to claim that the left is heartless. The left will point to kids in cages to claim that the right is heartless. You guys know where I stand on that. You guys know that I don't think that those are really morally equivalent, but that's how the conversation typically goes. The point is, both sides think that they are correct and righteous and compassionate and pragmatic and good. And the truth of the matter is, you guys know that I and conservative. But the truth of the matter is we need both sides to push and to pull. We need this back and forth. It's important for us to have both in this country. It's important. It is important for liberals to remind conservatives where systemic injustices do exist. That is crucial. It's important

for conservatives to remind liberals with the dangers of overtaxation and big governments and the importance of liberty. It's important for us to debate how to balance mercy with the rule of law. It is important for us to debate the role of government. I believe, of course, you guys know this already, I believe that our rights are inherent. They were given to us by God that the rights outlined in the Constitution are not up for negotiation because they were given to us by our creator and they shouldn't be infringed.

I believe in the dignity of the human beings, starting at the point of conception. A logic nor morality gives me really any other option on that. I believe bureaucracy is inefficient and effective. therefore I believe that over taxation is equally inefficient and ineffective. I believe that individuals in the private sector do a much better job of taking care of the poor than the government does. I believe in religious liberty and free speech.

I think that you should have the right to protect your family. However, you see fit with a firearm if you so choose. I believe in private property in ownership as we see reflected in the 10th commandment in the Bible, which prohibits covetousness. so I don't believe in forcibly redistributing someone's wealth that they earned to the poor, forcibly redistributing that. I believe in the dignity of work, as we see reflected in the creation account, that work actually existed before the fall.

So human beings were made to be productive, not to rely fully on the government. I believe in law and order. I believe in borders and sovereignty and citizenship. I think that you should have a choice in your health care. And I think that a single payer system like Medicare for all will hurt our economy and our ability to get quality care. I am a conservative in every sense of the word really that I can think of. And now people assume that that means that you don't care about justice, that you don't care about the poor. That's not true.

I want a justice system that is impartial. I want a prison system that is both effective, merciful, and humanitarian. I want us to figure out our immigration system so that women and children don't have to, suffer at the border. I believe where systemic injustice truly exists, that it should be called out and something should be done about it. I believe that we have to have the conversations that balance liberty and care between freedom and protection and provision. I think that these conversations and discussions are important. And I am not so associated with my party or with partisanship that I cannot see a solution where there truly is one, that I cannot see a merciful

option that may exist outside of my little partisan bubble. Of course. I believe in doing the right thing and the righteous thing and having righteous judgments. And if that means venturing outside of what traditional conservatism is, of course, I'm willing to do that. I haven't come across that yet. That doesn't mean that I have cited with everything the Republican Party has ever done. That's certainly not true. That's certainly not true. But it's about values. And that's what everything goes back to. But I do think that these conversations, these discussions, these debates are important. And it does require giving the other side, even if you disagree with them, as adamantly as I disagree with the values of the left, it does mean giving them the benefit of the doubt

and realizing that we really do have a lot in common in that we both think that we have solutions that are best for our country. We both want to put our country on the right track and to move our country for it in a good way. Now, a lot of people on the left think that that means that we need to look more like Europe. I don't believe that at all. We have some fundamental disagreements about liberty, about morality, about God that are very basic and they're hard to move past. But I understand that most people on the other side are not evil just because of their views, that they don't purposely want to harm people, that they think that they're doing the right thing and maybe if we can disagree or maybe if we can agree on some very basic things,

we can get to a point to where we talk about what this best solution is. Maybe my mind is open to something. Maybe their mind is open to something. Now, a lot of you have asked me, how do I talk to someone on the other side of the aisle? I have a boyfriend. I have a friend. I have a mom who disagrees with me. And I don't know how to talk to her without her completely shutting down or saying

she doesn't want to talk about politics. As a conservative, this is typically a conservative asking me how to talk to their liberal friends. And what I encourage you to do is to be curious. Quite frankly, there's a lot that I don't understand about what the left believes. And I think that a really good way to kind of figure it out and to be able to have productive dialogue is to be curious without being on the defense or without being on the offense either. So just say, why do you believe that? Or what do you think about this? Oh, where did you get that information in a way that's not, you know, doesn't sound like you're attacking them? Or why do you think that? And maybe that's the,

only conversation that you have at first. Maybe it doesn't turn into a full-blown argument. Maybe it's not even an exchange. Maybe for a little while, you just ask them why. Why do you believe that? Okay. I've never thought about it like that. And you kind of internalize those things and you make sure that you know what you believe and why you believe what you believe. And maybe that builds a foundation for a good conversation with them. So they know that you're not just trying to attack them. You're not just trying to break them down, but you're really trying to understand. If you are friends with a liberal. If you are friends with anyone who is on the left or you know someone who's on the left that you want to engage with, realize that their priorities are fairness and care. And your priorities

probably are not, or your definitions of fairness and care don't look the same as theirs because you are also prioritizing liberty very highly. And so just realize that even though you might have some of the same goals and you might have some of the same things that you care about, your priorities and your values and the lens through which you're seeing the world are are different. That doesn't mean they're not wrong. They could be very wrong, but their intentions might not be wrong or their intentions might not be bad. So you can lay a foundation for a healthy conversation that way. So I hope this was helpful. Like I said, we barely scratched the surface. There is so much Jonathan Haidt wrote this really complex book. I think called a righteous mind that talks about the

different values that conservatives and liberals have. I'm not saying that it is a full proof philosophy that he has built, but it's helped a lot of people kind of understand where the other side is coming from without completely demonizing them. So I think it's important for us to have that perspective, not always easy to do. We're talking about everything that's going on in the news, but take a step back and realize that, okay, we probably have a little more in common than we thought maybe we're just coming at it from two different, two different perspectives. So, okay, I hope you guys have a great day and I'll see you next time.