Have you ever puzzled over the differences between Liberalism and Conservatism? Make no mistake: there are DRASTIC differences between philosophies and stark differences between Liberals and Conservatives.
I’ve wondered for years myself. Here at TruthNewsNetwork we have written several times about one major difference between Liberals and Conservatives: “When a Conservative disagrees with a political policy of a Liberal, the Conservative doesn’t like the policy. But when a Liberal disagrees with a political policy of a Conservative, the Liberal HATES THE CONSERVATIVE!”
I know that is probably a stretch. But often it seems that way. One thing is certain: Liberals are much more adamant and vocal about their ideas than Conservatives are their own. And Conservatives are more accepting of differences between themselves and Liberals. Those differences are never unseen and certainly are NEVER unheard.
But after diving into research and investigation, we have determined there is a more fundamental reason for these differences. Those differences are layered: some lie deep within one’s soul and intellect while others are closer to the surface and held not so tightly. Some are more visible than others.
What am I talking about?
“In The Beginning”
It is far simpler for people to deal with others if those “others” are part of a group. Certainly, even in a group of people, there are as many differences between those as there are people. But for centuries people have often just grouped people together under one sign. And through the centuries while Man has become more educated, more sophisticated, and more civil regarding social norms, Man has become more committed to put people in groups. Nowhere can this trait be illustrated better than here:
In that incident, a presidential candidate in the 2016 election — Hillary Clinton — created a group in which she put half of the other candidate’s followers: Donald Trump. It is certain that those she put in that group shared at least one thing — support for Mr. Trump. All of those people (and it turned out to be 62 million in total which means “half” by her characterization would be a 31 million member group of ”deplorables”) were simply “one” in Hillary’s mind.
And she wasn’t the first.
Think about it: human nature guides us all to at least perceptually group people who have similar characteristics together: racially, historically, religiously, geographically, spoken language, educational similarity, hobbies, professions, etc. Human nature being what it is leads us to do that. But human nature does NOT automatically grade those in those groups: people do.
Historic “Groups”
In the Bible the groups in similarity were everywhere. Even then people with similarities “hung” together. For the Jewish people, descendants of Ishmael — Abraham’s illegitimate son — became the Arab people. They could not bear Jews and the feeling was reciprocal. In fact, almost without fail, people ALL feel that “their” group is superior to other groups with which they interface.
Remember the Crusades? Almost universally Crusades are remembered as a time when Christians wanted to impose Christianity in the Holy Land. Actually, the “first” Crusades were started by the Muslims in the year 630 A.D. when Muhammad invaded and conquered Mecca. Later on, Muslims invaded Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem, Iran, Egypt, Africa, Spain, Italy, France, etc. all because those ”groups” were different. The Western Crusades started around 1095 to try to stop the Islamic aggressive invasions.
We’re not here to debate who did what, who was right and who was wrong. We are simply pointing to the history of one group, (that was created by “someone”) that was marked by those of another group, (that too was created by “someone”) and then taking actions against that “other” group because that group was better than the other.
It’s happened hundreds if not thousands of times.
American History
There had to be an America established before there could be American History. Why did that happen?
In short, in England groups of upper class people (Royals) looked at groups of low class people (Commoners) and treated them in ways that were literally less than humane. Those Commoners had enough. They wanted to seek somewhere else to live that was free from “group society.” They fled to America.
Then they wanted freedom from the tyranny under which they were forced to live even in a New World. As tyranny does, it followed them to their new land and forced its way into their society from the beginning.
They determined to force that group of Royals to give them total independence. It resulted in the American Revolution from which was birthed an independent and free America that became the United States of America.
The U.S. has been embroiled in numerous “group wars” through its history: President Thomas Jefferson actually declared war on the Barbary Pirates. Why? U.S. ships conducting trade with Northern African countries were being attacked and held by the Barbary Pirates for ransom. (Those Pirates were Muslim slave traders.) The American President refused to pay the ransom to mthat “other” group. War decided it.
There was the French and Indian War and the War of 1812. But the greatest example of American “group war” was the Civil War. What were the groups? Those for slavery and those against.
The war was brutal: 600,000 people died. But slavery was put down in the U.S. But the “grouping” never stopped. Those Africans that had been brought to America and were the subject of the Civil War were freed, but in most respects that freedom was just talk. Legally they were free, but were still part of a “group” that was considered by many to be “less than” others. Though slaves were legally free, their “group” was NOT equal in any way. That racial difference and resulting “group think” has kept the difference fires burning for generations. Citizens of the greatest country on Earth can simply not put that war to death.
There are those from one group who have never accepted the Civil War outcome. There are those from the other group who have never felt like the war ended. They react to the other group in many ways, few of which are positive.
Politics
Politics has been with us for who knows how long. Men created it. Why? To draw lines between groups, of course! Politics has played a very significant role in American history, much of which has not been positive for the country. Nevertheless, the differences between people have dictated its perpetuation for generations. And politics is the chief fuel for creating and growing differences between people.
Politically, Conservatives and Liberals have pretty much dominated U.S. politics. (There you go: groups that Men decide who has to be part of which one) Since World War I, the two major political parties have been Republican and Democrat. Though the policies of differences between those in each group have changed in many ways, fundamentally they each have kept a fairly specific core of principles. The party that has mastered the art of grouping and that dwarfs its counterpart in structure and political ideals is the Democrat Party.
Members of the Democrat Party have always excelled in politically acting in group fashion far more than Republicans. Unification in policies, ideals, who’s in and who’s out, who is credible and who is not, who is worthy and who is not, has pretty much over decades remained the responsibility of party leaders.
Republicans on the other hand have operated more independently regarding party structure. They have shared core values for a long time, but there has never been unity as the Democrat Party has.
(We’re not here to discuss specifics of those differences, just to give us basis for the balance of today’s conversation.)
Groups
What are the modern day groups that Democrats and Republicans have created? To be honest there are far more groups than just those created by politicians. But for this conversation we’ll concentrate on those political creations, and only a few of those.
Religious groups: primarily Christian and non-Christian. Regardless of what some politicians maintain, America was established on well defined Christian principles. For whatever reason, the last few decades many on the Left (the Democrat side) have fought against those principles.
Not only have there been attacks by the Left against Christian principles, there has been massive support of other religions in the World at the expense of Christians and Christianity.
Islam and the Muslim faith has been growing exponentially everywhere on the Globe — even in the U.S. Political support from the Left for the religion and those who embrace it has become dramatically obvious. Democrat leaders have in almost total unity shown massive support for the Muslim faith and Muslim people. Their support has never been so obvious than when horrors are perpetrated by Muslims both in the U.S. and in other nations.
There are multiple examples. But the most recent came from Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who recently described the 9/11 attacks and that day in this way: “Some people did some thing.” She very obviously did NOT use the term “terrorists” or “terrorism” in her statement about the slaughter of 3000 Americans that day. Further, she did NOT refer to the perpetrators as “Islamists” or “Muslims” or “Terrorists.” She referred to them as “Some People.”
Democrat leaders refused to censure her or even make a unified statement against her characterizations. Why? “Group-Think” and Unity.
To further illustrate how this has become so prevalent, Easter Sunday more than 300 Christians were murdered by a series of suicide bomb attacks against worshippers in 3 churches and several hotels in Sri Lanka. While most Republican leaders when issuing statements about the horrible slaughter of primarily Christians worshipping God in their churches on Easter Sunday — the most holy day of the year for Christians, former President Obama and Hillary Clinton in their statements refused to use the word “Christians” when describing who were murdered.
It is important to note that both aggressively damned Islamophobia when a white Christian from Australia several weeks earlier killed a number of Muslims in New Zealand in a Mosque. Ms. Clinton tweeted her outrage: “We must continue to fight the perpetuation and normalization of Islamophobia and racism in all its forms. White supremacist terrorists (another “group” created by Democrats) must be condemned by leaders everywhere. Their murderous hatred must be stopped.”
She made sure to condemn “Islamophobia,” but she wrote not a word about the far more destructive and widespread hatred of Christians in the Muslim world, seen in Muslims’ virtual elimination of the Christian communities in the Middle East, the regular murder and kidnappings of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the murder of Christians in Nigeria. She calls on “leaders everywhere” to condemn “white supremacist terrorists,” one of the smallest hate groups on Earth, but never calls on leaders everywhere to condemn Islamist terrorists, the largest hate group on Earth.
Essentially, the Left’s rule is that nothing bad — no matter how true — may be said about Muslims or Islam and nothing good — no matter how true — may be said of Christians or Christianity.
Obama and Clinton refused to use the term ”Christians” when referring to those killed opting to both use the exact same term ”Easter Worshippers” instead. Think there was some Democrat talking-point coordination?
Racial groups: The most obvious time of racial unity in the U.S. came with the attack on Pearl Harbor. It seems that such horrors bring people together rather than divide them. For years Americans dropped (in most cases) all the garbage that came for years from racial groupings and all the resulting tension and uproar between Americans. It has become commonplace for African Americans and Caucasians to be incessantly in conflict with each other. It seems there’s very little effort to find commonalities and concentrate on those rather than concentrating on differences. (That’s not just in racial groups and their differences but between ALL groups)
I would be remiss if I did not point out some dangerous results from this regarding intentional blurring of racial truths. Democrats have always branded Conservatives (Republicans) as the bad guys when it comes to dealing with racial differences. Of course that means Democrats are the good guys. And there are plenty of lies in that regard that have been perpetuated for decades:
- Democrats did NOT end slavery as many maintain. Abraham Lincoln led the Civil War to end slavery. He was a Republican;
- Democrats did NOT give African Americans the right to vote. In fact, in great majority Democrats voted against the Constitutional Amendment giving them voting rights. Republicans voted it in;
- Democrats did NOT pass the Civil Rights Act in the early 1960’s. President Johnson (a Democrat) could not get close to a majority of Congressional Democrats to vote for it. Republicans with a majority of THEIR votes passed the law;
- Democrats did NOT get approval for blacks to serve in the U.S. military. Former General and President Dwight Eisenhower (a Republican) led the charge to get Republicans to approve that bill that eventually became law.
Here’s where the Democrats (who are masterful at getting its members in locked-step to back the party’s positions, policies, and actions) have really messed up: getting their adherents to believe in almost anything and most everything their leadership puts out has resulted in millions of Americans to believe untruths. Benign and blind following not only finds Democrat followers walking down the wrong paths, they’re walking hand in hand with other Democrats who because of the group they are in blindly agree to those paths.
Summary
We can go much farther down the road in this conversation, but I’m certain you understand what’s happening around us in this regard. No doubt there are “group-thinkers” in the Republican Party. Why? There are simply many people who prefer to blindly follow than to creatively dig to find facts on their own to believe.
And there is no doubt the Republican Party is full of people who are wrong about many things they believe. That is a product of human nature. Human nature is what powerful politicians have discovered in its weakness, it can be exploited to assist in a political party in achieving Mob Rule, sometimes called “Group-Think.”
I am NOT a Republican nor a Democrat. I am registered in my state as “Other.” But don’t be naive: there are plenty of people in the U.S. and the World who put people like me and those in the “Other” designation with me as a “group.” Some think those in our group are good people while others certainly think those in that group are evil.
What we must learn is that such has always occurred and always will. What we must also learn is responsibility to impact our world by teaching independent thinking and feeding the hunger of the quest for the Truth.
I am convinced that Truth is available for all those who diligently seek it and those who refuse to settle for less. That doesn’t mean everyone must think the same about everything. Such determination must be individual and will always draw from one’s personal circumstances and environment. But Truth is NEVER to be something that is a result of the denigration of anyone else. Your worth is never changed by anything that someone else thinks, says, or does.
God made us all individuals. And there’s no one on Earth identical to you!
