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Our very own redstateguy is fond of posting the conservative emails he receives as rants and raves. He recently posted one that purported to describe liberal and conservative views on a number of topics, from a distinctly conservative perspective.
That rave is here: http://www.rantrave.com/Rave/One-Fence-Two-Sides.aspx
In response, I would like to provide the flip side of each issue.
* Liberals who like guns are happy to abide by checks to ensure that they aren't criminals or mentally unstable prior to purchasing a potentially deadly firearm. They regard such measures as reasonable protections for other people's rights and safety. Conservatives who like guns demand instant satisfaction, and to hell with anyone else.
* Conservative vegetarians don't eat meat. Liberal vegetarians don't eat meat. Only militant PETA nuts demand that everyone else stop eating meat. They're not liberal or conservative, they're just crazy.
* If a liberal sees a foreign threat, he or she will go about trying to determine how best to neutralize it. Sometimes this means military action. Sometimes this means diplomacy. Sometimes this means intensive investigative work to bring down terrorist cells before they can strike. The toolbox has many tools, because the world is a complicated place. This greatly disturbs conservatives; their only tool, after all, is a hammer, so if a situation does not require hitting anything, they don't know what to do and would rather hit something anyway.
* Gay liberals would like to be able to go about their lives in peace, grow old and die together, and enjoy the same security and benefits of married life that straight couples receive. Gay conservatives prefer to pretend they're not gay, suppress their sexuality, and marry people who they aren't attracted to, resulting in miserable lives, broken homes, and - if they are politically active - hypocritical sex scandals after devoting their political careers to interfering with the lives of other homosexuals.
* Most black and Hispanic people in the United States are liberals, and regard the insistence on the part of conservatives that they have a victim complex as particularly insulting, given this country's history of oppressing minorities. Black and Hispanic conservatives are rare, and getting rarer as the Republican party continues to marginalize them.
* Liberals recognize the fact that sometimes people who are down-and-out can't get back up on their own. There are people on the streets who belong in sanitariums, and there are people on the streets stuck in untenable situations that could stand on their own if society would give them a leg up. As Ghandi said, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." Conservatives aren't aware that anyone's situation could ever require governmental assistance, despite red states being the largest consumers thereof.
* Conservatives boycott anything and everything under the sun. They boycotted Pepsi for supporting gay rights. They boycotted McDonald's for the same reason. Heck, they even boycotted George Lucas for his third prequel, which they perceived as a polemic against conservative fascism, instead of what it was: A bad movie. But when liberals let advertisers know their ads support racist idiots like Glenn Beck, they scream about their First Amendment rights, as if the First Amendment somehow guarantees *funding* for their favorite talk show hosts.
* Liberals, religious and non-religious alike, recognize that government and religion do not belong intertwined. They're not a peanut-butter/chocolate combination where each makes the other better. Rather, each makes the other infinitely worse, as can be seen in theocracies throughout the world. Conservatives, on the other hand, hate science and any facts that contradict their religious beliefs, because those beliefs are so fragile they require constant reinforcement. When a fact contradicts their interpretations of their religious texts, that fact must be attacked with incredible vigor.
* Liberals recognize the difference between health care and health insurance. They also recognize that right now, health insurance is a racket, a betting game in which the game is rigged against you. They are capable of doing the math required to see that everyone's costs will go down if they profit motive is taken out of insurance, and it is turned into what it should be: A shared pool of resources to cover expensive medical procedures and services for those who need them. Conservatives want the government to keep its filthy hands off their Medicare.
* Liberals see President Obama as a flawed human being who nevertheless seems to be capable of doing the job he has been elected to. Most conservatives disagree with him vehemently, as is their right. Some conservatives have been driven insane by his election, and have convinced themselves he is foreign-born, or secretly a Muslim, or both, or any one of a number of conspiracy theories that allow them to fantasize about him being removed from office.
I hope you find the contrast here instructive, redstateguy.