General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Some Trump fans are upset about a new State Farm tweet... [View all]Bernardo de La Paz
(49,001 posts)Politics is at least two-dimensional, so the "liberal vs conservative" rhetoric is inadequate on the face of it straight from the get-go.
A further problem is that many people indulge in binary thinking. They view themselves as "pretty good" but think that any liberal must be really very extremely bad because, you know, they're liberal.
Both liberals and conservatives, of all stripes, will fall back to a base of justifying their positions on the basis of Freedom.
Social conservatives hate liberals (especially social liberals) because to varying degrees they think they are decadent condemnable creatures who are leading society to the breakdown of the family, destruction of morals, and to hellfire and brimstone ala Sodom and Gomorrah. Some of them haven't even got to the point of accepting miscegenation (race mixing through marriage).
Fiscal conservatives hate liberals ultimately because of viewing things through the lens of the idea of voluntary versus involuntary charity. To varying degrees, they view government spending on poor people and social causes in any form (like public education) as taking from responsible people and giving it to irresponsible people. They frequently have an exaggerated view of the percentage of income that comfortably well off people spend on charity, or would spend if there were almost no taxes. They also tend to have no clue about the cumulative and synergistic effects of a thousand little disadvantages people might experience growing up and in their lives.
Of course, too many social liberals and fiscal liberals have correspondingly distorted views of conservatives.
Social liberals appeal to individual freedom, personal liberty.
Social conservatives appeal to freedom against the forces of darkness, as they see it.
Fiscal liberals appeal to the freedom from crushing disadvantages, for example FDR's third freedom: freedom from want.
Fiscal conservatives appeal to the personal freedom of giving to charitable causes only as much and in ways a person chooses.