Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Liberals, Conservatives, and Principles

I just put up a new blog link for my friend John from the chemistry department. He's a great guy, even though we sometimes get in arguments. (homeschooling, John?) John is more or less liberal, I am more or less conservative. Thus we don't always agree on things...

The whole liberal versus conservative thing, however, can sometimes be overcomplicated by party politics. For instance, on Hannity and Colmes the other day we were listening to a lady basically do nothing but insult the President. She offered no evidence, no justification, simply insults (I am quite serious). Shawn Hannity (conservative) then proceeds to tell her this, but then the argument heats up to the point when HANNITY very nearly insulted the Democratic party and his guest. His passionate rebuke was fine for a while, but he went over the line and let too much passion get in the way.

The crux of the matter is that even though I believe conservatives are right most of the time, liberals also have some good ideas. We shouldn't just throw someone's idea out because "he's a liberal" or vote for somebody because "he's a democrat" or "he's a republican." Examine their views, evaluate their policy, judge their character, for that is really what matters.

For instance, another time on Hannity and Colmes, Chuck Norris (die-hard Republican) was describing a plan for a new juvenile justice system which emphasized community service and instilling moral values rather than jailtime. His idea effectively was to train these young offenders into productive members of society. Though I may not necessarily agree with every point of his system, I thought it was a good idea. Get churches involved (I think Norris even mentioned this) and perhaps we have a winner. This isn't particularly conservative, and Colmes even told Norris he was starting to sound like a liberal. (GASP!) Does that diminish the merit of his plan? I don't think so.

Do what's right regardless. That's the message I have for politicians, whether liberal or conservative. If we would just do that party politics would hardly be necessary, and we would move back towards the system that the Founding Fathers envisioned.

So if the President really is a lier, cheater, corrupted individual, then oust him! But until it can be proven without a doubt, would you democrats quit slandering to get your own guy in office? I've heard enough...

Feel free to comment. Am I right? Am I wrong?

Enough pontificating, I need to work on lab reports...