Saturday, June 4, 2016

Are conservatives more American than liberals?

It's not clear what "more American" means or how you can quantify it and measure it, and if you can't measure it, how can you say who has more of it?

However, we can do some things: 
1) People can be American citizens regardless of their political views.  So, in that sense, the answer is "no".

2) Historically, the people who started the USA were not conservatives.  Conservatives at the time were Tories and loyalists. 

So, in that sense, the answer is "no".

3) The essential ideas of the founding of the USA are not conservative, they were radical at the time.  Ideas such as not having royalty, allowing people to vote and so on.  Locke, Montesquieu etc cannot be called conservative thinkers.

In that sense as well, the answer is "no".

4) Moving to modern times, there are some conservatives (by no means all) who seem to think that protesting against America is, somehow, unAmerican.  This notion is preposterous. Indeed, it is, in my view, unAmerican. 

This sort of thing happens on both the level of the individual citizen (e.g. the people who say "America! Love it or leave it!") and, sometimes, instututional level (e.g. Joe McCarthy and HUAC).  

I am unaware of any liberals who espouse such views.

And, once again, in that sense, the answer is "no".


Read other answers by Peter Flom on Quora: Read more answers on Quora.

from Quora http://ift.tt/1U1uwVO

No comments:

Post a Comment