As T likes to point out, we are worlds apart politically. But we are able to have some quite agreeable discourse, and I've appreciated his contributions here. I visit, too, his blog, Investing from the Right. I really consider myself an a-political animal, but if my blog name were similar to his, I suppose it would be Investing from the Other Right. [g]
We find polarity in most things, and in general polarity is not a problem unless you do not have a fulcrum. I believe that civil discourse coupled with a genuine desire to understand the perspectives of others and well-lubricated with beverage go along way toward creating that fulcrum. Given my profession, I run across more people whose political persuasions are quite different from mine. I generally avoid political and religious discussions with people that I do not know. Among people that I do know, I never have political discussions, but frequently have religious discussions with people who are willing to discuss, rather than debate this or that. But I manage to have some very good friends who are conservatives (very) and who seem to enjoy (as opposed to tolerate!) my being their token, liberally-minded friend.
There is a second passage that I wanted to share with you and T's "poles apart" comment inspired. Now I will ask you to suspend your definitions of liberal and conservative and read this passage from Jose Ortega Y Gasset's, The Revolt of the Masses. After reading this book, I later read John Stuart Mill's, "On Liberty" and realized that JOYG must have been heavily influenced by Mill. I had this passage for many years until I was robbed of it in a computer crash. So, here is my attempt to preserve it for posterity. I hope that it finds a resonance within you as it did with me.
(Jose Ortega Y Gasset. Revolt of the Masses. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1932; 190 p.) pp 76-77.
"The political doctrine which has represented the loftiest endeavour towards common life is liberal democracy. It carries to the extreme the determination to have consideration for one's neighbour and is the prototype of "indirect action." Liberalism is that principle of political rights, according to which the public authority, in spite of being all-powerful, limits itself and attempts, even at its own expense, to leave room in the State over which it rules for those to live who neither think nor feel as it does, that is to say as the stronger, the majority. Liberalism--it is well to recall this to-day--is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy that is weak. It was incredible that the human species should have arrived at so noble an attitude, so paradoxical, so refined, so acrobatic, so anti-natural. Hence, it is not to be wondered at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious to get rid of it. It is a disciplined too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth.
Share our existence with the enemy! Govern with the opposition! Is not such a form of tenderness beginning to seem incomprehensible? Nothing indicates more clearly the characteristics of the day than the fact that there are so few countries where an opposition exists. In almost all, a homogeneous mass weighs on public authority and crushes down, annihilates every opposing group. The mass--who would credit it as one sees it compact, multitudinous appearance?--does not wish to share life with those who are not of it. I has a deadly hatred of all that is not itself."
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