Not All Conservatives Are Greedy
& Not All Liberals Are Dumb
Notwithstanding the fact that every stereotype has a kernel of truth at its core, the evolution of one’s political orientation is more complicated.
Liberals and Lib’ralls alike see Conservatives as greedy because a few of them are just that, and those are the ones we hear about. Other Conservatives get painted with the same brush as their less ethical brethren. In fact, one does not even need to be Conservative in order to be greedy. Thomas Sowell pointed out the hypocrisy when he asked, “Why is it greed to want to keep more of the money you’ve earned but not greed to want to take someone else’s money away from them?” He, like so many who were born into poverty and grew up as Democrats, after leaning how the world works and coming face-to-face with the reality of human nature, became conservative in his thinking.
Conservatives, on the other hand, often think of Liberals as just plain “dumb” because they seem not to understand basic economic realities. What appears to them as “dumb”, many times is actually “don’t care”, or coming from “shallow empathy”. I would venture to say that, driven into the proverbial corner, most Liberals[i]… unfortunately not Lib-ralls will admit that minimum wage laws, rent controls, excessive welfare, and confiscatory taxing are actually counter-productive. So again, the stereotype is wrong because in their hearts they know their Liberal policies don’t work, but the process of giving away other people’s money makes them feel so much better; it is worth the sacrifice.
As for myself [ii]being fiscally conservative, but mostly socially liberal – certainly not Lib’rall, having never been accused of being greedy[iii]at least to my knowledge, but being adult in my thinking, and having seen much of the world’s worst and best, I think I have a good perspective on how it works. I understand now that the so-called evil “Income Gap” is actually the very fuel that drives the engines of free markets, which continue to advance the standard of living in every country where it has been tried, and I think it is safe to say that the stereotypes are probably valid only for the wingnuts at either extreme of the spectrum.
On another note, seeing “greedy” and “dumb” in the same sentence naturally brings up the subject of politicians. I don’t know any greedy or dumb politicians, so I suppose that means I don’t know any politicians.