Everyone knows that Americans are bitterly divided over politics but what is the fundamental nature of that division? What is the core disagreement that separates conservatives from liberals, right from left?

Norman Podhoretz provided a provocative and persuasive answer to that question in a recent Wall Street Journal column (September 10) based on his new book, Why Are Jews Liberals? Podhoretz wrote: The great issue between the two political communities is how they feel about the nature of American society. With all exceptions duly noted, I think it fair to say that what liberals mostly see when they look at this country is injustice and oppression of every kind economic, social and political. By sharp contrast, conservatives see a nation shaped by a complex of traditions, principles and institutions that has afforded more freedom and, even factoring in periodic economic downturns, more prosperity to more of its citizens than in any society in human history. It follows that what liberals believe needs to be changed or discarded and apologized for to other nations is precisely what conservative are dedicating to preserving, reinvigorating and proudly defending against attack.

The bitterness of the current health care debate demonstrates the power of this important insight. Liberals invariably plead that the United States must follow the example of Britain or France, Canada or Cuba, and expand the governmental role in medicine to guarantee health care as a sacred human right. The left insists that despite the high cost of American medical care we actually lag far behind more enlightened countries in health outcomes. Conservatives, on the other hand, while decrying the rise in costs, cite the many ways that the US system leads the world (in technological breakthroughs, as well as responsiveness where America is ranked number one by the World Health Organization of the UN). Conservatives want other countries to learn from us and follow our example; liberals long for the United States to learn from our European counterparts and to follow their example.

In international affairs, similar differences apply. The left wants the United States to act multi-laterally at all times and in all things, emphasizing the danger that well probably make a mistake if we go it alone and ignore world opinion. The right concentrates on the need for American power in the world and stresses the positive role played by this country in every corner of the globe. Conservatives worry that if we wait for other (and often corrupt) international powers to join us in every endeavor, well make a mistake by abdicating the leadership role only we can play by deferring to world opinion.

When it comes to the nations history, the divisions between left and right remain similarly stark. Liberals stress U.S. guilt for slavery, mistreatment of Native Americans, and more than a century of imperialist adventures oppressing nations around the world. The right dwells on the way that America introduced ideals of liberty to all of humanity, gave rise to the planets first anti-slavery society, and rescued the earth from two world wars and the danger of international communism.

The opposing instincts toward America also help explain the liberal-conservative arguments over religion and its role in our society. All recent polls show a vast difference in political alignment between those who place a priority on traditional faith and those who describe themselves as irreligious or unaffiliated. From the days of our Puritan and Pilgrim forefathers, the people who inhabited the New World always placed a higher priority on religious practice and Biblical beliefs than the communities they left behind in Europe. In the 1830s, the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville singled out the powerful influence of fervent Christianity as perhaps the most dominant force in American society, and the clearest distinction between the new Republic and the Old World. Even today, the United States remains by every measure the most religious nation in the western world. For conservatives, the religious character of our past and our people stands as a point of pride; for liberals, its one more reason for embarrassment and apology.

On all of these issues, liberals and conservatives differ dramatically and profoundly. This is not to say that all liberals hate America, or that all conservatives glorify their country unreservedly. But in questions of emphasis the contrast couldnt be more clear: the left stresses Americas failures, shortcomings, hypocrisies, and embarrassments while the right trumpets the nations achievements, blessings, and distinctive advantages. Nothing enrages liberals more than the conservative tendency for jingoistic flag-waving and super-patriotism; nothing bothers conservatives more than the liberal habit of blaming America first and concentrating on historic guilt and present problems.

The more negative attitude by liberals toward the nation in which they live even accounts for the well-known happiness gap in which all survey data shows conservatives as far more satisfied and optimistic about their own lives. Even controlling for factors like race, age, economic and marital status, conservatives top liberals by all measures of happiness (as described in detail by Arthur Brooks in his valuable book, Gross National Happiness.) The liberal embrace of guilt rather than gratitude, and focus on the nations predicaments rather than its possibilities, clearly contribute to the gloomy temperament (and the inevitable calls for sweeping change) that accompany the leftwing world view.

The critical and even fearful attitude toward the United States has come to characterize the left in every corner of the globeand it makes sense to extend the Podhoretz paradigm internationally. Contrasting visions of America distinguish every major conflict in todays world; the role of the United States has been the explosive, polarizing, outstanding international issue for the last twenty years.

In 1989-91, with the Western victory in the Cold War, disputes over American influence and values came to replace the issue that had divided the world for the previous 70 years: the response to Marxism. For more than two generations, attitudes toward socialism and the rise of all-powerful (often totalitarian) governments not only separated the nations of the world, but also characterized political disputes within each nation. The Russian Revolution created the prospect of world-shattering revolt, and conservatives defined themselves by their implacable opposition to that prospect just as liberals argued for the need to embrace or accommodate it. Anywhere on earth, your approach toward Marxist ideology placed you in one political camp or the other, just as your response to Americas influence and example will shape your ideological position from Moscow to Mumbai, from Mombasa to Maracaibo.

Some partisans on the left (in America and around the world) will resist this formulation, insisting that they love the United States just as much as any right winger. The distinction, progressives regularly aver, involves their affection for a perfected America that might, through hope and change, come into existence sometime in the future, or else their nostalgic reverence for an America that once was, but ceased to exist through some malevolent influence (greedy businessmen, the religious right, conniving conservatives, take your pick).

Anyone with a modicum of experience in human relations will tell you that a devotion based on what your love object might become, or may have been in the past, is a suspect and toxic form of affection. If, in a moment of insecurity, a wife asks a husband, Honey, do you love me? the last thing she wants to hear is, Actually, I love the idea of you if you changed completely. In other words, its not advisable to tell the woman in your life that youd adore her if shed only lose fifty pounds, submit to liposuction and breast augmentation surgery, get a new set of gleaming white caps for her teeth, and complete a post graduate degree so shed offer more intriguing conversation.

By the same token, it always seems bizarre to hear liberals insist that they consider themselves committed patriots and enthusiastic America lovers because they love the notion of a new U.S. purged of racism, and pollution, and economic exploitation, and sexism, and homophobia, and Mickey Mouse, McDonalds and the Designated Hitter Rule.

Conservatives have an easier time connecting with the sentiments of everyday Americans because our love of country remains less complicated: we admire and relish and savor the United States just as it is, even with all its quirks and imperfections. For us, the sight of Old Glory in the autumn breeze inspires a sense of instant pride and exaltation, not the bittersweet ruminations of a guilty liberal who automatically evokes embarrassing episodes associated with the flag and sighs over the gap between U.S. ideals and contemporary reality.

The more that conservatives understand and adopt the idea that attitudes toward America divide the left and right everywhere, the better our chances of building durable majorities. The health care debate offers a fine opportunity to spread this notion. While the left hopes that well abandon our distinctiveness and welcome international influence in shaping a new health care system, the right hopes for a clear-cut victory for liberty and against big government a victory that can advance the cause of Americanism as a unique and valuable creed both here at home and around the world.

What is the core disagreement that separates conservatives from liberals, right from left?

According to the SRM its racism. We don't actually oppose 0’s polices on principle; we oppose him because of his race. And this ingrained racism is apparently suppressing our inner Marxist from coming out and supporting the President's Venezuelization of America.

Liberals have morphed into fascist Utopians willing to ram their Utopia down the throats of everyone.

Its really the last gasp of a bankrupt approach to life.

Conservatives want our nation to stay within the trajectory of tradition and its associated culture. They do not believe in "historical justice" forced upon the innocent today for history of alleged imperialism etc, that was supposedly committed when todays American people were not alive. Such is the common fodder of all fascist movements, which the liberal culture has now become, justifying the rape of American freedom with cries of historical justice.We are ruled now by an Obama Junta. They do not represent America, nor its history.

America will not live under tyranny for any excuse or justification given by the left. Count on it.

Over the weekend in DC, hearing various speakers it really crystalized for me. It is about rights. The definition of Rights. How can something be a "right" if it requires something, ANYTHING from another human being? It can't. It is that simple. So if we talk about right to speak or right to be armed or right to assemble and petiton for redress of greivances noe of these requires anything from another person.

Here is where we go off the rails. The RIGHT TO HEALTHCARE. No such thing. There simply can't be. Once you open that Pandora's box you open the path to claims agianst the treasury for all sorts of things, right to housing, right to be free from hunger. Once again, if what you are calling a "right" requires gummint to take from someone else so it can give to you it is not a right. Period. End of story. Full stop.

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Interesting read.

I’d say the author is onto something, although I do subscribe to the conservatives=thinkers, liberals=feelers theory as explaining much liberal behavior.

But truly, anything that helps understand those who chose to be the enemies of the republic is helpful - either in helping convert those who have functioning brains, or to blunt the effectiveness of the rest.

I have to wonder, though. If Europe is so great, why aren’t they Europeans? Why must they change this country - they’re the ones always whining about how great diversity is. Maximum diversity is letting Europe be Europe and letting America be something completely different.

“liberals mostly see when they look at this country is injustice and oppression of every kind”

....not to mention victimization...and you don’t have to be an actual victim either....past victimization counts...if say your g-grandfather was a sharecropper or a railroad porter then you are probably suffering from the “lingering effects” of victimization and need some special legislation to “level the playing field” in your favor.

“Last gasp”? If only it were so. These people believe in the utopian perfection of mankind and our country and “if only” the country were to do this or that their vision would be reached. They will always be with us and will always be determined to tear down sacred traditions and what has empirically proven to work.

It’s really simple. My take: Liberals think a big government nanny state solves all of a nation’s ills. Conservatives think those ills should be addressed within the confines of family and community and resent government intrusion.

I used to think that it had to do with power and control of money, but both Democrats AND Republicans have succumbed to the lure of power and money.

I’d say the author is onto something, although I do subscribe to the conservatives=thinkers, liberals=feelers theory as explaining much liberal behavior.

I agree that the thinking/feeling divide explains a lot, but it's not the whole picture.

Many liberals have a lot of inner turmoil, which they constantly project upon the world around them.

Why the turmoil is there is another question. In some cases, it's probably a function of relentless leftist propaganda, spreading the message of victimhood, and liberals, being unable to think but gravitating towards heavily emotional messages, swallow it all. In other cases, it boils down to mental stability, which is not something that people necessarily have any control over.

I have a family member who has what appears to be full-blown narcissistic personality disorder, straight out of the DSM IV. This person is a full-blown leftist, as wacky as Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich, name any kook. The fact that the leftist "utopias" have caused enormous human misery is totally lost on her: she hears the promise of a utopia and gravitates to it because, to her, it represents a state of peace and stability which she cannot experience within her own mind.

Medved’s argument summarized: it’s all about conditional vs. unconditional love.

The Liberal says, “America, I’d love you if you change.”

The Conservative says, “America, I love you.”

As I have said in my Fourth of July Tea Party Speech, even at its worst, America with all its faults, is a paradise compared to the concentration camp culture of the Machiavellian Marxists who have gotten the upper hand today. Recall what Niccolo Machiavelli had to say with respect to laying republics low:

"When cities or provinces have been accustomed to live under a prince... they do not know how to live in freedom... and a prince can win them over with greater faculty and establish himself securely. But in republics, there is greater life...they do not and cannot cast aside the memory of their ancient liberty, so that the surest way to conquer them is to lay them waste."
--This, from Machiavelli's most famous work, The Prince

So, folks - all of the machinations of the Obama regime begin to make a terrible kind of sense when seen in that light. The people who've now gotten their hands on the apparatus of the American State would rather rule in Hell than live in peace with the rest of us. They will happily reduce Western civilization to stinking pile of rubble and corpses as long as they believe that they will be the ones sitting on top of the ruins. Why? Because a free and prosperous people cannot be enslaved. They must be broken first. Laid waste, just as Machiavelli prescribed so long ago.

If we wish to restore our freedom, there is only one way this can end.

The big, red line dividing liberals and conservatives is drawn right through the U.S. Constitution.

Liberals believe that government can and must do anything and everything possible to make life cheaper, healthier, greener and “better” for the masses, no matter what the cost. (Hey, make those eeeeevil rich folks pay for it!) Just ignore the Constitution, or else pick judges that will legislate from the bench to get around it.

Conservatives believe that personal freedom is the wellspring of all prosperity and that government intrusion is the eternal threat to that liberty. The limited government imposed by the Constitution is the source of our greatness and those limits must be maintained. You are guaranteed only the opportunity to succeed. The actual results are up to you.

At least, that’s my take on it ...

You are guaranteed only the opportunity to succeed. The actual results are up to you.

At least, that’s my take on it ...

That was the Founders take on it too...

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