A while back I had a rather interesting discussion with a liberal friend of mine. While we sometimes disagree on political issues (and sometimes agree) we remain good friends who enjoy debating with each other.
One thing we particularly enjoy is discussing the more idiotic behaviors of the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum. By extremists we mean not the complete nutjobs living on compounds in the desert but rather the more radical aspects just outside the mainstream. The people who end up on CNN or Fox looking like fools.
Today’s topic dealt with liberal attitudes towards President Bush and conservative ones towards President Obama. We both agreed that each side is equally capable of vitriol and that both sides have let loose with some pretty low blows against the guy they don’t like.
But my friend raised the point that as he saw it for some reason the liberals seem a little harsher in their actions. This is not to say that both sides are not disrespectful but for some reason the left (and again here we mean the hard left, not the mainstream left) seem to be a bit more willing to be fairly contemptuous of the other guy.
After a long debate we came to the conculsion that this probably reflects the internal makeup of what is a liberal and what is a conservative. By definition a liberal tends to be something of an iconoclast, a rebel, someone who pushes against the establishment while conservatives tend to support these institutions.
This is not to say that liberals don’t support our basic system of government or that conservatives don’t show contempt from time to time, but as a rule they tend to fall into the categories above.
As a result, when a conservative goes up against Obama his feelings are directed at the person while he has some level of respect (perhaps subconcious) for the the office.
The liberal on the other hand has issues with both the man and the office (indeed he has those feelings about the office even if he likes the person).
Since this conclusion was arrived at in a discussion between a fairly solid liberal (my friend) and an at least right leaning centrist (me) I wondered what the rest of you thought ?