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Moderation, respect and humility: How Conservatives and Liberals


Posted: Dec 1, 2016

Ask my age and I'll tell you that I'm old enough to remember an age of relatively peaceful - and even constructive - coexistence among Americans, whether they self-identified as "conservative" or "liberal." 

I say "relatively peaceful" because I don't mean to imply that people didn't have strong feelings about issues, or that there weren't passionate disagreements.

But there wasn't the raw, nasty, unreasoning hatred that I see today.

Ask my age, and I'll tell you that I'm old enough to realize that this nation needs vibrant conservatism and liberalism - BOTH - in order to realize the full potential of our possibilities and opportunities. 

Sometimes the bus needs to turn right, and sometimes left.

HUMILITY:  "We" (whichever side) don't have all the answers, or even the best answers, to each and every social issue or problem.  "We" can be wrong...even dead wrong.

RESPECT:  That someone holds a different view from yours is NEVER a valid reason to question their integrity, their patriotism or their character.

MODERATION:  Any philosophy - political or otherwise - is capable of being taken to extremes, and in any camp there will be extremists.  When those extremists take over the camp, they threaten the very survival of the camp and must be deposed and expelled from the body politic.

...and this is where the liberal camp finds itself today.  Not to deny that there is some housecleaning and expulsion to be done on the conservative side, but the recent election results must be properly understood, and I see no evidence that liberals have grasped the import of the calamity that fell upon them on November 8th.

It was not a tactical problem.

It was not a money problem.

It was not an organizational problem.

It was a rejection of liberal extremism.  Not a rejection of liberalism per se, but of the extremists who have taken over the liberal camp.

It's happened on the conservative side too, believe me.

Whether or not we can return to a healthy yin-yang relationship between conservatives and liberals will depend, in no small part, on whether the signal that was sent on 11/8 will be properly understood, and on whether, then, the liberals purge themselves of the poisonous extremists who have taken over the party.

I'm very much afraid that I don't see that happening.  A moderate challenged Pelosi for her position, and he lost.  Other liberal insiders are proposing the most shameful radicals for positions of leadership in the party. 

I don't think they learned anything.  If they don't grasp what really has happened to them and correct course, they'll likely lose even more seats in the next midterm.

Conservatives need liberals, and liberals need conservatives, engaged in lively exchange of ideas, and each one constraining the possible excesses of the other.  Either one without the other is not a healthy situation.

The truth very often lies somewhere in the middle, in the boundary region between opposing points of view, and it's in this region that we can come together, hammer out solutions, and move forward. 

I'm old enough to be convinced of that.

;

You should send this to Kelloggs. The Kelloggs Co. - #DumpKelloggs

[ In Reply To ..]
announced on Tuesday its decision to pull ads from conservative media giant Breitbart.com because its 45,000,000 monthly conservative readers are not “aligned with our values as a company.”

In response, Breitbart News, one of the world’s top news publishers, has launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the ubiquitous food manufacturer.

I quit buying Kelloggs products when I heard about a - TN man urinating on a conveyor belt

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at their TN plant. Gross!

Aldi's is much better anyway.

Well, I hope that was a long time ago because I just - Truthhurts

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2 boxes of Special K with red berries 2 weeks ago! I love that cereal. I also love Krave cereal.

Their products also include Cheez-Its, OPop-Tarts, Eggo,Morning Star, Pringles, and Keebler that I know about.

Kelloggs is full of GMO's anyway. I don't eat them. - NM

[ In Reply To ..]
NM
A long time ago Honey Smacks used to be called Sugar - Smacks and Corn Pops were called
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Sugar Pops. Guess they decided to take the word sugar out to make them sound more healthy.

We stopped eating this junk years ago.
Oreo cookies are made in Mexico. They moved out of - Chicago. We stopped buying then.
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USA!

Fine Kelloggs, you have the right to do this but you also - have to accept the consequences.

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This seems like a soon-to-be-failed strategy.

Kellogg’s voluntarily made itself a political enemy to every Breitbart subscriber. Don’t patronize your political adversary.

Kelloggs gave big time to Soros Foundation and Tides - They are big time leftists

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Tony the Tiger and my family have parted company. Therrrrre NOT great! Hope their stock bottoms out.

Ah, man!! - I love Tony the Tiger!

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Tough call for me to make...

There goes my Pop Tarts and Eggo. I buy the Walmart - brands anyway.

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xx

Breitbart is terrible - go Kelloggs - Bannon is terrible

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Come on, really? Do you actually think that site is good? Have you seen the "news" they tout? They are horrible and insulting to many minorities and women.

So of course I will go out and buy lots of Kelloggs! I appreciate their action. I wish more companies would have their guts not to advertise on horrible websites and such as Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. They are terrible.

No, Kellogg's is terrible. But hey - go for the garbage - if you want - and enjoy your type 2 diabetes.

[ In Reply To ..]
"I'm going to chow down on junk and die young because boy do I like that company's political philosophy."

So by that mind-boggling logic, if there was a heroin dealer who didn't like Breitbart, I guess you'd be skin-popping.

Do you feel the same way about the bakery and pizza place? - Their values were mocked.

[ In Reply To ..]
Hypocrites.
Values are one thing - discrimination another
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Conservatives always talk about their rights being taken away when they really mean their "right" to refuse the legal rights of others because it offends them.

Guess what, the right to discriminate is not a right! If you think abortions are wrong, don't get one. If you think gay marriage is wrong, don't get gay married.

You can support bigoted businesses like Chick-Fil-A, Hobby Lobby, and many others by showing them you approve by opening your wallet, and those of us who disapprove can do the opposite. Personally, I find Breitbart despicable and any vendor who publicly withdraws from them gets my business. It's about the only thing we can do is use our consumer power.

I think the values of people refusing others services because they disagree with their lifestyles SHOULD be mocked.

The right to discriminate is not a right.
They were discriminating. They offered to bake the cake, - just didn't want to participate in the
[ In Reply To ..]
wedding. Big difference.

Hypocrites.
The gays wanted to bring attention to themselves and - get special recognition and
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special treatment because of their political agenda.

This is the tactic we have seen and we will continue to see. Every time any gay/homosexual is "offended", they will seek public attention and scream that it's discrimination.
They were discrimination in favor of their religion. - NM
[ In Reply To ..]
NM
Notice how the left never talks about Muslim bakeries - refusing to bake a cake for gays,
[ In Reply To ..]
based on religion.

These Christians baked the cake, just didn't to participate in any ceremony. Same with the pizza place in Indiana.

What about their Christians rights?
One is based on religion (not discrimination) and one is based - on purse politics. Apples and
[ In Reply To ..]
oranges.

#DumpKelloggs!

Well, Kellogg's is not "aligned with my values as a person." - Faux food that makes kids fat.

[ In Reply To ..]
I'd dump 'em, but there's no need. I don't eat the kind of crap they sell, and I don't serve it to the kids either.

The winds of change have blown. Kellogg's stock drops - This is why every smart consumer

[ In Reply To ..]
oriented company stays out of politics.

You cannot afford to tick off half of your potential clients before they even get to your showcase to find out whether you are selling anything they want.

So you agree that Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby - should not be political?

[ In Reply To ..]
No, I think you do not agree with that. Because you agree with them.

Stock prices go up and down. I know for a fact many of us who despise Breitbart are making an effort to buy more Kelloggs and support them. I support companies who withdraw ads from the despicable Rush Limbaugh and others, I support companies who refuse to sell Ivanka Trump garbage, not that I could ever afford that anyway.

It goes both ways. I have not bought anything at Macy's since the 2012 election when Trump was the birther in chief jerkface. They finally dropped his clothing line just last year. He has always been a jerkface and he will never change.

Here's a question for you Trump lovers and that fake Carrier deal, what about Trump bringing his own manufacturing to the US? I doubt it was ever here in the first place, but he could always set an example and bring his own manufacturing back here instead of China, Mexico, and apparently Ivanka now is using Ethiopia.

I'll bet the conversation with Carrier went something like that, well if you want to save jobs and keep manufacturing here, you first! And Trump of course would not have an answer to that except to throw money at them and then claim victory, despite the fact more jobs were lost than saved.
I agree that a company can do what they want and - accept the consequences, but
[ In Reply To ..]
the Hobby Lobby and Chik fil A were religious freedom issues. Not Kellog's, theirs is all political.

Thank you for a well thought out post...SM - Old Anon

[ In Reply To ..]
I really hope posters here take your words to heart, so we can have more civil and production discussions with less name calling and insults. What a wonderful way to bridge our differences.

I tried to hav a conversation over Thanksgiving with a - young family member about this very thing

[ In Reply To ..]
and explained that a long time ago, Reps and Dems used to have the same goals just different ways to achieve them. Now, what the govt does is out of the realm of the Constitution. I tried to actually have a conversation with her why I feel this way (after I listened to her for 15 minutes w/o interruption).

Being the good millennial, she huffed and put her ear buds in, then went to whine about me on social media.

In order to achieve what you pointed out, we have to at least have the same foundation and truth. I just don't see it.

Maybe the next person. SM - Anon

[ In Reply To ..]
you try to have a civil discussion with will be more receptive to at least listening to what you have to say. You can't win them all, but we have to keep trying to open a dialogue with each other. Don't give up just because 1 millennial dissed you.

Not giving up, just saying that one has to have at least - a foundation to start with,

[ In Reply To ..]
and we don't seem to have that anymore.

I agree, but it seems that our core values have changed. - So much anti-America

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today.

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