How Are Liberals Different From Conservatives?

This question does not presuppose that it is important to wonder whether they really are. It does not imagine that the differences are so slight that recognizing them at all will require video review. The question I have in mind is really how best to catalog the differences so they can be used on the fly.

Last year, in the 2010 version of P.S. 102, I relied mostly on policy differences. Liberals want to stabilize and extend Social Security, for instance, and conservatives would like to privatize at least part of it. Conservatives want to cover our increased spending by borrowing and liberals want to cover our increased spending by increased taxes. If you are looking for realistic proposals for decreasing spending at the federal level, you can keep on looking. Call me when you find anything interesting.

This year, I am pushing the policy differences back a little and putting some more fundamental considerations first. I have three pictures that I hope will do the job. The first contrasts a community getting its potable water from a reservoir from a community getting it from the kitchen faucet. In the first instance, the water has gone through a purification process so that it is all safe to drink. In the second, the water is not treated at the common site, but people buy and install filters on the kitchen faucets in order to make their water safe to drink.

The point of this comparison is that it costs the government a lot of money to make all the available water safe to drink and a lot of that water is going to be used to wash cars and water lawns. On the other hand, no one is going to get sick from drinking the water. Relying on faucets to do the purification job doesn't cost the government anything. In fact, it supports a brisk business in kitchen faucet filters, which are purchased by everyone who really cares about pure drinking water and who has the resources to purchase and maintain the filters. It is true that some people will get sick from drinking the water, but that will cause a good deal more careful management of the problem as people learn to avoid these bad outcomes by drinking only water they have treated themselves.

This contrasts the high tax, universal benefit, low personal responsibility model with the low tax, selective benefit, high personal responsibility model.

That was supposed to be the first of three examples and--eventually--it will be. But I'm out of time for now. The second will involve a 100 person classroom with only 20 chairs. The third will involve the fundamental characters in the politics v. economics debate.