July 7, 2025 • 41 mins
The two most influential political parties in the U.S. have an interesting history and varying viewpoints. In this episode, we explore a brief history of these dominant political parties and look at 25 differences between the positions they hold. As you’ll see, the main difference between the parties has more to do with a worldview and philosophy than it does public policy.
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0:00 Exploring America's Two-Party System with Zach Dangerous Lee
2:42 The Evolution of American Political Parties and Their Ideologies
8:01 Understanding Political Party Colors and Historical Context
10:51 Contrasting Progressive and Conservative Views on Truth and Society
13:04 The Polarization of Political Ideologies and Government Roles
19:01 Ideological Differences Between Left and Right on Key Issues
26:06 Constitutional Interpretation and Drug Legalization Debates
27:41 Political Ideologies and Their Impact on Society
31:30 Debate Over Taxing Vices Versus Personal Responsibility
32:24 Political Views on Human Nature and Social Acceptance
34:53 Ideological Divides in Economic Equality and Education Preferences
37:44 Balancing Individual Liberties and Political Ideologies in America
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological.
I'm your host, Zach Dangerous Lee.
You see how that works with my last name?
I need a better nickname. If you watch the show New Girl,
which is hilarious by the way, it's not just for girls, There's
a great scene where Nick and Schmidt are back in college and
he goes, man, I used to just sleep with so many women.
They used to call me the the thesex haver.
(00:30):
He's like cool name dude. So I need something like that,
that Zach the sex haverly or something, some cool nickname.
I'll let you come up with 1. Today we are talking about
something that is fascinating, especially with the time period
in which we live, which is America's kind of two party
system. So because I'm interested in
philosophy, politics and culture, this will be a
(00:50):
political lecture. And we're going to talk about
the differences between the two main parties in the US,
primarily being the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Now anytime you talk politics, people freak out.
Don't freak out. I forbid anybody to freak out.
And they think that your explanation is unfair, even if
you're totally fair. They don't like the way that you
(01:12):
describe something, even if it's100% accurate.
So let me just say this. Out of the gate, I am going to
try to be as unbiased as I can. I'm going to just try to
honestly give you the facts. I can't be completely unbiased.
On certain issues, I'll learn more right.
On certain issues, I'll learn more left.
I'll give you an example. I like guns, so I will lean
right there, but I also think marijuana should probably be
(01:33):
legal and so I'd probably leanedleft there.
None of this has to do with morality.
It just has to do with legality.And so you're going to see some
areas probably where you, my biases come out, but I'm going
to try to do this as fairly as Ican.
Let me let me say it another way.
If you don't like the way that I'm explaining something or if
you don't like a particular fact, I give, it might be
(01:55):
because you don't like the fact,not because I'm spinning it.
I have found in talking to people about their political
views, a lot of times they don'teven know what their own party
holds. OK, so let's talk briefly about
the history of these. There's there's other parties,
there's the Green Party, right? There's independence.
There's my favorite I think is Teddy Roosevelt's the Bull Moose
(02:16):
Party. Awesome.
I just want to vote for that regardless of their policies,
just for the name, right? You've got the donkey, you've
got the elephant, and then you've got the bull moose.
And so, but today we're primarily talking about the two
parties that actually ever gain any sway, Democratic Party and
Republican Party, the Democrats and the Republicans.
Let's do a brief history and then I want to go over something
(02:36):
like, I don't know, 2526 differences between the parties
of where they are today. So let's just jump into the
history and here we go. First of all, the original
framers of the Constitution werevery wary of political parties.
When you start getting partisanship, you all of a
sudden people don't care about necessarily what's best for
everybody. They just try to go with their
tribe. And so they were concerned about
(02:57):
that. Alexander Hamilton and George
Washington, he's kind of a big deal.
He invented quarters. Kidding.
We're both concerned about what political parties would do.
What happened, though, is you started getting groups that were
more federalistic. They they were focusing more on
the ways the states could work together.
Let me say this a, a, a strongerway.
(03:18):
America was never meant to just be like America.
It is the United States of America.
We are a federation of states that team together for certain
things like constitutional rights to have a military there,
there's some benefits, trade with other countries, etcetera.
There's some benefits of being part of this group.
And So what you have eventually though, is you have Washington,
(03:39):
Hamilton and Adams supporting what is called the Federalist
position. And you have Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison supporting theanti federalist position.
If you want to understand more about federalism, if you want to
understand more about the the arguments for teaming up
together as part of a nation instead of just being separate
independent countries as little states, obviously The Federalist
(04:01):
Papers would be a great, great place to start.
Now eventually what happened is this the party of Jefferson that
was more anti Federalist was called the Democratic
Republicans, which is where we get these names.
It's kind of confusing because those are opposites today.
But it was the Democratic Republicans, which is kind of
like calling somebody if they'rea baseball fan, you're like,
you're the Yankees Red Sox position and you're like, wait,
(04:23):
the Yankees and the Red Sox are like a famous rivalry.
They they they don't go together.
But anyway, that's where the theterms come from.
You have the party of Jefferson being the Democratic
Republicans. The party would eventually split
between Jackson and the Democrats.
OK, now this is going to blow your mind.
Let me just say this. I'm going to say this several
times. The the the.
(04:43):
Positions that the parties hold today are almost the opposite of
how they were founded. OK, wait, what?
So the party of Jefferson was called the Democratic
Republicans. But eventually you get this
split and you get Jackson and the Democrats, which originally
were for states rights and minimal government notice that's
the opposite that they as they are today.
(05:04):
And you got the Whig Party, which was more in support of
like a National Bank and more about this bigger government
banding together. So notice at this point, you
have under Jackson, you have theDemocrats and then you have the
Whigs. The Democratic Party was
officially started in 1828 and the Republican Party in 1854.
(05:24):
You'll get different dates online.
It's hard to nail down sometimesofficially when this counts,
because there's these preliminary parties and all this
stuff. But those are good.
Good estimates as far as the dates that they were started.
So you get the Democrats and getthe wigs.
The wigs are eventually gonna fizzle out, and then you get the
Republicans. The Republican Party was born
and made-up of former wigs, Democrats and independents, and
(05:46):
they specifically band together to fight against the issue of
slavery. Remember guys like Abraham
Lincoln, he's a Republican and the Republican Party originally
is there to fight against slavery.
That's one of the major platforms that they promoted
when they were started. So now you have the Democrats,
which are primarily pro slavery.You have the Republicans which
are against slavery. You have the Democrats primarily
(06:06):
in the South. You have the Republicans
primarily in the North. You have the Democrats for
states rights. You have the Republicans more
for a bigger national kind of system, which is extremely
different. And so that's how they started
though. So again, I'm not commenting on
whether that's good, bad or indifferent.
I'm just saying that's that's where the parties started.
You're going to see that they'regoing to take a pretty big
shift. After the war, the Republican
(06:29):
Party pushed for economic growth.
They kind of became the party ofindustrialization.
Remember, a lot of them were in these northern states where you
have factories and industry and these kind of things.
So they kind of pushed for big business and that really made
them the party of wealth in the early 1900s, right?
So if you talk to your grandparents or great, great
grandparents, they probably still see the Republican Party
as the the party of wealth of rich big businessmen.
(06:52):
That was kind of a thing in the early 1900s.
What shifted, the big shift is going to come with what is
called the New Deal. So after the Great Depression,
when everything sucks monetarily, don't put all your
money in the stock market, by the way.
Well, after everything is bad monetarily, that you've got the
market crash, you get the Great Depression.
It was FDR that instituted a number of liberal government
(07:12):
programs in what was called the New Deal.
This caused conservative Democrats to become Republican.
So this is kind of a breaking point in the parties where
they're going to say wait a second, wait a second.
As a Democrat, I've always been for states rights and in the
South and these kind of things, smaller government.
But these Republicans have gotten wealthy and the stock
(07:33):
market crashed and I need help and there starts to be this
shift. Black Americans traditionally
supported the Republican Party due to its anti slavery
platform. However, due to the
progressivism and pro civil rights views of Harry S Truman,
black people became increasinglymore aligned with the Democratic
Party. So you get this slow shift of
what the parties were originallyversus what they are today,
(07:55):
which I just find fascinating. OK, fascinating.
But that's that's where these parties come to prominence
throughout time. These aren't the only parties
that exist. They're not the only parties
that have ever existed. I want somebody to get like real
fired up about like the wig party.
Like they run and they're like, we need that this issue and they
just freak out and they wear wigs.
That would be fantastic. My.
Wig Anyway, so today the the parties are almost the opposite,
(08:18):
not in every area, but in a lot of areas that they started out
as or as which they started out again, all in sentences, in
preposition, but only if I have to.
Let's talk about the political parties today.
OK, So there's a brief history, a short history.
I don't think that's what's mostinteresting about this lecture.
What's interesting are the positions.
So first of all, let's talk about the positions.
You have the Democrats and you have the Republicans.
(08:40):
First of all, the terms left andright.
Why do we call the Democrats theleft and we call call the
Republicans the right? That has to do with ceding of
the National Assembly during theFrench Revolution, OK?
The left was the more radical faction that was wanting more of
a change, whereas the right, those that sat on the right in
the National Assembly were more of the conservatives, right,
more of the conservative faction, which is is what you
(09:00):
have with these terms today. The original color of the left
though is not blue. Today we do red and blue.
The original color of the left is red.
OK, so so think about groups that are more socialistic or
communistic that typically the color is red.
So you have this, for example, with the USSR before they became
Russia. You have this with North Korea.
(09:21):
You have this with China. Red is the color of
collectivism, OK. And so originally, the left's
color was red and the right's color was white, which has
nothing to do with white supremacy.
That was just this this conservative, traditional, even
some people that were pro monarch.
Was was was the color of the right, but that was it.
So, so different colors. Originally red was left.
(09:42):
This is why you got during the Cold War, there was a popular
phrase which is better dead thanred.
That doesn't mean that they hated the.
Republicans or something like this.
What it meant is that they didn't want to give in to
communism again. Red was the color of communism
originally. So brief history, left, right,
red, blue. What was this was going to say?
(10:05):
I might be having a stroke and I'm smiling with my whole face.
Let's talk about the differencesbetween the political parties.
By the way, don't contact me. These are very broad strokes.
I'm going to say some of these. And you say, Zach, that's a
little bit of an oversimplification.
I know this is a podcast. I'm trying to summarize
everything in contemporary politics in a short podcast.
So of course this is not this. Is going to be.
(10:25):
Crass 2 broad strokes. Some of you are going to hate
it, but if you'll pay attention and you'll have an open mind,
you're going to learn a lot fromyour boy.
This is why I'm here. OK, let's talk about some
differences of the political parties.
First of all, you have one side that is liberal or progressive,
the left, and another that is more conservative, the right.
What do those terms mean? If you are somebody who is
(10:49):
liberal or progressive, here's what that means.
It means you think that because there's been a lot of bad things
in the past, there have been a lot of bad things in the past.
There's been oppression, there'sbeen inequality, there have been
wars that didn't have to happen,etcetera.
You have a tendency to say let'schange, let's move to something
in the future. You have a tendency to say that
truth, goodness and beauty. You have a tendency to say that
(11:11):
what would work best in a society or a state is something
that we move toward. It's in the future.
Truth, goodness and beauty is something we look to the future
to find, and that's something that we are progressing.
Hence the term progressive toward.
That is the idea. OK, things were done in the
past, not great. There was the Inquisition and
people were burned at the stake and all these kind of things.
We need to look in the future and figure out the best way to
(11:33):
run society because what we did in the past has not worked.
If you're a conservative, you say what worked in the past is
what's going to work in the future.
In fact, the past worked great. That's how we got to today.
Yes, it wasn't perfect. Yes, there were a lot of bad
things that happened, but we don't want to just jettison
that. We want to look to the past for
truth, goodness and beauty, and for what people did in the past
(11:54):
that made a state work versus trying something new that might
not work at all. This is why those that are more
conservative want to retain the way that things have
traditionally been, whereas those that are more progressive
want to change that. And this can be issues related
to taxation, it can be issues related to economic policy, but
it can also be social issues. Someone who's a conservative is
going to say, what is the definition of marriage?
(12:15):
And they're going to look backwards, Man and woman,
monogamous. Somebody who is more progressive
or liberal liberal will look to the future and say, well, what
could marriage be? Are we stuck in this
conservative platform? Maybe marriage can be between
two men, two women, three women,whatever it might be.
And so that is the idea, though.So to summarize that point, the
left being more liberal or progressive has a tendency to
(12:36):
say truth, goodness and beauty. What's best for the state will
be something we are moving toward.
We're moving out of some bad things towards something that is
better. Those that are conservative
think truth, goodness and beautyis more found in the past and
should be retained. And you should be a little bit
suspicious of new ideas. Now, I don't mean new ideas like
in medicine or technology. They're not like saying get rid
of your iPhone or something likethat.
(12:57):
But as far as how family works, how taxation works, how, what
role the government should have,how voting should happen, these
kind of things #2 on the left you have a tendency.
Again, these are broad strokes. Not everyone agrees with this,
but to have a more of a large central government.
And on the right, you want more decentralized government.
It's more of a focus on states rights.
To give a a great example of this, Roe V.
(13:19):
Wade was overturned recently, a few years ago, and everybody
freaked out kind of on both sides.
One side was celebrating, the other side was not celebrating.
But what most people didn't understand what the issue was,
the issue was not abortion. OK, pay attention to what I'm
saying if you think the issue isabortion.
The issue is not abortion. The issue was, is abortion A
(13:41):
constitutional right? OK, So what the Supreme Court
justices decided was not women have no rights, you can't get an
abortion. What they said was this is a
states rights issue. It is not a constitutional
issue. You're not going to find some
right to abortion in the Constitution.
Again, I'm not giving you my political position.
I'm just telling you that's a fact.
If I want to defend abortion, there's an argument I can give,
(14:02):
but it's not from the Constitution.
And so if I want to shoot down abortion, there's an argument
that I can give. And it's also not from the
Constitution because the issue was, is abortion A
constitutional federal big government thing, or should it
be reserved to the states? And it should be reserved for
the States, because anything notexplicitly mentioned or by
necessary logical deduction in the Constitution belongs to the
(14:24):
States. And so you have large
centralized government pushed onthe left and then more of a
decentralized government pushed.On the right, on the left, you
have more of a focus on pure democracy, counting heads.
On the right, you have more of afocus on a Republic and the
Electoral College. OK, now it's interesting.
Individual rights do in a sense,conflict.
(14:44):
Individual head counting of votes sometimes can conflict
with the Electoral College. 1 emphasizes states rights, the
other emphasizes individual rights, and the two are at odds.
By getting rid of states rights,you increase individual rights.
By getting rid of individual rights, you increase states
rights on that particular issue.So it's interesting.
You are going to have a limitingof rights one way or the other.
But there is a tendency for those on the left to sometimes
(15:05):
push more for a pure democracy, whereas those on the right would
say no, no, no, you, you can't do that.
A pure democracy can sometimes override the rights of a
minority. So you have to have a Republic.
You have to have certain rights that are protected regardless of
what the masses think. And so the two sides again will
fight on that. Some say, well, we need to count
heads. We need a pure form of democracy
(15:26):
because at the end of the day, more people living in a country
should have more of a say than the minority, whereas the other
side would say no, you can have a tyranny of the majority and so
you have to respect things like states rights, you have to
respect certain boundaries that cannot be voted away, etcetera.
On the left you have more of a regulated market that the
government will help things function more freely.
(15:49):
Sometimes when you get this unregulated market, you get some
crazy things that happen economically and financially,
whereas on the right they're going to say no, a deregulated
market works much better. Read Adam Smith, go read Wealth
of Nations. He's very clear that when people
pursue their own interest, everyone benefits.
Yes, the gap between rich and poor is bigger, but the poor are
(16:09):
higher up than poor in other countries.
Our homeless people have cell phones and they don't have cell
phones when they're homeless in Africa.
And so it's a, it's a different,different approach.
So you have 1 though that says the government should have more
intervention in economic policies and in the market.
And then you have another one that says that they should have
left. Next you have on the left it
tends to be more communitarian, whereas on the right it it it
(16:33):
tends to emphasize more individualism.
So the left is going to say we need to do things that are
better for the group or the whole.
Those on the right will say no, what's better for the group or
the whole is protecting individual rights, which is
better for everybody, and then you can voluntarily work
together. So it's not as though left is
saying group and right is sayingno group.
Left is saying a group that is set up in the fabric in the
(16:57):
structure of the government or set up in the structure of our
lives, kind of imposed top down,whereas the right says no, those
kind of structures should be voluntary.
That's something that you shouldconsider.
On number six, again, I've got so many, this is going to take
forever. Let's take a little break.
We'll have some fancy music. 6 Positive rights versus negative
(17:23):
rights. Pay attention to this because
this is huge. Both sides want their rights and
they want their rights protected.
Those on the left have a tendency to push for what are
called positive rights. What does that mean?
That means the government gives you something, whether that's
healthcare, whether that is Social Security, a program
that's set up for you, differenttypes of welfare programs.
(17:45):
When people say I have a right to education or I have a right
to healthcare, they're talking about positive rights.
What that means is that the government is positively giving
you something. Those on the right are.
Going to talk about what are called negative rights.
What that means is the rights you have are given to you in the
Constitution. They're actually given to you
before that. They're natural and inalienable,
but the Constitution codifies them and so you have your
(18:07):
rights. Negative rights means the
government's job is to get out of your way.
It's to prevent the government or other individuals from
hindering you from doing what you want to do.
So your rights to life, liberty,the pursuit of happiness,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to bear arms,
whatever, those are rights that you have.
The government doesn't give themto you the rights that their job
(18:28):
is to protect those rights. It's to keep others from trying
to get in your way or take thosefrom you.
Whereas those on the left say no, the government owes you more
than that. They owe you positive rights.
They owe you, again, depending on what it is, whether it's
healthcare, education, welfare systems and programs, etcetera.
OK, so they're meaning rights ina different way, typically on
the right and on the left. By the way, you're realizing how
(18:48):
polarized the two parties have become.
This was not always the case, OK?
Many people decades ago would vote for whoever their favorite
candidate was, and they didn't care about the party.
The parties are extremely polarized today.
What was the biggest debate 60 years ago?
I don't know Social Security or something.
Whereas today it's, it's in every issue, it's, it's moral
issues, it's social issues, it'smarriage, it's transgender
(19:11):
surgery, it's, it's everything, right?
#7 The left has a tendency to ask this question when making
decisions. What would be ideal?
OK, in a perfect world, what would be ideal?
The right has a tendency to ask this question, what would
practically work? So one is asking, what would we
do in a perfect world? The other one's saying in a
(19:33):
world that's not perfect, it will never be perfect.
What would practically work? Again, those are different
ideologies or ideologies #ideological.
Get the T-shirt made, buy some swag #8.
On the left, you have a focus onenvironmentalism and the focus
on climate change. On the right you have more of a
focus on what are called industrial rights.
(19:54):
So whereas the left will say, hey, the, the, the globe is
getting hotter, we're putting out all these harmful emissions.
We need to restrict certain forms of industry.
The right will say, don't restrict certain forms of
industry. We, we need to produce
electricity cheaply. We need to produce, you know,
gasoline cheaply, etcetera. Allow me to go pursue business.
So there's there's disagreement on on these issues. #9 the LGBTQ
(20:20):
plus movement versus traditionalheterosexuality.
Again, the left is going to pushmore for what they would
consider to be sexual liberation, and the right is
going to push more for what theywould consider to be traditional
views of marriage and sexuality.As a clarifier there, though,
the right is not saying you don't have a right to do what
(20:40):
you want sexually with another consenting adult.
The right says you do. The right says that you don't
have a right to read that on to other people.
You don't have a meaning. If you want to marry, if you're
a man and you want to marry a man, you can do and say whatever
you want, but it's not marriage.So don't make it a governmental
thing. Or if you want to dress like a
woman and say that you identify as a woman, you can do whatever
(21:02):
you want. Just don't make me have to use
your pronouns. You think about gender, what you
think about gender, and I'll think about gender, what I think
about gender. We both get to think and use the
words that we want when it comesto gender.
You respect my rights. I'll respect your rights.
Just, you know, don't do drag shows for kids or whatever it
is. And so there there is a it's not
that one party says you have thefreedom to do this and the other
doesn't. Both parties would say,
(21:23):
constitutionally, you have the freedom to do what you want with
other consenting adults. Sexually what they're going to
say, though, is where does this play out in other areas of
society where it's. Forced upon you.
Those on the left though, will counter and say what, what do
you mean? You, you're, you're not allowing
me to live a certain way. You are persecuting me by using
(21:43):
these kind of terms and such. So it has to be government
mandated. So they they disagree on these
issues #10 the left is for gun restrictions for legal gun
owners and the right is gun rights for legal gun owners.
Why did I? Phrase it that way.
Why didn't I just say pro gun and anti gun?
Neither party is for illegal gunuse.
(22:04):
Neither party is for violent like gun violence.
Like you'll see all these statistics about gun violence.
Neither party wants gun violence.
Or I remember after there was a mass shooting, one of the there
was a school that did this big March in protest against gun
violence, which I thought, who'sfor gun violence?
The left is for the restriction for legal gun owners and the
right is for gun rights for legal gun owners.
(22:25):
The bad guys are going to do what they want regardless.
So you're only ever talking about with gun control stuff for
those that follow the laws anyway.
For those that are legal, legal gun owners, should there be more
restrictions because kids can gain access to them or because
even people that are law abidingcitizens can snap, people can
commit suicide, etcetera? Or should there be more rights
to protect yourself from the badguys that have guns because
(22:47):
they'll always have guns? Remember a gun free zone And I'm
going to have a whole issue on gun control just because it's
fun, I'm going to do it while wearing weapons.
I'm kidding. Remember the the gun or gun free
zones are only gun free for people that follow those signs.
They're just, they're self-defense free zones.
They're not actually gun free zones.
But that's that's see that one you can see where I lean, but
not on every issue anyway. So that's just because I'm a
(23:08):
shooting instructor and I like guns.
Bang, bang. All right #11 The left is for
looser immigration policies. The right is for stricter
immigration policies. The left thinks it should be
easier to become a citizen. Many on the right think it
should be easier to become a citizen, but it is stricter with
immigration policies on the right, especially with the, the
border crisis that we've had in the, in the US recently.
(23:29):
This is, I'm in 2024 right now as I'm recording this.
And so over the last few years, there's been quite a bit.
And so right now this is actually something that you're
seeing the parties agree a little bit more on.
They're both saying, hey, there is a there is a crisis, there is
a problem that they but they disagree on how to fix it.
They disagree on practical issues that come up.
So almost any issue that comes up every week, you're going to
get commentary on the left and the right on whatever the issue
(23:51):
is. This can be anything from the
killing. Of a gorilla.
To school stuff. To whatever it is, I I think a
great example of this would probably be the COVID pandemic.
So the left and the right, the COVID-19 pandemic responded
differently to that pandemic. Both.
Took precautions. Red States and blue states took
precautions. Blue states typically took more
(24:13):
precautions, but it's it's an again, an ideological,
ideological difference. Whereas the left had a tendency
to promote greater safety at theexpense of liberty, the right
had a tendency to promote greater liberty at the expense
of safety. So one of the questions you have
to ask is during something like a national pandemic, or in this
(24:36):
case, international. What is the role of government?
Is it to protect your liberties and advise you to keep you safe?
Or is it? To mandate things to keep you
safe and keep others safe at therestriction of your personal
liberties. That's a question you can answer
for yourself. The left is pro-choice and the
right is pro-life. And this is pretty stark.
There's a pretty stark contrast.OK, Some people on the right
(24:58):
will allow it for certain reasons, incest or rape or
something like that. But generically, in broad
strokes, the right is typically against all forms of abortion,
whereas the left is is for that,because what they're going to
say is. You've got to.
Protect the choice of the mother, though.
The there's a, a, a baby or theywould say a fetus in that woman.
(25:20):
It is in her body. And so she needs to have some
sort of say of how this works. It's my body, my choice.
And so the right's going to say,yes, the baby's in your body,
but the baby's not your body. It has a different heart and a
different brain and different DNA.
It's a different human. So it's not the same.
And so they'll go back and forth.
The, the, the left will say it'snot really fully a human until
(25:41):
it's viable or until it's out ofthe womb or whatever it might
be. The right will say, Nope, it's a
human in the womb. It has dreams, it kicks.
This is a human by the way. It's, it's never viable.
Like once it's born, you still have to take care of it a lot.
And so they'll argue back and forth.
So, but those those are pretty clear party lines on both sides.
How do they interpret the Constitution?
(26:02):
This is different. On the left, the Constitution
should be interpreted, listen tothis, as a living document that
changes meaning over time and culture.
Whereas the right would say the Constitution should be
interpreted as an historical document by looking at the
original meaning and how it was interpreted throughout America's
history. So this is kind of who
determines the meaning of a text.
It is kind of a hermeneutics question.
(26:23):
Both sides, by the way, agree that the Constitution allows the
government to vote in new laws and new things and even
amendments to the Constitution. So they're not saying it can
never change. They're saying.
How do we know? That we the the Constitution
allows amendments we look back historically and see that that's
what the founding fathers meant here's why here's what it means
in this text. Here's how they interpret it.
(26:44):
Here's how other courts in the Supreme Court has interpreted in
the past. And they're making a historical.
Case, whereas the left. Will say no, that's not how you
interpret documents. You don't try to find the
author's meaning historically originally.
What you do is you find the meaning today.
It includes reader response theory.
It includes A differing view of hermeneutics and interpretation
than the view of the right. But the left thinks it's a
(27:06):
living document that changes meaning over time and culture,
whereas the right thinks it's anhistorical document #15 The left
is for legalizing the legalizingof certain recreational drugs,
such as marijuana. The right is against the
legalizing of certain recreational drugs such as
marijuana. Most of them don't push to just
legalize all hard drugs like meth, but on these kind of
(27:28):
things. And this is a, this is a place
where I think I'm not saying this is right, wrong or moral or
immoral. I think legally something like
marijuana should be legal because it's, I mean, it's less
harmful for you than alcohol. And alcohol is already legal.
And it's not the government's job to protect you and your
health. So that's ironically one of the
places where the left seems to be pushing more for individual
(27:48):
rights, whereas the right thinks, no, this will lead to
degrade, the degradation of society.
It's a gateway drug. It will hurt these things and.
So anyway, take that to be what what you will, but that's that's
where they stand on the issue #16 the left tends to be more
globalistic, whereas the right tends to be more nationalistic.
The left will say let's be a part of a larger.
(28:10):
System. Let's work more with other
countries. Let's focus on these global
issues. The right will say we have to
focus on the national stuff 1st and then we can focus on global.
Issues. And so it's it, it has to do
with an issue of focus. Both of them want to do what's
best for the country or what they believe is best for the
country, but they also want to help others.
The right will have a tendency to say, let's do what's best for
(28:32):
our country first. Then when we have extra and
we're in a better place, then wecan help others because the
right has been pretty open to going and helping other
countries militarily or with aidor whatever, whereas the left is
going to say, hey, we can't consider ourselves first.
There are other nations that have it worse than us.
We have to consider things globally as a foundational point
as well #17 the left tends to benow.
(28:57):
This is totally something that'schanged.
So listen to this versus the little history I gave.
You at the beginning. Originally, the left was the
party of the Democratic South. It was poor people, it was
states rights, it was pro slavery, it was all this kind of
stuff. That has also shifted.
Right now, the left tends to be the party of the cultural
(29:17):
elites. And the poor, it's very
interesting. So on the left, you'll have the
poor. A lot of, you know, if you think
of cities that are just doing really terrible, you think of
Detroit and Baltimore and. You know, Los Angeles as far as
like crime and homelessness and these kind of things, Los
Angeles is doing great in other areas.
They're they're all, they're allleft-leaning cities, right.
(29:39):
So it tends to. Be the party of the very poor,
but also the cultural elites, most professors, entertainers,
movie stars. A lot of ultra wealthy cultural
influencers that own a big tech companies, all this kind of
stuff have a tendency also to beleft.
So it's really interesting. You have they're kind of the the
party of the the extremes on thespectrum.
It's kind of the the poor and then the cultural elites.
(30:02):
Whereas on the right, again, right now these these could
change and it wasn't this way inthe past.
The right tends to be the party of the middle class, kind of the
average income earner and above.So maybe you could say middle
class and and upper middle class, that tends to be the
party on the right. The left has a tendency to
promote higher taxes, whereas the left wants lower taxes.
(30:22):
The idea on the left is if we tax more wealthy people, we'll
have more money and programs to help those that are poor.
The view on the right is we'll help the poor by inputting it
more into the economy and growing businesses so that they
can be paid more and they can get a better job and there's
more jobs to choose from. And so one is wanting the
government to care for the poor,the other one says that the poor
(30:43):
will naturally be taken care of as the economy as a whole does
better. Again, the, the, they would say
that the, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships kind of
thing. A poor person in America can be
overweight. That does not happen in Somalia.
Which means that though there's a bigger gap between rich and
poor, the poor here is higher upthan the poor person in a
country that doesn't have more of a capitalistic system.
(31:06):
Not saying I agree or disagree with that.
That's the argument though. OK #19 they will promote
government taxes on certain vices.
So they'll push more for taxing things like sugary sodas.
Maybe that will keep people frombeing overweight, tobacco
companies, etcetera. Whereas the rights going to push
more personal responsibility. OK, if you've never seen Parks
and Rec, it's a great show and you've got Ron Swanson who's
(31:26):
uberly right wing and he is justfor like eating all the bacon
and drinking all the sugary soda.
But they have a they have a, what is it called?
I didn't put this in my notes. It's called.
Punch Burger. It's like a fast food joint.
And they have a, a, a drink. And the size is called baby, not
because it's small, but it's thesize of a baby.
And it's just like so much sugar.
(31:47):
How is this a child size soda? Well, it's roughly the size of a
2 year old child. If the child were liquefied.
It's a real bargain at 1:59. The left is going to push more
for the government helping tax these vices, whereas the right
will say, no, don't tax them. You have personal
responsibility. Drink and eat less if you want
to lose weight. It's not the government's job to
do that. Again, they're going to
disagree. Can the government not help?
(32:08):
Is it not? I mean, is it not good to tax
tobacco, right, which makes it harder for people to pay for it.
So maybe they won't. But should we not be helping
people out overcome these vices,Whatever.
So those are the views again, ofthe two number 20, the left has
a tendency to view humans as naturally good or neutral.
The right has a tendency to viewhumans as naturally bad or
selfish. This is really important with
(32:30):
your politics. Your view of human nature will
determine where you land on different political issues.
If you think people are naturally good or neutral, then
you trust a bigger government because they're going to help.
People. But if you think that people are
selfish and bad, you don't want a bigger government because
they're going to use it for the benefit of the government and
not the people. Or if somebody shoots up a
school because people are naturally good or neutral, the
problem is access to guns. If you're on the left, the
(32:52):
problem on the right is because people are bad or selfish, the
problem is not access to guns. The guns don't kill people on
them by themselves. It's the evilness.
The evilness in the person. OK, evilness, the evality, the
evil. I'm going to come up with these
neologisms. It's a fun word.
If somebody is a racist, the left will say you can educate
that out of them. Again, they're born good or
(33:13):
neutral. They just need to be taught.
They were taught racism or they're ignorant.
Education can solve it. The right's going to say, yes,
you can teach them, but that's not going to solve the problem.
They're educated racists, and the problem is again, a moral
issue, right? It's selfish and selfishness.
Almost done you with me. Who?
I don't know how you're going tovote after this, but consider
these things #21 the left promotes more of social and
(33:36):
moral acceptance by a wider audience.
Whereas the right is going to promote social and moral
individuality, OK, the left is going to say support this
person's social or moral views. The right is going to say you
don't have to support that person's moral or social views.
You got to protect the right to do it, but you don't have to
champion it. Maybe a good example of this
(33:57):
that sounds kind of generic. Maybe a good example of this is
when it's gay pride. Month Why are you gay?
Who says I'm gay? You are gay, whereas those on
the left will have a tendency toto, to change their, you know,
signature lines and their banners at work and all these
things as as a, a rainbow flag or something.
(34:18):
The right will say you don't have to do you can if you want.
You have a right? To, but you shouldn't force
people to. Well, we need to have everybody
do it to stand behind it and letthem know they're supported
culturally. Well, they don't have to be
supported culturally because people have individual rights
and they go back and forth. If you're, if you're starting to
get discouraged and be like, man, these are different.
Yeah, welcome #22 The left has atendency to promote what's
(34:41):
called economic equality and theright economic inequality.
Let me be clear. They're not saying that people
should have equal rights and andnot equal rights.
They both believe in equal rights.
Constitutionally, the the the left is going to say though,
that the gap between rich and poor should be closer, whereas
the rights going to say why is why is that the case?
(35:03):
Why? Why should it be closer?
Is it morally wrong for somebodywho comes up with a great idea
and is really smart and talentedto get paid more for that idea?
And So what you have on the leftis you have, there should be a,
the inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor should be
narrowed. Whereas on the right, they're
going to say, no, you can have really rich and really poor, but
the worse off, again, are still better off under a system that
has more wealth in the system. And there's nothing wrong with
(35:26):
there being a bigger gap betweenrich and poor.
In the same way that somebody can be really educated or
uneducated, uneducated, that person who's really educated
didn't do something wrong. It's not like he took it from
the uneducated person. There's not a set number of
dollars and as the the rich get richer they eat up more of the
dollar so the poor can't have it.
It's not a pie chart, right? Money is just a symbol of an
economic system. But the left is going to say no.
(35:48):
Wait a second though, when you have a big gap between rich and
poor, the poor can't ever get there.
It's not that you have equality.They start further behind the
line. Like if you're running a race,
it's not just you have two people and one guy's faster.
The poor person is starting way behind and so it's going to take
them a lot longer to catch up. If they can't at all, you have
to give them a boost. To get that.
Starting line closer, This is why there is sometimes talk on
(36:10):
the left and this is, I'm not saying this is a mainstream left
position, but there's talk on the left sometimes of what would
some type of redistribution of wealth or higher taxes on the
rich look like versus the right has a tendency to have an
allergy to that. On the left you have body image
positivity. On the right you have promotion
of physical fitness. This is a new thing, OK.
(36:30):
You'll see a lot of people saying that to be pro physical
health is being a fascist or something like this.
On the left you have the body image positivity movement.
So if you are overweight and someone critiques you, they are
fat shaming you. A doctor should not tell you to
lose weight. You're just as healthy when
you're obese as if you're not obese.
Those in the gym are promoting, you know, dangerous elitism.
(36:54):
So you do have that as a new weird thing that they fight
about. The left has a tendency more to
favor state sponsored education,IE public schools, whereas the
right has a tendency to favor private school, home school, or
a voucher system where people could take taxes instead of just
giving it directly to public schools.
They could pick what school theywant to send their kid to.
Good public schools, good private schools would get more
(37:15):
government money. And so it would become a
competition. Your kids, it would.
It would make the bar higher foreducation because everyone will
be trying to give the best education so they could get
money. But anyway, the the the left has
a tendency to sponsor state's favorite state sponsored
education. The right has a tendency not to
do that. One again is a bigger system. 1
(37:37):
is a smaller system. 1 is prettyeasy for those who are not
wealthy. Right, So the poor can send
their kids to public school for free.
I mean, other than the taxes, but again, a lot of the wealthy
are paying those taxes. Other than the taxes.
And then what? They have to buy clothes and
supplies and that kind of stuff.So you have that.
The right's going to say, well, that's you.
You kind of get, you get group think when the government is
(38:00):
doing the education. So anyway, and then lastly, and
this isn't lastly, there's so many more.
This is such a random lesson. It's just like, hey, I'm going
to talk about a bunch of differences.
There's a lot more than this. You might not think the way that
I've pitched these is fair. You might think I spent too much
side on one system. I don't care.
In the words of Justin Bieber, you can go and love yourself. 25
(38:23):
The left has a tendency to favorDEI, diversity, equity and
inclusion initiatives and affirmative action, whereas the
right has a tendency to emphasize what's called a
meritocracy, that somebody should be in a job because
they've earned it based on theirskill and talent, not based on
trying to get the, the a certainnumber of people with a certain
gender or skin color. If you're looking for a surgeon,
(38:44):
you want the best surgeon. You don't want the surgeon that
just is there because they happen to be of a certain race
or gender or sexual orientation or whatever it might be.
So is it hopeless? Maybe.
Anyway, so this is, this is a weird lecture for me.
I, I, most of my study when it comes to politics is not
political science and our modernissues today.
(39:05):
That's what this lesson is. It's more political philosophy.
I'm much more comfortable reading Locke and Hobbs and
Rousseau and trying to figure out what a government should be.
The philosophy side that I am, what the government is, which is
today. But I think this gives at least
some conversation starters. If you are a Democrat, please
talk to your Republican friends and please watch right wing
media. If you are a Republican, please
(39:25):
talk to your Democratic friends and please, please watch left
wing media. The the the only solution is to
have a conversation. Also, let me just critique both
sides real quick. I'm starting to see both parties
move away from the Enlightenmentideal, the traditional
Enlightenment ideal and what youhave enshrined in the
Constitution is individual liberty for people to do what
(39:48):
they want as long as they're notinfringing on the liberty of
other people. Please listen to my lecture I
have on John Stuart Mill's on liberty.
It's, it's a, it's a helpful essay on how much liberty should
you have? And his short answer is as much
liberty as doesn't affect the liberty of somebody else.
My, my ability to throw a punch ends at your nose.
I'm seeing both groups start to move away from that.
(40:08):
I'm seeing the left. Take away individual liberty and
push certain social agendas or governmental mandates.
I'm also seeing the right move away from that with some of the
Christian nationalism talk and trying to legislate certain
types of morality. Morality is always legislated.
You shouldn't legislate. Morality really murders against
the law, right? Prostitution's against the law.
(40:29):
Morality is already legislated, but other things that were
traditionally freedoms, they're pushing against.
And so again, we're not saying what is there is not moral.
That's not the government's job.The government's job is to be
agnostic. It's to protect your rights so
you can go decide what you thinkis moral based on your
worldview. And people can't get in your
way. So let's go back to the
Enlightenment ideal. Let's go back to Voltaire.
(40:50):
Let's go back to Locke. Let's focus on these guys
promoting these individual liberties and people just do do
your thing. Someone shouldn't be forced to
accept your worldview. You shouldn't be forced to
accept theirs. Someone shouldn't be forced to
use your pronouns. You shouldn't be forced to use
theirs. Someone shouldn't be forced to
believe your religion. You shouldn't be forced to
believe theirs. Sayla.
(41:10):
There you go. Two party system in America,
Ideological. You're welcome.
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological.
I'm your host, Zach Dangerous Lee.
You see how that works with my last name?
I need a better nickname. If you watch the show New Girl,
which is hilarious by the way, it's not just for girls, There's
a great scene where Nick and Schmidt are back in college and
he goes, man, I used to just sleep with so many women.
They used to call me the the thesex haver.
(00:30):
He's like cool name dude. So I need something like that,
that Zach the sex haverly or something, some cool nickname.
I'll let you come up with 1. Today we are talking about
something that is fascinating, especially with the time period
in which we live, which is America's kind of two party
system. So because I'm interested in
philosophy, politics and culture, this will be a
(00:50):
political lecture. And we're going to talk about
the differences between the two main parties in the US,
primarily being the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Now anytime you talk politics, people freak out.
Don't freak out. I forbid anybody to freak out.
And they think that your explanation is unfair, even if
you're totally fair. They don't like the way that you
(01:12):
describe something, even if it's100% accurate.
So let me just say this. Out of the gate, I am going to
try to be as unbiased as I can. I'm going to just try to
honestly give you the facts. I can't be completely unbiased.
On certain issues, I'll learn more right.
On certain issues, I'll learn more left.
I'll give you an example. I like guns, so I will lean
right there, but I also think marijuana should probably be
(01:33):
legal and so I'd probably leanedleft there.
None of this has to do with morality.
It just has to do with legality.And so you're going to see some
areas probably where you, my biases come out, but I'm going
to try to do this as fairly as Ican.
Let me let me say it another way.
If you don't like the way that I'm explaining something or if
you don't like a particular fact, I give, it might be
(01:55):
because you don't like the fact,not because I'm spinning it.
I have found in talking to people about their political
views, a lot of times they don'teven know what their own party
holds. OK, so let's talk briefly about
the history of these. There's there's other parties,
there's the Green Party, right? There's independence.
There's my favorite I think is Teddy Roosevelt's the Bull Moose
(02:16):
Party. Awesome.
I just want to vote for that regardless of their policies,
just for the name, right? You've got the donkey, you've
got the elephant, and then you've got the bull moose.
And so, but today we're primarily talking about the two
parties that actually ever gain any sway, Democratic Party and
Republican Party, the Democrats and the Republicans.
Let's do a brief history and then I want to go over something
(02:36):
like, I don't know, 2526 differences between the parties
of where they are today. So let's just jump into the
history and here we go. First of all, the original
framers of the Constitution werevery wary of political parties.
When you start getting partisanship, you all of a
sudden people don't care about necessarily what's best for
everybody. They just try to go with their
tribe. And so they were concerned about
(02:57):
that. Alexander Hamilton and George
Washington, he's kind of a big deal.
He invented quarters. Kidding.
We're both concerned about what political parties would do.
What happened, though, is you started getting groups that were
more federalistic. They they were focusing more on
the ways the states could work together.
Let me say this a, a, a strongerway.
(03:18):
America was never meant to just be like America.
It is the United States of America.
We are a federation of states that team together for certain
things like constitutional rights to have a military there,
there's some benefits, trade with other countries, etcetera.
There's some benefits of being part of this group.
And So what you have eventually though, is you have Washington,
(03:39):
Hamilton and Adams supporting what is called the Federalist
position. And you have Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison supporting theanti federalist position.
If you want to understand more about federalism, if you want to
understand more about the the arguments for teaming up
together as part of a nation instead of just being separate
independent countries as little states, obviously The Federalist
(04:01):
Papers would be a great, great place to start.
Now eventually what happened is this the party of Jefferson that
was more anti Federalist was called the Democratic
Republicans, which is where we get these names.
It's kind of confusing because those are opposites today.
But it was the Democratic Republicans, which is kind of
like calling somebody if they'rea baseball fan, you're like,
you're the Yankees Red Sox position and you're like, wait,
(04:23):
the Yankees and the Red Sox are like a famous rivalry.
They they they don't go together.
But anyway, that's where the theterms come from.
You have the party of Jefferson being the Democratic
Republicans. The party would eventually split
between Jackson and the Democrats.
OK, now this is going to blow your mind.
Let me just say this. I'm going to say this several
times. The the the.
(04:43):
Positions that the parties hold today are almost the opposite of
how they were founded. OK, wait, what?
So the party of Jefferson was called the Democratic
Republicans. But eventually you get this
split and you get Jackson and the Democrats, which originally
were for states rights and minimal government notice that's
the opposite that they as they are today.
(05:04):
And you got the Whig Party, which was more in support of
like a National Bank and more about this bigger government
banding together. So notice at this point, you
have under Jackson, you have theDemocrats and then you have the
Whigs. The Democratic Party was
officially started in 1828 and the Republican Party in 1854.
(05:24):
You'll get different dates online.
It's hard to nail down sometimesofficially when this counts,
because there's these preliminary parties and all this
stuff. But those are good.
Good estimates as far as the dates that they were started.
So you get the Democrats and getthe wigs.
The wigs are eventually gonna fizzle out, and then you get the
Republicans. The Republican Party was born
and made-up of former wigs, Democrats and independents, and
(05:46):
they specifically band together to fight against the issue of
slavery. Remember guys like Abraham
Lincoln, he's a Republican and the Republican Party originally
is there to fight against slavery.
That's one of the major platforms that they promoted
when they were started. So now you have the Democrats,
which are primarily pro slavery.You have the Republicans which
are against slavery. You have the Democrats primarily
(06:06):
in the South. You have the Republicans
primarily in the North. You have the Democrats for
states rights. You have the Republicans more
for a bigger national kind of system, which is extremely
different. And so that's how they started
though. So again, I'm not commenting on
whether that's good, bad or indifferent.
I'm just saying that's that's where the parties started.
You're going to see that they'regoing to take a pretty big
shift. After the war, the Republican
(06:29):
Party pushed for economic growth.
They kind of became the party ofindustrialization.
Remember, a lot of them were in these northern states where you
have factories and industry and these kind of things.
So they kind of pushed for big business and that really made
them the party of wealth in the early 1900s, right?
So if you talk to your grandparents or great, great
grandparents, they probably still see the Republican Party
as the the party of wealth of rich big businessmen.
(06:52):
That was kind of a thing in the early 1900s.
What shifted, the big shift is going to come with what is
called the New Deal. So after the Great Depression,
when everything sucks monetarily, don't put all your
money in the stock market, by the way.
Well, after everything is bad monetarily, that you've got the
market crash, you get the Great Depression.
It was FDR that instituted a number of liberal government
(07:12):
programs in what was called the New Deal.
This caused conservative Democrats to become Republican.
So this is kind of a breaking point in the parties where
they're going to say wait a second, wait a second.
As a Democrat, I've always been for states rights and in the
South and these kind of things, smaller government.
But these Republicans have gotten wealthy and the stock
(07:33):
market crashed and I need help and there starts to be this
shift. Black Americans traditionally
supported the Republican Party due to its anti slavery
platform. However, due to the
progressivism and pro civil rights views of Harry S Truman,
black people became increasinglymore aligned with the Democratic
Party. So you get this slow shift of
what the parties were originallyversus what they are today,
(07:55):
which I just find fascinating. OK, fascinating.
But that's that's where these parties come to prominence
throughout time. These aren't the only parties
that exist. They're not the only parties
that have ever existed. I want somebody to get like real
fired up about like the wig party.
Like they run and they're like, we need that this issue and they
just freak out and they wear wigs.
That would be fantastic. My.
Wig Anyway, so today the the parties are almost the opposite,
(08:18):
not in every area, but in a lot of areas that they started out
as or as which they started out again, all in sentences, in
preposition, but only if I have to.
Let's talk about the political parties today.
OK, So there's a brief history, a short history.
I don't think that's what's mostinteresting about this lecture.
What's interesting are the positions.
So first of all, let's talk about the positions.
You have the Democrats and you have the Republicans.
(08:40):
First of all, the terms left andright.
Why do we call the Democrats theleft and we call call the
Republicans the right? That has to do with ceding of
the National Assembly during theFrench Revolution, OK?
The left was the more radical faction that was wanting more of
a change, whereas the right, those that sat on the right in
the National Assembly were more of the conservatives, right,
more of the conservative faction, which is is what you
(09:00):
have with these terms today. The original color of the left
though is not blue. Today we do red and blue.
The original color of the left is red.
OK, so so think about groups that are more socialistic or
communistic that typically the color is red.
So you have this, for example, with the USSR before they became
Russia. You have this with North Korea.
(09:21):
You have this with China. Red is the color of
collectivism, OK. And so originally, the left's
color was red and the right's color was white, which has
nothing to do with white supremacy.
That was just this this conservative, traditional, even
some people that were pro monarch.
Was was was the color of the right, but that was it.
So, so different colors. Originally red was left.
(09:42):
This is why you got during the Cold War, there was a popular
phrase which is better dead thanred.
That doesn't mean that they hated the.
Republicans or something like this.
What it meant is that they didn't want to give in to
communism again. Red was the color of communism
originally. So brief history, left, right,
red, blue. What was this was going to say?
(10:05):
I might be having a stroke and I'm smiling with my whole face.
Let's talk about the differencesbetween the political parties.
By the way, don't contact me. These are very broad strokes.
I'm going to say some of these. And you say, Zach, that's a
little bit of an oversimplification.
I know this is a podcast. I'm trying to summarize
everything in contemporary politics in a short podcast.
So of course this is not this. Is going to be.
(10:25):
Crass 2 broad strokes. Some of you are going to hate
it, but if you'll pay attention and you'll have an open mind,
you're going to learn a lot fromyour boy.
This is why I'm here. OK, let's talk about some
differences of the political parties.
First of all, you have one side that is liberal or progressive,
the left, and another that is more conservative, the right.
What do those terms mean? If you are somebody who is
(10:49):
liberal or progressive, here's what that means.
It means you think that because there's been a lot of bad things
in the past, there have been a lot of bad things in the past.
There's been oppression, there'sbeen inequality, there have been
wars that didn't have to happen,etcetera.
You have a tendency to say let'schange, let's move to something
in the future. You have a tendency to say that
truth, goodness and beauty. You have a tendency to say that
(11:11):
what would work best in a society or a state is something
that we move toward. It's in the future.
Truth, goodness and beauty is something we look to the future
to find, and that's something that we are progressing.
Hence the term progressive toward.
That is the idea. OK, things were done in the
past, not great. There was the Inquisition and
people were burned at the stake and all these kind of things.
We need to look in the future and figure out the best way to
(11:33):
run society because what we did in the past has not worked.
If you're a conservative, you say what worked in the past is
what's going to work in the future.
In fact, the past worked great. That's how we got to today.
Yes, it wasn't perfect. Yes, there were a lot of bad
things that happened, but we don't want to just jettison
that. We want to look to the past for
truth, goodness and beauty, and for what people did in the past
(11:54):
that made a state work versus trying something new that might
not work at all. This is why those that are more
conservative want to retain the way that things have
traditionally been, whereas those that are more progressive
want to change that. And this can be issues related
to taxation, it can be issues related to economic policy, but
it can also be social issues. Someone who's a conservative is
going to say, what is the definition of marriage?
(12:15):
And they're going to look backwards, Man and woman,
monogamous. Somebody who is more progressive
or liberal liberal will look to the future and say, well, what
could marriage be? Are we stuck in this
conservative platform? Maybe marriage can be between
two men, two women, three women,whatever it might be.
And so that is the idea, though.So to summarize that point, the
left being more liberal or progressive has a tendency to
(12:36):
say truth, goodness and beauty. What's best for the state will
be something we are moving toward.
We're moving out of some bad things towards something that is
better. Those that are conservative
think truth, goodness and beautyis more found in the past and
should be retained. And you should be a little bit
suspicious of new ideas. Now, I don't mean new ideas like
in medicine or technology. They're not like saying get rid
of your iPhone or something likethat.
(12:57):
But as far as how family works, how taxation works, how, what
role the government should have,how voting should happen, these
kind of things #2 on the left you have a tendency.
Again, these are broad strokes. Not everyone agrees with this,
but to have a more of a large central government.
And on the right, you want more decentralized government.
It's more of a focus on states rights.
To give a a great example of this, Roe V.
(13:19):
Wade was overturned recently, a few years ago, and everybody
freaked out kind of on both sides.
One side was celebrating, the other side was not celebrating.
But what most people didn't understand what the issue was,
the issue was not abortion. OK, pay attention to what I'm
saying if you think the issue isabortion.
The issue is not abortion. The issue was, is abortion A
(13:41):
constitutional right? OK, So what the Supreme Court
justices decided was not women have no rights, you can't get an
abortion. What they said was this is a
states rights issue. It is not a constitutional
issue. You're not going to find some
right to abortion in the Constitution.
Again, I'm not giving you my political position.
I'm just telling you that's a fact.
If I want to defend abortion, there's an argument I can give,
(14:02):
but it's not from the Constitution.
And so if I want to shoot down abortion, there's an argument
that I can give. And it's also not from the
Constitution because the issue was, is abortion A
constitutional federal big government thing, or should it
be reserved to the states? And it should be reserved for
the States, because anything notexplicitly mentioned or by
necessary logical deduction in the Constitution belongs to the
(14:24):
States. And so you have large
centralized government pushed onthe left and then more of a
decentralized government pushed.On the right, on the left, you
have more of a focus on pure democracy, counting heads.
On the right, you have more of afocus on a Republic and the
Electoral College. OK, now it's interesting.
Individual rights do in a sense,conflict.
(14:44):
Individual head counting of votes sometimes can conflict
with the Electoral College. 1 emphasizes states rights, the
other emphasizes individual rights, and the two are at odds.
By getting rid of states rights,you increase individual rights.
By getting rid of individual rights, you increase states
rights on that particular issue.So it's interesting.
You are going to have a limitingof rights one way or the other.
But there is a tendency for those on the left to sometimes
(15:05):
push more for a pure democracy, whereas those on the right would
say no, no, no, you, you can't do that.
A pure democracy can sometimes override the rights of a
minority. So you have to have a Republic.
You have to have certain rights that are protected regardless of
what the masses think. And so the two sides again will
fight on that. Some say, well, we need to count
heads. We need a pure form of democracy
(15:26):
because at the end of the day, more people living in a country
should have more of a say than the minority, whereas the other
side would say no, you can have a tyranny of the majority and so
you have to respect things like states rights, you have to
respect certain boundaries that cannot be voted away, etcetera.
On the left you have more of a regulated market that the
government will help things function more freely.
(15:49):
Sometimes when you get this unregulated market, you get some
crazy things that happen economically and financially,
whereas on the right they're going to say no, a deregulated
market works much better. Read Adam Smith, go read Wealth
of Nations. He's very clear that when people
pursue their own interest, everyone benefits.
Yes, the gap between rich and poor is bigger, but the poor are
(16:09):
higher up than poor in other countries.
Our homeless people have cell phones and they don't have cell
phones when they're homeless in Africa.
And so it's a, it's a different,different approach.
So you have 1 though that says the government should have more
intervention in economic policies and in the market.
And then you have another one that says that they should have
left. Next you have on the left it
tends to be more communitarian, whereas on the right it it it
(16:33):
tends to emphasize more individualism.
So the left is going to say we need to do things that are
better for the group or the whole.
Those on the right will say no, what's better for the group or
the whole is protecting individual rights, which is
better for everybody, and then you can voluntarily work
together. So it's not as though left is
saying group and right is sayingno group.
Left is saying a group that is set up in the fabric in the
(16:57):
structure of the government or set up in the structure of our
lives, kind of imposed top down,whereas the right says no, those
kind of structures should be voluntary.
That's something that you shouldconsider.
On number six, again, I've got so many, this is going to take
forever. Let's take a little break.
We'll have some fancy music. 6 Positive rights versus negative
(17:23):
rights. Pay attention to this because
this is huge. Both sides want their rights and
they want their rights protected.
Those on the left have a tendency to push for what are
called positive rights. What does that mean?
That means the government gives you something, whether that's
healthcare, whether that is Social Security, a program
that's set up for you, differenttypes of welfare programs.
(17:45):
When people say I have a right to education or I have a right
to healthcare, they're talking about positive rights.
What that means is that the government is positively giving
you something. Those on the right are.
Going to talk about what are called negative rights.
What that means is the rights you have are given to you in the
Constitution. They're actually given to you
before that. They're natural and inalienable,
but the Constitution codifies them and so you have your
(18:07):
rights. Negative rights means the
government's job is to get out of your way.
It's to prevent the government or other individuals from
hindering you from doing what you want to do.
So your rights to life, liberty,the pursuit of happiness,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to bear arms,
whatever, those are rights that you have.
The government doesn't give themto you the rights that their job
(18:28):
is to protect those rights. It's to keep others from trying
to get in your way or take thosefrom you.
Whereas those on the left say no, the government owes you more
than that. They owe you positive rights.
They owe you, again, depending on what it is, whether it's
healthcare, education, welfare systems and programs, etcetera.
OK, so they're meaning rights ina different way, typically on
the right and on the left. By the way, you're realizing how
(18:48):
polarized the two parties have become.
This was not always the case, OK?
Many people decades ago would vote for whoever their favorite
candidate was, and they didn't care about the party.
The parties are extremely polarized today.
What was the biggest debate 60 years ago?
I don't know Social Security or something.
Whereas today it's, it's in every issue, it's, it's moral
issues, it's social issues, it'smarriage, it's transgender
(19:11):
surgery, it's, it's everything, right?
#7 The left has a tendency to ask this question when making
decisions. What would be ideal?
OK, in a perfect world, what would be ideal?
The right has a tendency to ask this question, what would
practically work? So one is asking, what would we
do in a perfect world? The other one's saying in a
(19:33):
world that's not perfect, it will never be perfect.
What would practically work? Again, those are different
ideologies or ideologies #ideological.
Get the T-shirt made, buy some swag #8.
On the left, you have a focus onenvironmentalism and the focus
on climate change. On the right you have more of a
focus on what are called industrial rights.
(19:54):
So whereas the left will say, hey, the, the, the globe is
getting hotter, we're putting out all these harmful emissions.
We need to restrict certain forms of industry.
The right will say, don't restrict certain forms of
industry. We, we need to produce
electricity cheaply. We need to produce, you know,
gasoline cheaply, etcetera. Allow me to go pursue business.
So there's there's disagreement on on these issues. #9 the LGBTQ
(20:20):
plus movement versus traditionalheterosexuality.
Again, the left is going to pushmore for what they would
consider to be sexual liberation, and the right is
going to push more for what theywould consider to be traditional
views of marriage and sexuality.As a clarifier there, though,
the right is not saying you don't have a right to do what
(20:40):
you want sexually with another consenting adult.
The right says you do. The right says that you don't
have a right to read that on to other people.
You don't have a meaning. If you want to marry, if you're
a man and you want to marry a man, you can do and say whatever
you want, but it's not marriage.So don't make it a governmental
thing. Or if you want to dress like a
woman and say that you identify as a woman, you can do whatever
(21:02):
you want. Just don't make me have to use
your pronouns. You think about gender, what you
think about gender, and I'll think about gender, what I think
about gender. We both get to think and use the
words that we want when it comesto gender.
You respect my rights. I'll respect your rights.
Just, you know, don't do drag shows for kids or whatever it
is. And so there there is a it's not
that one party says you have thefreedom to do this and the other
doesn't. Both parties would say,
(21:23):
constitutionally, you have the freedom to do what you want with
other consenting adults. Sexually what they're going to
say, though, is where does this play out in other areas of
society where it's. Forced upon you.
Those on the left though, will counter and say what, what do
you mean? You, you're, you're not allowing
me to live a certain way. You are persecuting me by using
(21:43):
these kind of terms and such. So it has to be government
mandated. So they they disagree on these
issues #10 the left is for gun restrictions for legal gun
owners and the right is gun rights for legal gun owners.
Why did I? Phrase it that way.
Why didn't I just say pro gun and anti gun?
Neither party is for illegal gunuse.
(22:04):
Neither party is for violent like gun violence.
Like you'll see all these statistics about gun violence.
Neither party wants gun violence.
Or I remember after there was a mass shooting, one of the there
was a school that did this big March in protest against gun
violence, which I thought, who'sfor gun violence?
The left is for the restriction for legal gun owners and the
right is for gun rights for legal gun owners.
(22:25):
The bad guys are going to do what they want regardless.
So you're only ever talking about with gun control stuff for
those that follow the laws anyway.
For those that are legal, legal gun owners, should there be more
restrictions because kids can gain access to them or because
even people that are law abidingcitizens can snap, people can
commit suicide, etcetera? Or should there be more rights
to protect yourself from the badguys that have guns because
(22:47):
they'll always have guns? Remember a gun free zone And I'm
going to have a whole issue on gun control just because it's
fun, I'm going to do it while wearing weapons.
I'm kidding. Remember the the gun or gun free
zones are only gun free for people that follow those signs.
They're just, they're self-defense free zones.
They're not actually gun free zones.
But that's that's see that one you can see where I lean, but
not on every issue anyway. So that's just because I'm a
(23:08):
shooting instructor and I like guns.
Bang, bang. All right #11 The left is for
looser immigration policies. The right is for stricter
immigration policies. The left thinks it should be
easier to become a citizen. Many on the right think it
should be easier to become a citizen, but it is stricter with
immigration policies on the right, especially with the, the
border crisis that we've had in the, in the US recently.
(23:29):
This is, I'm in 2024 right now as I'm recording this.
And so over the last few years, there's been quite a bit.
And so right now this is actually something that you're
seeing the parties agree a little bit more on.
They're both saying, hey, there is a there is a crisis, there is
a problem that they but they disagree on how to fix it.
They disagree on practical issues that come up.
So almost any issue that comes up every week, you're going to
get commentary on the left and the right on whatever the issue
(23:51):
is. This can be anything from the
killing. Of a gorilla.
To school stuff. To whatever it is, I I think a
great example of this would probably be the COVID pandemic.
So the left and the right, the COVID-19 pandemic responded
differently to that pandemic. Both.
Took precautions. Red States and blue states took
precautions. Blue states typically took more
(24:13):
precautions, but it's it's an again, an ideological,
ideological difference. Whereas the left had a tendency
to promote greater safety at theexpense of liberty, the right
had a tendency to promote greater liberty at the expense
of safety. So one of the questions you have
to ask is during something like a national pandemic, or in this
(24:36):
case, international. What is the role of government?
Is it to protect your liberties and advise you to keep you safe?
Or is it? To mandate things to keep you
safe and keep others safe at therestriction of your personal
liberties. That's a question you can answer
for yourself. The left is pro-choice and the
right is pro-life. And this is pretty stark.
There's a pretty stark contrast.OK, Some people on the right
(24:58):
will allow it for certain reasons, incest or rape or
something like that. But generically, in broad
strokes, the right is typically against all forms of abortion,
whereas the left is is for that,because what they're going to
say is. You've got to.
Protect the choice of the mother, though.
The there's a, a, a baby or theywould say a fetus in that woman.
(25:20):
It is in her body. And so she needs to have some
sort of say of how this works. It's my body, my choice.
And so the right's going to say,yes, the baby's in your body,
but the baby's not your body. It has a different heart and a
different brain and different DNA.
It's a different human. So it's not the same.
And so they'll go back and forth.
The, the, the left will say it'snot really fully a human until
(25:41):
it's viable or until it's out ofthe womb or whatever it might
be. The right will say, Nope, it's a
human in the womb. It has dreams, it kicks.
This is a human by the way. It's, it's never viable.
Like once it's born, you still have to take care of it a lot.
And so they'll argue back and forth.
So, but those those are pretty clear party lines on both sides.
How do they interpret the Constitution?
(26:02):
This is different. On the left, the Constitution
should be interpreted, listen tothis, as a living document that
changes meaning over time and culture.
Whereas the right would say the Constitution should be
interpreted as an historical document by looking at the
original meaning and how it was interpreted throughout America's
history. So this is kind of who
determines the meaning of a text.
It is kind of a hermeneutics question.
(26:23):
Both sides, by the way, agree that the Constitution allows the
government to vote in new laws and new things and even
amendments to the Constitution. So they're not saying it can
never change. They're saying.
How do we know? That we the the Constitution
allows amendments we look back historically and see that that's
what the founding fathers meant here's why here's what it means
in this text. Here's how they interpret it.
(26:44):
Here's how other courts in the Supreme Court has interpreted in
the past. And they're making a historical.
Case, whereas the left. Will say no, that's not how you
interpret documents. You don't try to find the
author's meaning historically originally.
What you do is you find the meaning today.
It includes reader response theory.
It includes A differing view of hermeneutics and interpretation
than the view of the right. But the left thinks it's a
(27:06):
living document that changes meaning over time and culture,
whereas the right thinks it's anhistorical document #15 The left
is for legalizing the legalizingof certain recreational drugs,
such as marijuana. The right is against the
legalizing of certain recreational drugs such as
marijuana. Most of them don't push to just
legalize all hard drugs like meth, but on these kind of
(27:28):
things. And this is a, this is a place
where I think I'm not saying this is right, wrong or moral or
immoral. I think legally something like
marijuana should be legal because it's, I mean, it's less
harmful for you than alcohol. And alcohol is already legal.
And it's not the government's job to protect you and your
health. So that's ironically one of the
places where the left seems to be pushing more for individual
(27:48):
rights, whereas the right thinks, no, this will lead to
degrade, the degradation of society.
It's a gateway drug. It will hurt these things and.
So anyway, take that to be what what you will, but that's that's
where they stand on the issue #16 the left tends to be more
globalistic, whereas the right tends to be more nationalistic.
The left will say let's be a part of a larger.
(28:10):
System. Let's work more with other
countries. Let's focus on these global
issues. The right will say we have to
focus on the national stuff 1st and then we can focus on global.
Issues. And so it's it, it has to do
with an issue of focus. Both of them want to do what's
best for the country or what they believe is best for the
country, but they also want to help others.
The right will have a tendency to say, let's do what's best for
(28:32):
our country first. Then when we have extra and
we're in a better place, then wecan help others because the
right has been pretty open to going and helping other
countries militarily or with aidor whatever, whereas the left is
going to say, hey, we can't consider ourselves first.
There are other nations that have it worse than us.
We have to consider things globally as a foundational point
as well #17 the left tends to benow.
(28:57):
This is totally something that'schanged.
So listen to this versus the little history I gave.
You at the beginning. Originally, the left was the
party of the Democratic South. It was poor people, it was
states rights, it was pro slavery, it was all this kind of
stuff. That has also shifted.
Right now, the left tends to be the party of the cultural
(29:17):
elites. And the poor, it's very
interesting. So on the left, you'll have the
poor. A lot of, you know, if you think
of cities that are just doing really terrible, you think of
Detroit and Baltimore and. You know, Los Angeles as far as
like crime and homelessness and these kind of things, Los
Angeles is doing great in other areas.
They're they're all, they're allleft-leaning cities, right.
(29:39):
So it tends to. Be the party of the very poor,
but also the cultural elites, most professors, entertainers,
movie stars. A lot of ultra wealthy cultural
influencers that own a big tech companies, all this kind of
stuff have a tendency also to beleft.
So it's really interesting. You have they're kind of the the
party of the the extremes on thespectrum.
It's kind of the the poor and then the cultural elites.
(30:02):
Whereas on the right, again, right now these these could
change and it wasn't this way inthe past.
The right tends to be the party of the middle class, kind of the
average income earner and above.So maybe you could say middle
class and and upper middle class, that tends to be the
party on the right. The left has a tendency to
promote higher taxes, whereas the left wants lower taxes.
(30:22):
The idea on the left is if we tax more wealthy people, we'll
have more money and programs to help those that are poor.
The view on the right is we'll help the poor by inputting it
more into the economy and growing businesses so that they
can be paid more and they can get a better job and there's
more jobs to choose from. And so one is wanting the
government to care for the poor,the other one says that the poor
(30:43):
will naturally be taken care of as the economy as a whole does
better. Again, the, the, they would say
that the, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships kind of
thing. A poor person in America can be
overweight. That does not happen in Somalia.
Which means that though there's a bigger gap between rich and
poor, the poor here is higher upthan the poor person in a
country that doesn't have more of a capitalistic system.
(31:06):
Not saying I agree or disagree with that.
That's the argument though. OK #19 they will promote
government taxes on certain vices.
So they'll push more for taxing things like sugary sodas.
Maybe that will keep people frombeing overweight, tobacco
companies, etcetera. Whereas the rights going to push
more personal responsibility. OK, if you've never seen Parks
and Rec, it's a great show and you've got Ron Swanson who's
(31:26):
uberly right wing and he is justfor like eating all the bacon
and drinking all the sugary soda.
But they have a they have a, what is it called?
I didn't put this in my notes. It's called.
Punch Burger. It's like a fast food joint.
And they have a, a, a drink. And the size is called baby, not
because it's small, but it's thesize of a baby.
And it's just like so much sugar.
(31:47):
How is this a child size soda? Well, it's roughly the size of a
2 year old child. If the child were liquefied.
It's a real bargain at 1:59. The left is going to push more
for the government helping tax these vices, whereas the right
will say, no, don't tax them. You have personal
responsibility. Drink and eat less if you want
to lose weight. It's not the government's job to
do that. Again, they're going to
disagree. Can the government not help?
(32:08):
Is it not? I mean, is it not good to tax
tobacco, right, which makes it harder for people to pay for it.
So maybe they won't. But should we not be helping
people out overcome these vices,Whatever.
So those are the views again, ofthe two number 20, the left has
a tendency to view humans as naturally good or neutral.
The right has a tendency to viewhumans as naturally bad or
selfish. This is really important with
(32:30):
your politics. Your view of human nature will
determine where you land on different political issues.
If you think people are naturally good or neutral, then
you trust a bigger government because they're going to help.
People. But if you think that people are
selfish and bad, you don't want a bigger government because
they're going to use it for the benefit of the government and
not the people. Or if somebody shoots up a
school because people are naturally good or neutral, the
problem is access to guns. If you're on the left, the
(32:52):
problem on the right is because people are bad or selfish, the
problem is not access to guns. The guns don't kill people on
them by themselves. It's the evilness.
The evilness in the person. OK, evilness, the evality, the
evil. I'm going to come up with these
neologisms. It's a fun word.
If somebody is a racist, the left will say you can educate
that out of them. Again, they're born good or
(33:13):
neutral. They just need to be taught.
They were taught racism or they're ignorant.
Education can solve it. The right's going to say, yes,
you can teach them, but that's not going to solve the problem.
They're educated racists, and the problem is again, a moral
issue, right? It's selfish and selfishness.
Almost done you with me. Who?
I don't know how you're going tovote after this, but consider
these things #21 the left promotes more of social and
(33:36):
moral acceptance by a wider audience.
Whereas the right is going to promote social and moral
individuality, OK, the left is going to say support this
person's social or moral views. The right is going to say you
don't have to support that person's moral or social views.
You got to protect the right to do it, but you don't have to
champion it. Maybe a good example of this
(33:57):
that sounds kind of generic. Maybe a good example of this is
when it's gay pride. Month Why are you gay?
Who says I'm gay? You are gay, whereas those on
the left will have a tendency toto, to change their, you know,
signature lines and their banners at work and all these
things as as a, a rainbow flag or something.
(34:18):
The right will say you don't have to do you can if you want.
You have a right? To, but you shouldn't force
people to. Well, we need to have everybody
do it to stand behind it and letthem know they're supported
culturally. Well, they don't have to be
supported culturally because people have individual rights
and they go back and forth. If you're, if you're starting to
get discouraged and be like, man, these are different.
Yeah, welcome #22 The left has atendency to promote what's
(34:41):
called economic equality and theright economic inequality.
Let me be clear. They're not saying that people
should have equal rights and andnot equal rights.
They both believe in equal rights.
Constitutionally, the the the left is going to say though,
that the gap between rich and poor should be closer, whereas
the rights going to say why is why is that the case?
(35:03):
Why? Why should it be closer?
Is it morally wrong for somebodywho comes up with a great idea
and is really smart and talentedto get paid more for that idea?
And So what you have on the leftis you have, there should be a,
the inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor should be
narrowed. Whereas on the right, they're
going to say, no, you can have really rich and really poor, but
the worse off, again, are still better off under a system that
has more wealth in the system. And there's nothing wrong with
(35:26):
there being a bigger gap betweenrich and poor.
In the same way that somebody can be really educated or
uneducated, uneducated, that person who's really educated
didn't do something wrong. It's not like he took it from
the uneducated person. There's not a set number of
dollars and as the the rich get richer they eat up more of the
dollar so the poor can't have it.
It's not a pie chart, right? Money is just a symbol of an
economic system. But the left is going to say no.
(35:48):
Wait a second though, when you have a big gap between rich and
poor, the poor can't ever get there.
It's not that you have equality.They start further behind the
line. Like if you're running a race,
it's not just you have two people and one guy's faster.
The poor person is starting way behind and so it's going to take
them a lot longer to catch up. If they can't at all, you have
to give them a boost. To get that.
Starting line closer, This is why there is sometimes talk on
(36:10):
the left and this is, I'm not saying this is a mainstream left
position, but there's talk on the left sometimes of what would
some type of redistribution of wealth or higher taxes on the
rich look like versus the right has a tendency to have an
allergy to that. On the left you have body image
positivity. On the right you have promotion
of physical fitness. This is a new thing, OK.
(36:30):
You'll see a lot of people saying that to be pro physical
health is being a fascist or something like this.
On the left you have the body image positivity movement.
So if you are overweight and someone critiques you, they are
fat shaming you. A doctor should not tell you to
lose weight. You're just as healthy when
you're obese as if you're not obese.
Those in the gym are promoting, you know, dangerous elitism.
(36:54):
So you do have that as a new weird thing that they fight
about. The left has a tendency more to
favor state sponsored education,IE public schools, whereas the
right has a tendency to favor private school, home school, or
a voucher system where people could take taxes instead of just
giving it directly to public schools.
They could pick what school theywant to send their kid to.
Good public schools, good private schools would get more
(37:15):
government money. And so it would become a
competition. Your kids, it would.
It would make the bar higher foreducation because everyone will
be trying to give the best education so they could get
money. But anyway, the the the left has
a tendency to sponsor state's favorite state sponsored
education. The right has a tendency not to
do that. One again is a bigger system. 1
(37:37):
is a smaller system. 1 is prettyeasy for those who are not
wealthy. Right, So the poor can send
their kids to public school for free.
I mean, other than the taxes, but again, a lot of the wealthy
are paying those taxes. Other than the taxes.
And then what? They have to buy clothes and
supplies and that kind of stuff.So you have that.
The right's going to say, well, that's you.
You kind of get, you get group think when the government is
(38:00):
doing the education. So anyway, and then lastly, and
this isn't lastly, there's so many more.
This is such a random lesson. It's just like, hey, I'm going
to talk about a bunch of differences.
There's a lot more than this. You might not think the way that
I've pitched these is fair. You might think I spent too much
side on one system. I don't care.
In the words of Justin Bieber, you can go and love yourself. 25
(38:23):
The left has a tendency to favorDEI, diversity, equity and
inclusion initiatives and affirmative action, whereas the
right has a tendency to emphasize what's called a
meritocracy, that somebody should be in a job because
they've earned it based on theirskill and talent, not based on
trying to get the, the a certainnumber of people with a certain
gender or skin color. If you're looking for a surgeon,
(38:44):
you want the best surgeon. You don't want the surgeon that
just is there because they happen to be of a certain race
or gender or sexual orientation or whatever it might be.
So is it hopeless? Maybe.
Anyway, so this is, this is a weird lecture for me.
I, I, most of my study when it comes to politics is not
political science and our modernissues today.
(39:05):
That's what this lesson is. It's more political philosophy.
I'm much more comfortable reading Locke and Hobbs and
Rousseau and trying to figure out what a government should be.
The philosophy side that I am, what the government is, which is
today. But I think this gives at least
some conversation starters. If you are a Democrat, please
talk to your Republican friends and please watch right wing
media. If you are a Republican, please
(39:25):
talk to your Democratic friends and please, please watch left
wing media. The the the only solution is to
have a conversation. Also, let me just critique both
sides real quick. I'm starting to see both parties
move away from the Enlightenmentideal, the traditional
Enlightenment ideal and what youhave enshrined in the
Constitution is individual liberty for people to do what
(39:48):
they want as long as they're notinfringing on the liberty of
other people. Please listen to my lecture I
have on John Stuart Mill's on liberty.
It's, it's a, it's a helpful essay on how much liberty should
you have? And his short answer is as much
liberty as doesn't affect the liberty of somebody else.
My, my ability to throw a punch ends at your nose.
I'm seeing both groups start to move away from that.
(40:08):
I'm seeing the left. Take away individual liberty and
push certain social agendas or governmental mandates.
I'm also seeing the right move away from that with some of the
Christian nationalism talk and trying to legislate certain
types of morality. Morality is always legislated.
You shouldn't legislate. Morality really murders against
the law, right? Prostitution's against the law.
(40:29):
Morality is already legislated, but other things that were
traditionally freedoms, they're pushing against.
And so again, we're not saying what is there is not moral.
That's not the government's job.The government's job is to be
agnostic. It's to protect your rights so
you can go decide what you thinkis moral based on your
worldview. And people can't get in your
way. So let's go back to the
Enlightenment ideal. Let's go back to Voltaire.
(40:50):
Let's go back to Locke. Let's focus on these guys
promoting these individual liberties and people just do do
your thing. Someone shouldn't be forced to
accept your worldview. You shouldn't be forced to
accept theirs. Someone shouldn't be forced to
use your pronouns. You shouldn't be forced to use
theirs. Someone shouldn't be forced to
believe your religion. You shouldn't be forced to
believe theirs. Sayla.
(41:10):
There you go. Two party system in America,
Ideological. You're welcome.
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