I’ll also side with Andrews here. It is not a right versus left thing. It is better measured by authority versus liberty. There are plenty on the left and the right that are authoritarians, just in different ways.

I think he called everyone who wasn’t one of his acolytes an idiot or the student of idiots. :)

Joking aside, I think it’s not helpfull to demonize or dehumanize one’s idealogical opponents. It’s fun, can God knows I do it a lot. But it doesn’t put one’s opponents in a receptive state of mind.

I ran into this years ago, and posted at my own blog way back in 2005 about the stupid/evil dichotomy that the left seems to place conservatives/libertarians into. They assume we’re either being duped by our evil masters, or that we’re evil masters.

At the time, the incident that instigated that post was highly offensive to me… Not that I was offended that the leftist in question broke libertarians into stupid vs. evil — but rather she assumed that I was in the “stupid” group… I can deal with being called evil, but stupid??? Them’s fightin’ words.

In addition to what tarran has already said, I’d point out that there are multiple wings of the “Conservative” movement. One of those wings are the social conservatives. While I’d disagree that they want someone to “run things”, they definitely want a government big enough to ensure we don’t do the things they don’t like. I personally consider it a blind spot to think the government can’t be trusted to run the economy but can be trusted to run our personal lives, but that’s why I’m a libertarian and not a conservative.

Generally that Conservative blind spot also applies to police/defense. They believe the government’s rightful place is in keeping the peace and national defense, but they also seem to ascribe supernatural power to the government to do it fairly, objectively, and without the need for civilian/public oversight.

I think you may be missing a bit of reality here.

Conservatives regularly seek someone to run things.

Why, yes it is! ;)

It’s also a false dichotomy to assume rightists are conservatives and leftists aren’t. For example, drug prohibition was a plank of the progressive movement’s political platform at the rise of the 20th century. In the right, the major supporters of drug prohibition came from the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party, a group of right-wing progressives.

Conservatives regularly seek someone to run things. They expand government, and not merely spending, at a phenominal rate.

It is, after all, the conservatives who want to tell us what drugs we should have, and when, and where. Sure, there is some stupidity there; it helps if you don’t remember that prohibition is generally doomed to failure.

It is, after all, the conservatives who brought us Guantanamo, and infinite military detention, and the AEDPA to effectively if not in name eliminate habeas corpus.

It is, after all, the conservatives who brought us the Trouser Search Agency (TSA). The TSA may not make us safer, but it sure makes us more docile and better habituated to following sensless orders from our betters.

It is, after all, the conservatives who brought us the “Patriot” act, and myriad government bureaucrats snooping into your phone calls, and bank records, and anything else they can think of, without need to justify, explain, or even admit that they did it.

I don’t disagree with you on the “life is like the higher education system” thing; but I actually see that as simply an extension of the daddy thing.

There are also a significant number of people who are looking at life like school. You do the right things, you are rewarded with money, just as in school you were rewarded with grades. A significant number of leftists I have interacted with are upset at people inheriting money or benefiting from some windfall because of envy.

This is a slightly different phenomenon that is just as insidious.