Conservative or Authoritarian

[Dr. Shane]

The protection of individual rights, the rights of minorities against majorities, has historically been a liberal project, not one favored by conservatives.

This is taken out of the recent Mr. Tyner's interview. I think there is confusion here between conservative and authoritarian. The political compass has four directions. Right is conservative. Left is liberal. Up is authoritarian and down is libertarian. In my observation, the protection of individual and civil rights do not change much as we move back and forth from left to right or right to left. The dramatic change in protection comes as we move up and down on the compass.

The communist regimes are on the far left or liberal end of the compass and are very intolerant of religious and civil rights. US Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, both liberal Democrats, trampled on civil rights. Roosevelt actually placed German and Japanese Americans in detention camps during WW2. So a politician being liberal really has no guarantee of religious liberty.

There are intolerant conservatives and intolerant liberals. There are also very tolerant conservative and very tolerant liberals. The difference, in my opinion, is how authoritarian they are. Finland and Denmark are very libertarian nations while China and Cuba are very authoritarian. It isn't such an issue of right and left as it is up and down.

[Neil D]

[Dr. Shane]

Communism and democracy are not on a different scale. There are liberals that are extremely tolerant. There are also conservatives that are extremely tolerant. However their tolerance has nothing to do with their liberalism or conservatism.

Intolerance comes when we decide to force our worldview on others. Let's consider environmentalism for a moment. This is typically considered a liberal issue. Some liberals have passed laws forcing others to recycle their garbage and limit the amount of water they flush down their toilets. Now these laws may be justified and good laws BUT the fact remains that they are not tolerant laws. Tolerance would allow people to do what they want with their garbage and flush as much water as they want to pay for down the stool.