Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Give me flak for this if you want, but it’s just my observation.

Lately in this country and rather, the world, there has been a worrying trend towards the vilification and mis-attribution of negative stereotypes against people who identify politically as “conservative.”

When I was a child, a person who was conservative usually believed in small, non-involved government, free-market capitalism, self-determination, personal responsibility, lower taxes, fiscal prudence, and faith-based views on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, support for the military but not exorbitantly so, but with a basic idea of “take care of yourself, leave me alone, and the government should focus on protecting the USA.”

A person who was liberal usually believed in large, very-involved government, fair-market capitalism, social welfare programs, more government spending, was anti-war and anti-military, pro-abortion, pro-lgbt rights, and with a basic idea of “the government should be involved in people’s lives and take care of them when they can’t take care of themselves.”

Now maybe this is a very simplistic and likely biased view of peoples’ beliefs, but aren’t we all biased and have our beliefs and understandings based on our upbringing? Take issue if you will, but first examine your own childhood understandings and how they stack up to the world today.

Nowadays, in our lovely society, “liberals” get upset with “conservatives” for being “against” certain groups, whether it be ethnic minorities, homosexuals, transgender persons, or racial groups.

I use quotations here because each of those words has a wealth of backstory, other meanings, and frankly a few volumes’ worth of unpacking – so take each of those terms with as much societal context as you can muster.

Now, it has been my observation that when “conservatives” are blamed for being “-ist” against a group, the actual number of “conservatives” who are “-ist” is quite small compared to the larger demographic of conservatives as a whole. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore since I – a relatively-moderate conservative who has always considered herself fiscally-conservative, socially liberal – am lumped in with extremist groups such as QAnon and the Proud Boys. Somehow….we are all the same. “Conservative” has become an insult. A negative thing across the board, regardless of what that conservative actually believes.

So, by ascribing a single adjective with one connotation and using that word to describe an entire half of the political spectrum, and being “anti-” that group, it seems to me that “liberals” have done to “conservatives” exactly what those “liberals” get mad at “conservatives” for doing to minorities. Making them “other” and demanding they go away or are somehow less-than.

Now…you could say “well it’s about time those white-privileged Republicans got a taste of their own medicine” and sure, we all like a bit of payback because it satisfies our Id. But two wrongs don’t make a right, my friends. In this instance and for the good of us all, we need to learn forgiveness. Forgiveness is progressive.

You can laugh at me for “white fragility” or something like that but before you define my entire person by my skin color – don’t forget that we’re not allowed to do that. Not anyone. Racism is bad, regardless of who is racist or to whom they are racist towards. Moving to the mid-Atlantic, I find that many cultures have people who are racist – it is not a “white problem” or a “southern problem” it is a racist problem.

In fairness, the same is done to liberals by conservatives. Lumping all people on the left side of the political spectrum under the same “liberal” moniker and decrying “liberalism” as a “disease” is not the way to go. Liberalism and progressivism truly are to thank for advancement in humanity. Without people constantly pushing the envelope, we would never improve. We need the idealists, the dreamers, the I-want-it-all people who demand change in the face of opposition. But to temper that newness, that change, those progressive ideals a society and the world needs conservatives to say “hold on” and “let’s think about this” because not all new ideas are good. Nor are all new ideas bad, just as not all liberals are bad, not all conservatives are good. Not all conservatives are bad, not all liberals are good: But anything, when taken to the extreme, can become negative.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Two wrongs…don’t make a right.

This is kindergarten stuff. Maybe we all need a refresher course in basic humanity.

There should be no “us” vs. “them” – let’s focus on the “we.”

In the wake of the ridiculousness that has been going on recently, one thing stands out to me most sharply:

The “us vs them” mentality has become pervasive in our society – our social media, our mainstream media, and thus our zeitgeist. Across the spectrum, this “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” paradigm has obfuscated rational people’s ability to think objectively.

We need to get away from us vs. them, left vs. right, democrat vs. republican. We need more focus on the fact that we’re on this sinking ship together, and we cannot save it without each others’ help. If we don’t, we’re all going to go down with it or will be jumping off like rats.

As much as each side would like to think that the destruction of the “other side” would solve all the problems, this is not the case. As much as each side would like to think “if only they would change their minds and believe what I believe” things would get better. This is also not the case.

What happened to the time when people with differing views could coexist and work together towards a common goal? Contrary to what the mainstream media outlets would have you believe, the majority of people are not as radicalized and polarized as they are portrayed. The loudest voices are heard but they are not necessarily correct. It is the loudest voices we hear and see on social media, those right-wing nutjobs or left-wing nutjobs who post their extreme and close-minded views do not represent the majority of the population – and we need to stop letting them. I speak for myself as well in this; I consider myself a conservative (note small-c) with libertarian leanings, and I find myself appalled and shamed by the behavior of people labeled as “Conservatives.” I can’t even call myself a Republican anymore because that term has – wrongly – become synonymous with racists, white supremacists, and other detriments to society.

Most rational, level-headed people do not condone rioting or destruction of property. In a conversation, I think we would find that many of us can agree on that point. I think we can also mostly agree that there is a deep-rooted problem in some police forces that should be addressed, but understand that not “all cops are bad” and many of them are valuable members of their respective communities.

Most of these same people can agree that those who view Trump as somehow “sent by God” or some sort of savior are a bit mad – and also probably don’t represent the entire right half of the political spectrum, just as Biden does not represent the entirety of the left half.

The bottom line is, whether you agree with my examples or not, that we need to work on coming together and remembering, nay – emphasizing – our commonalities instead of letting our differences drive us further and further apart.

Divided, we fall. United, we stand. Remember that.