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.