Jan. 13, 2016 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
03:14
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| We've spent a lot of time talking about the left around here, but this week we're going to be diving into the right. | ||
| My guest is conservative radio talk show host, lawyer, and writer Larry Elder. | ||
| Larry has written several books on conservative principles with a focus on government and racial issues. | ||
| Much of his work is very similar, actually, to the ideas we talk about here on The Rubin Report, including religion, the role of government, and personal responsibility. | ||
| According to his biography, Larry uses facts and common sense to arrive at his conclusions. | ||
| That sounds familiar, right? | ||
| Now, if I use those same precepts as a liberal, can we both be right at the same time? | ||
| Can we both be wrong? | ||
| Is the answer somewhere in the middle? | ||
| Well, that's exactly what we're going to try to find out. | ||
| As I discussed with Don Lemon last week, the media talks so much about the left-right divide in this country that it's easy to forget that there are decent people on both sides of the debate. | ||
| This is one of the reasons I've taken the left to task so much on this show. | ||
| The further off the deep end they go, the less we'll be able to find compromise with people we disagree with. | ||
| Just because I may have different views on abortion than Republicans doesn't mean that they hate all women. | ||
| Just because I may have different views than Republicans on guns doesn't mean that they're a bunch of rednecks. | ||
| And just because Republicans aren't for legalizing marijuana doesn't mean they aren't fun to hang out with. | ||
| Alright, well that one might be true, but I think you see my point. | ||
| Maybe the best way to start a conversation about political ideology is to actually define the terms. | ||
| This is something I've done with a few guests so far because I often think we're all talking about different things while using the same words. | ||
| Fear not, I have Google, and according to the Oxford Dictionary, here's the definition of conservatism. | ||
| "Conservatism is the holding of conservative principles, the tendency to resist great or sudden change, especially | ||
| in politics, adherence to traditional values and ideas, sometimes | ||
| opposed to liberalism." | ||
| Alright, so I think we have a nice jumping off point there. | ||
| Basically, conservatives aren't big on change, and when they are, they want to go about it slowly. | ||
| I think this concept has been conflated with the concept of right-wing politics, so I even googled that. | ||
| According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, in liberal democracies, the political right opposes socialism and social democracy. | ||
| Right-wing parties include conservatives, Christian Democrats, classic liberals, nationalists, and the far right, racists and fascists. | ||
| You can see how these two concepts have morphed into the Republican Party in America. | ||
| We have an ideology that doesn't want to change the system too quickly, coupled with a political affiliation that is focused on economics and some level of moral authority. | ||
| Interestingly, classical liberals are also included in that group, and the more and more I've been talking about this stuff, the more I've been considering myself in that category. | ||
| I'm going to touch on that more in the next couple weeks. | ||
| Now that we've laid out some basic terms, I think we have a solid jumping off point to discuss all the issues of the day. | ||
| From abortion to economics to foreign policy to guns, can we find out where we agree instead of just yelling over each other? | ||
| I think we can, but the only way is to be brave enough to talk to those we don't actually agree with. |
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