Dave Rubin on Republicans, Conservatives, and Finding Common Ground

 TRANSCRIPT FROM THIS 'DIRECT MESSAGE' WITH DAVE RUBIN:

Published on Ora TV on Jan 13, 2016:

We've spent a lot of time talking about the left around here, but this week we're diving into the right. My guest is conservative radio 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 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. Now, if I use those same precepts as a liberal, can we both be right at the same time? Could we both be wrong? Is the answer somewhere in the middle?  That's exactly what we're going to find out.

As I talked about 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 they're all a bunch of rednecks, and just because Republicans aren't for legalizing marijuana doesn't mean they aren't fun to hangout with. Alright that one may be true, but 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 word. Fear not, I have Google, so according to The Oxford Dictionary:

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."

I think we have a nice jumping off point there. Basically, Conservatives aren't big on change and when they are they want it to go slowly. I think this concept has been conflated with the concept of right wing politics, so I Googled that too:

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, classical liberals, nationalists and, on 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 included in that group and more and more I've been considering myself in that category. I'll touch on that more in the next couple weeks.

Now that we've laid out some basic terms I think we can have a solid jumping off point to discuss all of 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 always agree with. If we refuse to talk to those that we don't see eye to eye with, we'll just end up taking an eye for an eye.