One man's saviour is another man's tyrant

The philosophies that drive political discourse today have become so divergent that it is hard to find a middle ground.

One man’s conservative is another man's liberal.

I came across the term libertarian recently and confused it for liberal. It is the exact opposite of liberal.

A libertarian believes that there should be as little government as possible and everything should be left to the free markets; while Liberals feel that everyone is equal before the law, they wanted to replace hereditary privileges and base everything on merit. Does not seem too far removed from one another, does it?

These are the two opposing forces in the US political landscape!

Conservatives as they are traditionally called - make it easy for businesses to do what they want. Reduce the filters or regulations that businesses need to go through. This liberates the business to do what it wants but at the same time, the individual loses control over what the business does or how they behave. Whether that is working hours, whether that is pollution or a myriad set of other social issues the businesses can get away with a lot. Conservatives like to believe that free markets would ensure that the right thing is eventually done.

On the other hand, liberals want everyone to be equal. In this pursuit of equality, they choose to build guardrails around businesses to make it an equal playing field for the individuals who are employed by the businesses and who are often affected by their actions. They do this by regulating the businesses using the law. They create barriers and checks at each stage to make it more and more difficult for the businesses to runs things like they want it. The business and the individual are equal before the law. They make things easier for the individual by putting more rules that the business needs to adhere to.

Sway too much to the conservative side and the need to profit results in detrimental outcomes. People find that their right to question businesses become rather limited.

Sway too much to the liberal side, the cost of doing businesses goes up so high that businesses just die. They give up because the cost of complying with all of the rules becomes unbearable.

Obviously, a balance is required. The truth is that over the last 300 years, that balance has not been found.

Those who are liberal towards businesses are conservative towards the individual; those who are liberal towards the individual are conservative towards the businesses.

One man's saviour is another man's tyrant.