Major American Political Ideology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Major American Political Ideology - Essay Example This paper would explore these two ideologies. Fundamentally, conservatism and liberalism differ in issues of freedom and responsibility. American conservatism is derived from the idea that all human beings share an equal nature, an ability to make decisions based upon a common-sense morality while liberalism, at its core, denies that such a common-sense morality exists and, even is such a morality were to exist, doubts the average person’s ability to understand it. (Janiskee and Masugi p. 30) This difference in ideology is demonstrated in the following analogy: Conservatives in America maintains the position that conserves the tradition of the American founding and the purposes and objectives of the Founding Fathers for the establishment of the country. American liberal takes the opposite direction by asserting that such traditions are restrictive and, therefore, the nation need to be liberated from them. Presently, the two parties that fight each other every four years in the American presidential elections are the Republicans and Democrats. The former is seen to be identified with conservatism while the form with liberalism. The two parties derive their ideologies to two fundamentally different views of human nature that is why each ideology calls for different kinds of government response to different issues. For instance, conservatives are more inclined to be against gun control but favor the death penalty while liberals want the reverse: gun control and no death penalty. An interesting aspect in the dynamics of American conservatism and liberalism is that they could assume an entirely different attitude towards certain issue compared to conservatives and liberals in Europe. A demonstration of this is how the conservatives and liberals in America want to address the question on how far should the free market be left alone: how far