-By Paul Carlson
Liberals won the day in November 2008, and conservatives are working hard to regroup. Unfortunately, many of the voters in the recent election would not be able to define either of those terms, much less describe their underlying history and principles.
What are the primary differences between liberals and conservatives? Readers of the Publius Forum are familiar with many of them, such as groupthink versus individualism, government programs versus private charity, and good intentions versus actual results. In this column I’ll endeavor to present something new.
This is not familiar territory for many readers, so let’s take it in steps. Say you are a factory boss, who manufactures widgets. Your plant employs a hundred people, and accepts a dozen truckloads of raw materials per day. From your freight docks pour forth thousands of top-quality widgets.
Then some trouble develops. There are many more defective widgets than usual, and your assembly line foremen haven’t isolated the problem. Your profits, if not the entire operation, are in danger. For a smart boss, the next step is to call in an expert.
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Defect Analysis and Liberalism”