Conservatives are from Mars & Progressives are from Venus

By M.E. Brines

Why do those who disagree with you politically believe the ridiculous things they do? Why don’t they see what’s so obvious? How does the Progressive Mentality differ from the Conservative Mentality? What are their origins? Their motivation? Their goals? What part does religion play in political worldviews – for BOTH sides. What does the Culture War mean for the future of the US. Will it become a shooting war? How will it end? Does it really matter who wins the next election? An enlightening and entertaining discussion, no matter what your politics. Includes a handy Progressive-Conservative Dictionary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.E. Brines
• Release date: Feb 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465753892

M.E. Brines

M.E. Brines spent the Cold War assembling atomic artillery shells and preparing to unleash the Apocalypse (and has a medal to prove it.) But when peace broke out, he turned his fevered, paranoid imagination to other pursuits. He spends his spare time scribbling another steampunk romance occult adventure novel, which despite certain rumors absolutely DOES NOT involve time-traveling Nazi vampires! A former member of the British Society for Psychical Research, he is the author of three dozen books, e-books, chapbooks and pamphlets on esoteric subjects such as alien abduction, alien hybrids, astrology, the Bible, biblical prophecy, Christian discipleship, conspiracies, esoteric Nazism, the Falun Gong, Knights Templar, magick, and UFOs, his work has also appeared in Challenge magazine, Weird Tales, The Outer Darkness, Tales of the Talisman, and Empirical magazine.

Book preview

Conservatives are from Mars

&

Progressives are from Venus

By M.E. Brines

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by M.E. Brines

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Table of Contents

Introduction

What is a Progressive?

Ideas Have Consequences

The Conservative Mentality

Progressive / Conservative Dictionary

Progressivism as a Secular Religion

The Culture War

* * *

Men are not gentle creatures who just want to be loved. On the contrary, they are fundamentally territorial and aggressive: As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus. Who, in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion? -- Sigmund Freud

America today is riven by a clash of ideas that separates communities, even families. We are more divided today than at any time since just before the Civil War. And that divide is based on two competing and exclusive political, religious and social ideologies: Progressivism and Conservatism.

They each feature a vision of how society should work that is completely at odds with the other, with no room for compromise: pro-choice vs. pro-life, regulation vs. the free market, freedom of religion vs. separation of church and state, gun control vs. the right to bear arms, Gay rights vs. traditional marriage, affirmative action vs. a colorblind workplace, and so on.

Each side portrays the other as ignorant, evil, stupid or crazy, as if no educated, compassionate, intelligent and sane person could possibly believe what the other espouses. But half a nation simply cannot be completely ignorant, evil, stupid and insane. How can logical, informed, reasonable people of goodwill come to such diametrically opposed points of view?

I am a life-long Libertarian, a political faction that belongs to neither camp, yet shares many ideas from each. And I’m a committed follower of Christ that stands against the self-serving corruption of human-created churches. [See my e-booklet: Of Myth and Magic] Impartial, with friends and family members in both camps, I believe I am uniquely qualified to explain the cause of this rivalry and where it will lead. After a lifetime of political activity and of comparing and contrasting the beliefs and arguments of friends and family members of both Left and Right, I have observed the progressive mentality firsthand in bitter conflict with that of conservatives. (And as a Libertarian I always end up disagreeing with both.)

Unlike my other writings, here we’re not interested in Truth. We’re not trying to explore who’s right, Conservatives or Progressives. What we are going to do is investigate what they believe, and more importantly, why.

But first let us define our terms. What exactly is a Progressive? How does progressivism contrast from conservatism?

Progressivism refers to a political ideology that advocates increased powers for government for the purpose of reforming society. Theodore Roosevelt