Conservatism and Liberalism: Two Sides, Same Coin
You have heard of the differences between liberals and conservatives, but have you ever looked into the similarities between their politics? Many assume conservatives and liberals live in two completely different worlds. That is not the case. Both ideologies exist within the realm that has been created and expanded by the US government.
When Bill Clinton was President, he was termed a “liberal” however he instigated and accelerated mass incarceration and the War on Drugs which disproportionately affected communities of color. Nixon before him flooded drugs into communities to break down their leaders, arrest their leaders, and ultimately get rid of their leaders. Leaders who were or could have became strong advocates for their communities. Mainly communities of color were affected by the war on drugs which in actuality did not serve its “intended purpose”. Since the 1980’s, drug use and drug trafficking has expanded incredibly, with no signs of it slowing down. What was the purpose of the Drug War? A report written by Dan Baum goes on to expand on the matter.
“I started to ask [John] Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with a bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti war left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Nixon being a “conservative”, who claimed to believe in small government, went onto expand the government and their reach tremendously. The War on Drugs was just the excuse he needed to do it. Every president since Nixon has relied on the War on Drugs to vilify their political opposition. That includes Carter, Clinton and Obama as well who were heralded as the liberal saviors of the US while simultaneously seen as anti US because of their social reforms; reforms of which went on to expand the private sector something that is seen as good by conservatives and liberals alike.
Two sides of the same coin.
