Can a Real Conservative and a Real Liberal Be Real Friends?

I am 42.

My best friend is conservative. Really truly at the opposite spectrum of what I believe.

We were best friends in high school, roommates in college, stood by each other at our weddings, and held hands through our divorces. We worked at the same school for 8 years as well!! Yes, she is definitely a presence in my life and will always be.

She and I will discuss things, and laugh at the differences, but I would do anything for her and she the same. Have our discussions turned into heated debates? Yes. Does that put a rift in our friendship? No.

My co-teacher is the exact opposite as well. We get along wonderfully.

I think I have lost acquaintances before due to beliefs, which is strange, but overall, I do think the answer to the questions are yes.... we can all be friends.

I agree E. I have life long friends and a brother that are my polar opposite in beliefs.

In life, differences can make a relationship richer.

It can make them richer.

I completely agree.

I think once the investment has been made, then you see past the differences. There are people that I avoid like the plague because they are on the opposite yet I continue to reach out to my best friend. Funny isn't it?

I hate to resort to Clintonian word parsing, but I think it depends on your definition of "real."

But there are examples in the wild. The marriage of James Carville and Mary Matalin comes to mind. But do you consider them "real" examples of their respective camps?

It's not parsing to consider the word real and it's definition in relation to "conservative" or liberal.

Whatever a "real conservative" is today is not what a real conservative was in my day. I do not consider today's "conservatives" real conservatives at all. Similarly I've found the "real liberal" that pundits and politicians spent decades defining for me really doesn't exist: the liberals I've met haven't been socialists or communists and they haven't been bleeding hearts who'd trade a human life for a tree-frog's except by the broadest most leaping stretches of reason. The "real" liberal I've met seem to be anything but the bogeyman conservatives spent so long pontificating about.

If the question is can the real conservative and liberal of yorebe real friends I can answer unequivocally yes. Ted Kennedy didn't do his capitol hill drinking alone in the old days my friends.. and legislation back then was far more "bi-partisan" in creation and passage than almost anything ever is today.

..but if the question is can the real "conservative" of today and the liberal caricature that's supposed to be "real" be friends I find it almost laughable to contemplate.

I wonder if Lincoln would've been good friends with Jefferson Davis? Do sheep really lie down with lions? Can the Morning Star still worship and love God? Can a person who thinks a woman who has an abortion is a murderer be friends with a woman who's had an abortion? Definitions are not esoteric meaningless minutiae; they have concrete repercussions in real life. Who we define the "real" conservative and the "real" liberal to be has real import to this sort of discussion.

Individuals can be friends often under wildly disparate tenets and beliefs, of cultural contexts, of educational foundations, and the resulting supporting understandings which span their lives.. but as a general rule this is not so. More times than not sheep just don't do well in the company of lions... and few folk will be friends with those who keep calling them murderers.

I have friends of all persuasions politically. While my friends tend to be different than me politically we do hold the same values of life. People matter more than wealth, people matter more than politics, people matter more than possessions, people matter because they are alive and make a difference in this world.

I'm more of a Kennedy Liberal, in that I do believe in conservative financial dealings, I seperate the body of the government from the body of religion. I believe in hard work and loving my country and doing what is best for the most not the few. I find social regulation and adherence where one belief crushes another to be a form of Fascism this nation must never bow down to. Freedom of speech, freedom of choice, fredom of religion, freedom to vote, freedom to address the wrongs of those in power, freedom from being controlled by corporations who buy the government.

If ya can agree to those things it is easy to be my friend, if not. Well it is easy to get into a discussion about the dangers of not having those freedoms. ;~)) ;~))

Holly:

Glad to accept humbly. :~)) :~))

As a former member of the GOP for 45 years I have many (aging) conservative friends. That said, I find the current "leaders" of the Republican Party and their supporters so despicable I have a hard time being in the same space with them. Most of them have absolutely no idea what conservatism really means and after the third or fourth ignorant comment or outright lie out of their mouths, I am ready to walk out. At my age my tolerance for fools has waned.

Holly, I was a registered Republican long ago. I am mostly a fiscal conservative and social liberal. So, both sides of the fence treat me like crap here on the vine. Here on the vine one has to agree completely and absolutely or one is poop and it is ok to abuse all over the place.

When the religious right came on board the Republican party, I started backing off. When the Republican party in NM went nasty (really mean and nasty) I changed my party affiliation to no party affiliation. Now everyone is mean and nasty when it comes to politics on the vine. I stay away from those articles. I know what I believe and I know what I think is important to me. I have no desire to fight and argue with folks because, really, how many opinions or views are really going to be changed? Not one. Some like to get on here and just spout meanness and ugliness in the support of their party. I, for one and there are many more, want nothing to do with it.

People I know who are good friends of mine hold different views and they treat me well. People who have opposing views on the vine treat me and everyone else who believes differently than they do like dirt. Anonymity leads to dick-wad-ish-ness.

I usually don't rant. Sorry about that Holly. It was a kind of twitch, I think.

Holly, the Reader's Digest version of oldtime conservatism is a lot like 'grump'. Fiscal conservatives and what passes for social liberals theses days. We used to believe that government should stay out of people's bedrooms and everyone should have a reasonable expectation of bettering their lives while insuring that there was a safety net for all. It kind of was the same with 'oldtime religion' (before evangelists became arrogant). I was raised to believe we are all God's children (including gays and lesbians, those of other faiths, races, incomes, et al) and we are our brother's keeper. Pretty simple and certainly not like too many current Christians.

I was a "Jack Kemp Conservative" until he went over the edge with trickle down economics. As a middle manager in a very large corporation I wasn't high enough to set policy but high enough to have to give pink slips to people during the Reagan administration. After firing 400 plus good people over a year and a half I left the company in a buyout because I couldn't stand it anymore. When you see a good engineer (that I let go) and his marketing exec. wife with two kids in college lose their home within a year of losing their jobs you have a totally different perspective than what has evolved into the right wing today. My buyout wasn't a golden parachute by any means but I still get a small check once a month that allows me to enjoy my third career well past retirement age. . . and it allows me to campaign for good people like our current president. I guess I would be called a progressive today but that has to do as much as with what I see we need to do to compete in the global marketplace of the 21st century and that certainly isn't the return to the cave philosophy of the right wing. When I hear the current hardcore right wingers of today start one of their rants my eyes glaze a little and I see the faces of a lot of the families who became homeless too soon after I handed their final checks to them. Please excuse me if I can't be friends with the so-called conservatives of today.

BTW - The CEO of our company had his locker at the club three down from mine. In the early 80s he made 20 times what the base factory worker made. Today the CEO of that same company makes 600 times the base worker and please don't get me started on the hedge fund managers and the Bain Capital types who think that billion dollar "earnings" should be taxed at 15% versus the tax rate of working stiffs. If I had my way we would be raising their taxes far more than the lousy 3.6% that the Republicans call class warfare.