The differences in the political spectrum

I hate politics. I really do. I hate it because nobody can ever come to any agreement and rarely is there any budging of anyone's view after the hours of argumentation that occurs. And usually when there are differences these conversations/arguments just seem to deepen the divide. Why is it that so many people are never swayed, no matter how convincing the argument might seem to you?

Surely, the environments in which you develop shape the way you think about and view things. I was from a fairly early point a critical and skeptical person, and like I had cast off religion, I also eventually cast off (at least most) of the ideas of the necessity of so many government institutions. But buried somewhere in the development is something which I think is perhaps overlooked. In our hierarchy of values, we all eventually place a certain ideal at the very top, a basic premise from which we assess what is best or most right in the world.

For modern day liberals, this value is 'equality'. For libertarians (and old-school Republicans), this value is 'liberty'. This is not to say that liberals don't value liberty, or libertarians equality, but it means that where these ideas come into conflict (as they often do), that one tends to trump the other. How we stand on issues depends by and large on premises such as these, and it is very hard to undermine someone's most fundamental values.

Also, with this acknowledged, I'm not sure one can say that one is better than the other, because I am biased toward favoring systems which maximize liberty, even if at the expense of equality of economic standing. I think if more people understood this, there could at least be greater understanding of where each other comes from and less of this name-calling and putting-down of political views. I think they are rather unreconcilable, though, which is why I feel like 'liberty' has the edge - it allows those who want to produce egalitarian institutions to do so, just not to enforce it on all. The downside (from their view) being that it doesn't create equality across the board, since not all are participating in it. On the other hand, enforced equality necessitates the suppression of liberty when it is forced on those who would not voluntarily do so.

Take it as you will.