Fear vs. Love: Which one rules your world?

Sundance IS my mental sibling.

Which brings me to my ponderings. I think fear is at the core of liberalism, and love/trust is at the core of conservatism. Liberalism is about control. Conservatism is about self-empowerment.

This is an important distinction and so I repeat, “fear is at the core of liberalism“.

Control is a reaction to fear. I think in terms or politics and society – the fear behind liberalism is the fear that someone might withhold things (opportunities, money, whatever) from me, fear that if you live your life in a way I dislike that it might affect my life, fear that if you get that job, there will be nothing left for me. Fear that if you make tons of money, it’s means there’s less money out there for me. So these people seek control as a means of trying to create guarantees and safeguards against those circumstances they fear. (*Think about re-distributive wealth policies).

Go to The Last Refuge and RTWT.  Over and over.  You may never find a more insightful and truthful analysis of the whole Left/Right schism.  And Sundance's defintion of 'Conservative'

The conservative (and moderate, independent, but for the sake of expediency, the conservative), on the other hand, relies on himself to meet his own needs. And the trade off of being free to live his life as he wishes is also understanding that he has to make peace with how you live yours. By extension, aware that he wants to be able to hold onto this liberty and freedom forever, the conservative votes accordingly, so that everyone can remain free and in charge of his or her own life.

most definitely includes--nay, defines--the Libertarian.  This is what it's all about, y'all.