Liberal Empathy

Since becoming friends with a political liberal and after many discussions about politics and government, I've been searching for a simple way to empathize with him, to put on his glasses and understand the core of his arguments. Something occurred to me this past week and I may be able to explain his perspective in simpler terms than I have before, but I'm not yet confident that I truly do have a handle on the essence.

In the past liberals have appeared to me to be an eclectic collection of special interest groups that don't fit into a systematic theory of government. Not only does my friend have a systematic theory of government, but he has also believed conservatives to be a collection of special-interests without a systematic approach. If you like to negotiate with your fists, burn Styrofoam, shoot guns, horde wealth, and block influence and opportunity for people who aren't like you, you could find a home in the right wing, he thought.

I still think there are those single-issue groups in each camp only because the other camp is not hospitable. My friend is not one of those single-issue people and doesn't adopt the views many of them bring along with their voting blocs to his camp. He is pro-life and anti-gay-marriage, for example.

There have been some aha! moments for each of us as we explored our viewpoints. One of them came in the form of a hypothetical question he posed to me about preemptive strikes. He asked if I was nearly certain that one of five men was going to kill my daughter but I did not know which one, would I kill all five?

We gave all the appropriate disclaimers of the hypothetical nature of the question and could not with certainty predict our bravery and emotions as they would factor in as wild cards if actually faced with such a thing, but my answer was generally “yes” and his was generally “no”. He could not justify wasting four lives, maybe even five, to save the one, and I could not justify allowing that which God has placed under my stewardship to be destroyed, as I am charged to “rescue the weak and needy” and “deliver them from the hand of the wicked” in Psalm 82.

We both use the Bible to explain our viewpoints on government. He challenges me with “turn the other cheek” and ministry to the poor. He sites Acts 2:44-45 as a foundation for his socialism, where:
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. “

What struck me this week was the device in literature known as “narrative viewpoint”. My friend is right that I am to be generous and turn the other cheek while seeking peace. It is my viewpoint that I am to apply these moral standards to myself in the first-person. It is his viewpoint that he is to apply these standards to myself in the second-person. So who is forcing their morality on who?

I want to teach my daughter to turn the other cheek in forgiveness, indeed even to lay down her life if ever absolutely necessary, for her friends. But if wickedness strikes her in the face, Jesus does not instruct me to turn her cheek for her. If that ever happens the dude is going down... maybe even in preemption.