While the politicians sleep off their turkey, the news waxes philosophical.

The Asheville Daily Planet is a monthly that advertises local events and covers presentations by guest speakers at UNC-Asheville. This November, it covered only one story, and did so in two articles. Five people (12.5%) walked out on an avowed conservative during the latest in a lecture series sponsored by the Institute of Applied Philosophy and UNCA’s philosophy department. Dick Kranker’s lecture was entitled, “Liberalism vs. Conservatism: One Conservative’s View of the Good, the Bad and the Differences.”

Volatile views meriting space in the newspaper included:
• Liberals believe knowledge comes from human beings while conservatives think it comes from God.
• Liberals believe in subjective reality while conservatives think reality is objective.
• Conservatives tend to embrace capitalism (the most just system), whereas liberals tend to be socialists though they dislike the label.
• Liberals believe in government redistribution of the wealth. Conservatives believe in taking care of the poor with their own money, not forced tax dollars.
• Liberals conclude by feeling; conservatives by thinking.
• “For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.”
• Liberals are responsible for Fannie Mae and other policies that led to the current banking crisis, minimum wage legislation, and multi-lingual legal documents.
• Liberal educators promote a false sense of self-esteem, and liberal prosecutors are too easy on criminals. Conservatives don’t make excuses to keep dangerous elements in society.
• When conservatives ran schools, the greatest threats were “students talking out of turn, making noise, running in halls, chewing gum and harmless pranks. Today, they are drug abuse, pregnancy, suicide, alcohol abuse, rape, robbery and violence against both students and teachers.”
• Liberals demanded fairness on college admission tests, and now schools spend $2.9 billion annually on remedial courses.
• Conservatives learn from mistakes. Liberals demand reparations.
• Liberals indoctrinate Americans “with the seductive, liberal idea that government exists to solve all problems, redress all wrongs, petty or great, real or imagined, and to guarantee not just the right to pursue happiness, but happiness itself!”
• Conservatives want judges to follow the Constitution. Liberals want them to follow their feelings.

Kranker’s wife said:
• “Liberals walk out when they disagree.”

Kranker was faulted for not giving opposing views equal weight, and only espousing Lockean (and not godless Hobbesian) philosophy. Al M. Iosue, MD challenged the conservative viewpoint stating half the population has an IQ under 100. Government had to redistribute the wealth to mollify the rabble. 10% of people are alcoholics, and 10% are mentally ill. Government was needed to prevent “nature from playing things out.”