Can you serve 2 Masters?

Question

Our political arena has become much like our penile system, we're trying to punish AND rehabilitate and we're doing neither one very well. Our political landscape has come to a cross-roads of some sort. Whether it leads to some form of socialism or utopianism or fascism seems yet to be determined.

On one hand, you have the Liberals, who believe that things like healthcare, minimal housing and food should be the right and privilege of ever citizen. The also believe in the spirit of entrepreneurship and a commitment to excellence. Liberals believe that if a person doesn't have to scramble just to exist, then they will be called to personal excellence.

Then there's the Conservatives. They believe that people who are unable to support themselves are the architects of their own demise. Conservative religious views and a weighty interest in the world of Finance are guiding forces among many of them. They see themselves as the backbone of the World, and in many ways they are correct.

Answer 1

As long as one is not God and the other is not money.

As a side note, I don't agree with your classification completly.  As generalizations, I'd agree for the most part except I don't agree that liberals believe in the "spirit of entrepreneurship and a commitment to excellence" more than conservatives.  In fact I might argue it is the other way around as small business owners (entrepreneurs) trend heavily Republican (typically associated with conservativsim), and low taxes is a very conservative principle that favors entrepreneurship.

I also believe you misunderstand the conservative principle.  It is not that "people are the architects of their own demise".  It is that people's success or demise is non of the government's business.  The government's role is to ensure fairness, not ensure equality.  In other words, you are "created equal", not made equal by government intervention.

Answer 2

HokiePau...has a superb answer.  I can offer that conservative values include a proper education (not necessarily college) from schools that are not so permissive that they pass everyone (e.g., "outcome-based education").  Oh, by the way, unless you have your mind elsewhere...the correct spelling for the judicio/rehabilitative system is "penal."  In our particular society, a failure rate of about 10% is required in order for the rest of the body to survive.

Anyhting less than that veers toward socialism or communism, where freedoms in one form or another, cease to exist.