Liberals and Conservatives

For every person who conforms to the conventional stereotype of conservative or liberal, there are many more who fall somewhere in-between. Some people are liberal on some issues like abortion and conservative on others like gun control while others are just the other way around. Indeed, even some conventional conservatives are more complicated than they appear at first glance which might explain why the one female co-worker I knew who fought hardest against a male co-worker who was a sexist jackass was also the same woman who listened to Rush Limbaugh on a daily basis. (I'm not going to pretend that all Limbaugh fans are like her but she was definitely different than what I had expected.)

That said, liberals historically tended to be more pro-active at fighting against racism, sexism and the like while conservatives rarely participated in such fights. Granted, there were exceptions like Lincoln and Eisenhower but even these were more often than not reacting against a situation. For example, Truman took it upon himself to order the racial integration of the military while Eisenhower's decision to support the integration of Little Rock was more a reaction to events than a pro-active decision.

As for Woodrow Wilson, I would like to believe that he too was an exception since he chose to expand the limits of Jim Crow during his time in office despite his reputation as a very liberal president and not many presidents on either side of the aisle did that. Then again it was not unusual to find many Democrats -- especially in the South but also in the North as well -- who were not exactly in favor of integration.

Indeed, many of the "moderate" civil rights views that some conservatives like P.J. O'Rourke take such pride in today were once considered very radical as recently as the 1960s. For that matter, I can say the same thing about certain "moderate" views concerning feminism.