Editing Moral Politics (section)

=== The central problems ===

The major observations/assumptions and questions on which the book is founded include these:

# There is one cluster of beliefs that most conservatives share (including some kind of condemnation of abortion, a positive emphasis on [[military spending]], and a fixed-percentage income tax) and another cluster that most liberals share (including some kind of support for abortion, a negative emphasis on military spending, and a progressive income tax). What is the explanation for this clustering? What "unifies each of the lists of moral priorities?" "Mix and match" views seem comparatively rare. How come?
# Liberals and conservatives usually not only disagree with one another but view the "other side" as largely incoherent. Many liberals, for example, see building more prisons as a completely ineffective and illogical solution to crime, while many conservatives view it as ''the'' obvious solution. Why can't the one side even begin to understand the other?
# Why do liberals and conservatives tend to use the same words to mean different things? For example, a liberal might use the term "big government" to condemn the military, but, to a conservative, the term "big government" has nothing to do with the military, even though the military is a significant government institution.
# Why do liberals and conservatives make different issues the focus of campaigns? For example, why did the Republican leaders emphasize "[[family values]]" so much in their 1994 campaign, and why was similar emphasis not made by Democrats? Don't liberals also have families and a moral framework for reasoning about families?