hey everybody welcome back you know it
seems like nobody can have a nice polite
conversation about politics well one
reason for that is differences and
ideology so smash that like button ever
so politely and let's get
started so APG focuses almost
exclusively on three ideologies
conservative liberal and libertarian in
the next two videos we're going to get
very specific on these ideologies and
explore their positions on economic and
social policies one of my goals in this
section is to try to help everybody
understand how it's possible that a
reasonable thinking person could ascribe
to each of these ideologies and present
the very best version of each of them
recall that political ideology refers to
a consistent set of ideas and beliefs
about the purpose and scope of
government how much power should the
government have and how big and strong
or small and weak should it be let's go
alphabetically conservatives typically
favor traditional American values
respect for authority Law and Order and
strong National Defense if you're not a
conservative you might respond
incredulously what's so great about
tradition history is full of bad stuff
we need to change there's a parable
known as chesterton's fence that might
shed some light imagine that you buy a
huge piece of land and one day as you're
inspecting your new property you
randomly come across a fence and you
have no idea why the fence is there so
you're inin Nation may be to pull the
fence up after all you don't know why
it's there but fences don't just spring
up out of the ground somebody put it
there and surely there was a reason why
they did it in fact they might have
known more about this land than you do
the moral of the parable is that changes
shouldn't be made until you understand
the reasoning of the current state of
affairs liberals AKA progressives are
usually very concerned with equality
both economically and socially and they
often favor a bigger stronger government
to try to legislate the equality that
they see as desirable people who aren't
liberal might wonder why it seems like
Liberals are always trying to change
things liberals typically view societal
problems as a struggle between the
oppressors and the oppressed and the
goal of liberals is to empower people
and groups that have been historically
disadvantaged or oppressed and they view
the power of government as a key method
to rebalancing power away from the
powerful oppressor group as such they're
much more comfortable than conservatives
with experimenting with new policies
focusing on what's presently wrong and
willing to try things that may or may
not improve things but they favor trying
something and then there's Libertarians
who are all about freedom and I mean all
about Freedom Libertarians favor a very
weak federal government whose main
purpose is to protect individual Freedom
really the only time it's okay to limit
somebody's freedom is to stop them from
infringing on another person's Freedom
Libertarians have ideas pretty similar
to a lot of the founders acknowledging
that there needs to be some governmental
power but they are super suspicious of
it having too much power they want
people to be free to make their own
decisions and live their own lives sure
there are a handful of things that it's
reasonable to use government for like
defense and protecting property rights
maybe roads and sewage systems but
beyond these basic tasks everything else
should be up to the people they are
extremely distrustful of the coercive
Powers governments have to force
citizens to do something and as such
they're pretty big fans of the Bill of
Rights okay so the title of this section
is ideologies of political parties among
the two major parties liberals tend to
find a home in the Democratic party
while conservatives are more likely to
be Republicans Libertarians though don't
fit neatly into either party there is a
Libertarian party which is the largest
of the third parties and some may choose
to hold their nose and vote for the
lesser of two evils and others might
just sit out the game all together so
these are the three groups that the AP
exam focuses on but I want to make the
disclaimer that there are plenty of
other ideologies out there and there are
Wars going on right now in the
Democratic and Republican parties over
the ideological direction of the party
there are portions of each party that
are much more populist in nature
advocating for much stronger
governmental power to achieve their
policy goals for Republicans it's more
of a nationalist populism focusing on
anti-immigration and anti-trade policies
that put into conflict with more
traditional conservatives for Democrats
the populist Wing sometimes
self-described as Democratic socialism
and wants much higher taxes and
significantly more government regulation
control of the economy and expansion of
government programs and the ideology of
Americans matters and influences public
policy this country has gone through
various some more liberal others more
conservative and not surprisingly when
one ideology dominates at a certain time
the policies of that era reflect that
okay only two videos left in this unit
and we're going to get a lot more
specific about the economic and social
policies of each ideology but until next
time this has been a l money production
thanks again for watching I hope that it
helped make sure to smash that like
button and subscribe and if you've
decided you're ready to kill it apgov
take take a look at the ultimate review
packet and I will see you in the next
video
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