Impulses

by Patrick Appel

Bernstein tries to sort ideologies:

I do think that there's something authentically different betweenliberals and conservatives, at least some of the time, and at least insome cases.  If not first principles, though, perhaps we can call themimpulses.  To me, the liberal impulse is basically: We Can Do Better.  And the conservative impulse?  Don't Make It Worse.  Liberals, orperhaps all of us when we're inspired by the liberal impulse, lookaround and see a variety of problems...