understanding your opponent

[Posted on this Coffee Party thread]

People on the left who criticize the small-government people on the right as heartless, uncaring, and unsympathetic toward the underprivileged need to realize that the small-government people on the right really believe their way is the better, more moral, more caring way. That their way will achieve better results for all, including the underprivileged, and they can point to very intellectual, philosophical, and rational authors to support those claims (e.g. Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek to name just a couple). The people on the right are not, in general, heartless, uncaring, and unsympathetic. The left is making a mistake by generalizing them in that way.

To the left I say, if you don't understand your opponent, your strategies will have less chance of success.