Coggins, I think both the left and the right seek to move certain things from the individual sphere into the public domain. I only asked about the left in my question because I was replying to bcspace. I find it humorous actually that both sides accuse the other of doing it as they both do it, yet just choose different areas to focus on.
I don't agree here at all. The Right does seek government regulation of some things (see below), but the Left's entire social and political philosophy revolves around removing as much personal responsibility and autonomy from human life as possible. A Conservative/Libertarian philosophy that left all things alone completely and regulated nothing would be anarchism, which is unworkable as a political system (essentially, direct democracy, or what would eventuate in practice, highly decentralized majority rule).
I agree with you that the left does take from individual (taxes, social programs) and move some things into the public domain. The right does the same: Abortion? Drug use? Most things that are not financial in nature are things the right tends to seek dominion over and remove it from the individual and move that to government domain.
I think this is an apples and oranges comparison. The imposition upon society of the welfare state and the almost limitless expropriation of the fruits of the labor of individual citizens to fund it (and the the citizens who become dependent on government for their subsistence and vote in politically self interested homogeneous blocks to preserve that subsistence at the expense of their fellow citizens) is not at all the same as legal restrictions upon certain behaviors, such as age limits for drinking, driving a vehicle, or conditions under which an abortion can be performed. Society, thorough it deliberative democratic institutions, (legislatures) are to decide for themselves what such limitations should be or whether their be any limitations at all (within the borders of the Constitution).
We limit how fast one can drive, the age at which one can drink, hold a job, and any number of other things. We do not permit people to torture or starve their pets. Abortion is not a constitutional right in any case, and never should have been dealt with by the courts. We limit and sanction prostitution or drug use, not because we are imposting values on others, as the Left does, but because the majority, in a democratic republic, has the right to impose its values upon society as a whole as long as those values and the laws derived from them do not impinge upon other's constitutional rights. Does a restriction upon paying a woman on a street corner for sex deprive anyone of their rights. Well obviously, not unless this can be considered a "right", and not unless it can be shown that in preserving that right, the other individuals in the community will not be harmed as a result. This is also true of drugs. Both liberals and libertarians have a long road to hoe in demonstrating that such social pathologies as prostitution and recreational drug use will not generate further social pathologies that have the potential to threaten the larger unraveling of civil society as a whole (which would then involve serious infringements upon my constitutional rights) such that an argument can be made for their prohibition. This may not be true of all drugs, nor of all sexual activity (no one is talking about picking up a girl at a bar and taking her home).
Using drugs or buying sex (aside from the very live question of whether things like this have any relevance to what the founders meant by "the pursuit of happiness) many not impinge upon my rights directly, but the indirect effects of such phenomena, accumulating over time and spreading more broadly thought a culture, can have deep consequences for the exercise of my rights indeed. The culture of death and the breakdown of the family (and vast social pathologies incident to it) are well within the regulatory umbrella of a democratic society.
Really, this is what the 10th amendment is all about. If California wants abortion legal from the moment of conception to the moment of birth, as Roe accepts and as the Left generally supports as part of its program to erase western enlightenment/Judeo/Christian cultural values and mores, then they may well have it. Other states may limit it to the life of the mother, rape or incest.
When conservatives seek to deny absolute freedom to do as a buffer against the future breakdown of civil society, this is not the same as the Left's imposting Roe on the entire country by unaccountable judicial fiat in the name of an ideological crusade to remake American society.
Saying that you cannot have an abortion for whatever reason you so desire does not move any behavior or choice you may want to make into the public domain, as say, ESA or Wetlands regulation does with property rights. What is does is, like laws against running a red light, impose limits on private behavior within the context of the larger community of which one is a part. Unlike the Left's imposition of prescriptive moral and political demands that usually force one to do something, such abortion restrictions only shift personal responsibility for behavior back to the individual and away from others (if I get pregnant, I'll just get an abortion, no big deal. My insurance will pay for it (or, if I'm a poor female on welfare, the taxpayers) the authorities will cover for me if I'm a minor (anti-parental consent laws), and
I'll essentially just pass the buck on to other organs of society. But if I cannot get an abortion unless under specific conditions (conditions over which I have no control), then perhaps I should think twice about getting pregnant, or, if pregnant, I'll just have to suck it up and take responsibility for the situation).
Most conservative rules in this sense simply alter the cost/benefit analysis of engaging in certain kinds of socially destructive behavior and shift responsibility away from external forces back onto the individual (and that is what the Left despises above all else in these areas).
Of course conservatives and liberals both make laws and rules, but I think two primary differences between the Left and Right are:
1. Most conservatives (except some hard boiled fundamentalist types), believe in limited government;a small, constitutionally constrained state closer that which the Founders constructed that would have far less importance to and intrusion into personal life than at present. Some behaviors would be limited that are not now so limited, but again, much of this only transfers responsibility from external entities back to the individual. It does not limit constitutional freedoms as understood within the constitution itself. I think you will find that most modern conservative intellectuals are actually, to some extent, libertarian conservatives, and embody elements of both philosophies. The one thing that separates conservatives from leftists, and the more extreme libertarians, is the understanding that human freedom is not absolute, and that the constitution does not imply such.
2. The conservative, or Classical Liberal idea is to conserve the best aspects of western civilization and moral order while allowing the culture to develop greater opportunities for human growth and flourishing. This involves both decentralized, limited government, a great deal of personal freedom, but also distinct limits to that freedom as regarding the overall strength and cohesion of the entire society.
The Left, on the other hand, has always been transformative; it has sought the complete remaking of society along quite different lines that those upon which the country was conceived (generally, a franco/germanic philosophical and political template, as opposed to that which arose among English speaking peoples (Liberalism). The Left, from the French Revolution, through Marx and the Cultural Marxists to the New Left and to the present, have a very different conception of human nature and the manner in which human beings should live together in organized societies. They are utterly at odds.
About the left and their victimization of victims I'm really not following you...... I would think feminism (let's agree that would be on the left of the political scale ;) ) had quite a bit with advocating for children and females that were victims and sought to undo injustices in the court systems as well as desperately trying to help those that found themselves as victims.
Well, people were advocating for children a long time before the advent of radical feminism. And yes, the early moderate feminists did have a positive influence on American society and eased some of the ridiculous attitudes left over from older cultural milieus. That feminism, however, is essentially dead, at least as far as national politics is concerned.
Now of course seeking stronger penalties for offenders of criminal behavior would no doubt have supporters on the right. Yet both sides didn't work in isolation and surely you recognize that advocating for victim rights could be seen on both sides of the scale and yet they occurred in different ways.
I'm sure there are many liberals who would advocate for victims rights. However, I know of no liberal groups or organizations, in my lifetime, who have ever done so. The pro-criminal/rehabilitation/criminal rights movement and the victims rights movement split right down left/right lines, as do pro-self defense/anti-gun forces Again, there is a reason for this, but that would take a long post to flesh out.