Listen up Libs and cons: There is enough hyprocisy to go around

I sat playing with my two year old while CNN was playing in the background during the Senate vote to bring the healthcare reform bill to the floor. Not the nail bitter I think it was made out to be, but interesting enough. As I listened to the punditry dribble what constitutes post-election debate, I heard abortion was once again a line being drawn in the sand as, Tina Fey's 30 Rock character would put it, a "deal breaker".

This is nothing new; the topic is divisive and a hardline issue for many who are single issue voters based on abortion alone (which I think silly, but to each their own). But there I sat listening to the panel discuss the vote along political lines "Conservative" senator this and "Liberal" senator that. I began to wonder something. And maybe its just me; but isnt there a lot of contradiction within these political ideologies?

Ok. the right of the spectrum is against abortion. Yet the same group that professes the inherent preciousness of each life is the same group that is the biggest proponent of the death penalty. Is life only precious at the beginning? This is also the same group usually opposed to welfare which in most cases is designed to help take care of the "not aborted" babies. The right professes to oppose government intervention yet endorses heavy regulations when it comes to drugs,gambling, prostitution, abortion --the areas where the most intimate decisions regarding personal choices are involved.

Now the left side of the spectrum supports abortion. Yet the same group that does not feel life in womb deserves ultimate protection quivers at the thought of people taking the life of those which have committed heinous crimes against others. The left proposes that people should have personal liberty, based on personal responsibility, when it comes to drugs, prostitution, and abortions, but baulks when it comes to guns and again when asked to enforce personal responsibility when it comes to crime and welfare.

As ideologies liberalism and conservatism seem to have predetermined stances for the majority of issues facing this country. I always find it interesting that a person could be wholly one or the other on each of these issues without running head on to some of these inherent contradictions.