Going all sociological on your asses so if you don’t care feel free to skip.
I sometimes contemplate how groups of people act/react, sociopolitically and in other ways. Speaking from my vast experience of two sociology courses in college I’m obviously qualified.
In any given society, there are three elements on any particular issue (social issues, government, fiscal, etc.): conservatives, moderates, and liberals. In this context, conservatives are those who seek to preserve the status quo, moderates don’t really care, and liberals seek change. Something I think is missed in all the quibbling between groups on issues is this: all three are important! In a society, conservatives on an issue keep the pace of change slow and steady. Without them society would spin out of control and unravel to anarchy. Moderates are a base around which society revolves and undulates in various directions. They anchor the discussion on an issue around a center. Liberals cause the society to evolve and mutate, without change societies grow stagnant and collapse from within.

Societies, I suppose if you want to go all geek on it, could be viewed as n-dimensional entities (if you can’t visualize it, which three-dimensional creatures like us can’t, picture a 100-sided die to help), with specks along every single axis (each person’s opinion). The collective standings of each person in a society over time on every issue are sort of a weird, spastic waveform within this multi-sided box: wavering from strong conservative support, to moderate (the issue isn’t important), to liberal support. The n-dimensional object this varying wave occurs in is the society itself and the self-imposed constraints: economy, government, etc. In the U.S. it’s a capitalist economy and a representative democracy.

These constraints limit the shape of this entity so it doesn’t go out of control. To be specific, our democracy keep conservatives and liberals from passing laws that are TOO extreme to unbalance the whole equation. Same thing with (somewhat) free markets. The shape and size of this many-faceted cube are the challenging part. Make it too lax and large and things go unhinged, popular support in any direction on a particular issue unhinging the society. On the flip side, constricting things too much prevents healthy oscillation from conservative to liberal support on the topic of change in an issue.

So, I guess what I’m trying to get at in my uneducated-but-I-have-an-opinion way, is this: liberal or conservative on an issue, you are needed and so is the ‘opposition’. Work for your change or to keep things how they are now. (And there is a point to be made here that while societies must evolve and change, they don’t necessarily have to change on every issue — most educated people would agree that at any point in time a society which condones unqualified murder is wrong.) But respect the opposition and make sure both sides work together to ensure government, the market and other such forces never place restrictions on the range of discussion or range of public policy on an issue such that it cannot healthily evolve. There. Bobby’s maxims on society 101