What is Liberal or Conservative ??

[tigger_68]

This is related to my other thread, just thought it easier to keep the topics separate.

It seems like both sides are racing to the extremes. What used to be mainstream liberal is now moderate. What used to be mainstream conservative is also moderate.

So I thought it would be fun to debate what is conservative or liberal these days

I am working on my own post of my views for comment, but would welcome other insights

 

[Cool-Beans]

The old joke is that a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested. And a conservative is a liberal who has been attacked.

 

[tigger_68]

Well yes that is the old joke but I meant what is it really ?

Seems like now you have to either be a hard core leftist or a hard core religious conservative to be 'acceptable'

 

[RNMOM]

Sorry, couldn't resist. As you can see from my intro, I am a liberal and proud of it. What is that? Well, I really don't know if I can explain it. Part of me wants to say "liberals do no harm to others and want to help as many people as possible. They want free speech, separation of church and state and everyone to 'just get along'". Oh yeah, get out of the war too!

When I say that is sounds pretty arrogant. I am SURE there are plenty of conservatives who want all those things just as much as I do.

I will say it seems liberals take a little longer to hit the boiling point when it comes to issues. I seem to hear many more conservatives expressing their views long before the liberals. Or..maybe I am just looking for the comments made by the other side???

 

[bicker]

The words themselves used to mean something specific. A political conservative favored the least interference by government in the lives of the people, reserving for government only those responsibilities that require the collective force, i.e., national defense. A political liberal, therefore, favored utilization of federal power to influence most aspects of life, social, economic, etc.

The Republican and Democratic parties have each perverted both of these words. The Republicans would have you believe they're conservative, while they work to have government interfere in the lives of the people by passing laws that would place restrictions on people dictated by the party leaders' prevailing religious beliefs, for example. The Democrats, starting with Clinton, while still calling themselves liberal, favor fewer and fewer restrictions on big business (i.e. they're being "conservative"), regardless of how that may effect the environment long-term.

 

[KelNottAt]

At the risk of oversimplifying it, I've explained it to my kids this way:

Liberals pay more attention to the rights of the group. Conservatives pay more attention to the rights of the individual.
Liberals believe solutions can be found through government intervention. Conservatives believe solutions can be found without government intervention.
Neither philosophy is more patriotic than the other.
Neither is more correct than the other.
This country needs both extremes to function well. Compromise between the two leads to a peaceful, orderly society.
Republicans and democrats are not red or blue. They're both shades of purple.

 

[bicker]

Unfortunately, no one is conservative any more -- no one pays "more attention to the rights of the individual".

 

[rayelias]

Winston Churchill (reportedly) said it best:

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Well if you go by the mainstream media, here are your definitions.

Right wng wacko= Nobody fits this definition.
Conservative=Rush Limbaugh and George Bush.
Liberal. Lincoln Chaffey, Olympia Snowe.
Hard Left Wacko Any member of the Democratic party other than Joe Leiberman. Also anyone notoriously bad.

 

[DVC Sadie]

Winston Churchill (reportedly) said it best:

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

ITA! My parents used to say this in regards to my brother and I wanting to change the world ( ) when we were in our 20's.

 

[Aidensmom]

Seems like now you have to either be a hard core leftist or a hard core religious conservative to be 'acceptable'

Acceptable to who?

I don't consider myself either a conservative or liberal as based on today's definitions of them. I truly have beliefs that fall in all parts of the spectrum, depending on the issue.

From what I see on these boards, I would define a liberal as someone who thinks all non-democrats are extreme right wing conservative Christians, and a conservative as someone who thinks all non-republicans are extreme left-wing tree-hugging over-taxers. (The reason I say non-democrat and non-republicans is to encompass that group of people which is neither, who we often seem to forget exist.)

 

[chobie]

The old joke is that a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested. And a conservative is a liberal who has been attacked.

Rush Limbaugh is a liberal now?

 

[chobie]

Winston Churchill (reportedly) said it best:

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

So the majority of US college professors have no brain? We must be the most stupid nation on the planet.

 

[rayelias]

So the majority of US college professors have no brain?

If the shoe fits...

 

[bicker]

And so now we have the answer to the question asked earlier in the week, about why there isn't any civil discourse about politics in this country anymore. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1191441 It's a disease perhaps: People seem to have a hard time accepting that anyone who disagrees with them could possibly be a reasonable person -- that anyone who disagrees with them could possibly still deserve polite replies instead of callous mud-slinging.

 

[chobie]

And so now we have the answer to the question asked earlier in the week, about why there isn't any civil discourse about politics in this country anymore. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1191441 It's a disease perhaps: People seem to have a hard time accepting that anyone who disagrees with them could possibly be a reasonable person -- that anyone who disagrees with them could possibly still deserve polite replies instead of callous mud-slinging.

Yes, well this does not just apply to political threads, it also applies to refillable mug threads. Many a person has been called unreasonable (and much worse) for not aggreeing with other on those threads, haven't they?

 

[rayelias]

And so now we have the answer to the question asked earlier in the week, about why there isn't any civil discourse about politics in this country anymore. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1191441 It's a disease perhaps: People seem to have a hard time accepting that anyone who disagrees with them could possibly be a reasonable person -- that anyone who disagrees with them could possibly still deserve polite replies instead of callous mud-slinging.

This is a little OT, but try and find a time in American politics (or any democratic process) where there ever WAS civil discourse.

Mud slinging, name calling, and the like have been going on for ever and will continue to... as long as we have the freedom to do so.

 

[bicker]

There surely was a time when there was civic discourse on politics on the Internet. Check the archives back 20 year ago, and everyone was very polite and respectful.

 

[chobie]

There surely was a time when there was civic discourse on politics on the Internet. Check the archives back 20 year ago, and everyone was very polite and respectful.

On the internet, maybe, I wasn't on it back in the mid-eighties. But I do remember that as being the time when the Christian Coalition was in their prime and the villianization of liberals as being soft-on-crime, baby-killing, heathens really took off.

 

[JoyG]

There surely was a time when there was civic discourse on politics on the Internet. Check the archives back 20 year ago, and everyone was very polite and respectful.

This comment made me laugh because 20 years ago there were only about ten people using the internet...


But I do wish we could have civil discussions about these types of issues.