What do "conservative" and "liberal" even mean anymore?

[grendel72]

Rant:
"Conservative" and "liberal" are completely meaningless designations that cause people to give up their indepent thought and concience in service of a philosophy that isn't even their own philosophy. It makes me sick to see people defend completely indefensible shit on the basis of some abstract bullshit that means nothing, and probably never meant anything.
Make up your own fucking minds, people.
Any time you describe your philosophy with some pre-made name, you are denying a part of yourself. You are telling the world that you cannot think for yourself, or are just too lazy to.

[Brutus]

Typical liberal.

[grendel72]

Uh huh.
Just don't try claiming that "all liberals want big brother to controll every aspect of your life" when you actually define a liberal as "anyone who disagrees with you."
Same goes for you liberals claiming all conservatives are fascist bigots.

[SPOOFE]

See, the concept of "liberal" and "conservative" arose as a result of the development of the Theory of Relativity.

Back in the Old Days, there was an office of census that was specifically dedicated towards having people choose their political standing... when you turned twelve, you were required by law to go down to this office, and fill out a form that had you choose either one political standing, or the other. If you failed to do this, you were often executed or tortured in the most heinous of manners. Once you picked your political leaning, you were required, by law, to stick with that leaning in all walks of life - i.e. if you picked "conservative", you were required to go to Church every Sunday and get drunk and beat your wife every night, and if you picked "liberal" were you required to be lazy and absent from your job quite often, take drugs, and sympathize with the Commies (that whole McCarthy thing was just part of the act, you know).

What does this have to do with General Relativity? I'm glad you asked! It was discovered that there are degrees of "conservative" or "liberal"... and if you compared someone who was only "slightly conservative" to someone who was "stark raving foaming-at-the-mouth conservative", from the latter person's perspective the former would appear to be just another "fucking liberal" (oh, yeah, you were required by law to hate people of the opposing political viewpoint, too). This odd happenstance carried over to the other side of the spectrum... if you considered yourself a "liberal" but happened to think that Communism didn't work, you were often derided by those who were "more liberal" than you (although their insults tended to be more passive, accusing you of being a "narc" or "part of the establishment, man" or "baby-killer"... 'cuz conservatives were required by law to kill babies).

Unfortunately, when the damned liberals were in office in the late '70s, they decided that Office of Political Spectrum was a waste of resources, and cancelled that program and devoted the supporting funds towards the Office of Helping Snuggly Fuzzy Cutesy-Wutesy Aminals... and THAT office was canned during the '80s when Emperor Conservative Himself was in office, and those funds were dedicated towards building his tomb (http://www.theonion.com/onion3002/reagan.html).

I hope that this little lesson about the political history of the United States has been fruitful. Now, get back to your political roots and go beat the shit out of someone who disagrees with you! Think women should have choice? Go pound some pro-lifer upside the head with a 2x4! Think that the Ten Commandments should be posted up in public schools? Go run over one of those Godless Commie assholes with your gas-guzzling SUV! It's the American Way!

[Trinopus]

Guelph and Ghibbiline.

Trinopus

[SPOOFE]

Gesundheit.

[Michael Ellis]

Gilgamesh.

[Duke]

Guelph is in Ontario, but where is Ghibbilene?

[Apos]

Conservatives are the ones who support deficit spending and radically increasing the size of government. Liberals are against women wearing makeup. Get it now?

[Liberal]

Liberals can't keep their minds off your wallet. Conservatives can't keep their minds off your zipper.

[friedo]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Conservatives can't keep their minds off your zipper.

I wouldn't mind having Ann Coulter mind my zipper. Aw yeah.








What? She's hot.

:p

[Siege]

I like the way a Wiccan, gun-owning friend of mine puts it: Democrats want to take away my guns; Republicans want to take away my religion. He calls himself a Republican, by the way.

I've been known to summarize the situation in America as this: conservatives want to legislate morality; liberals want to legislate common sense. Since neither will work, in my opinion, of course, I'm an independent, shooting at both sides and wishing someone better would come along. ;)

CJ

[Cisco]

Is there ANY chance of another party winning a presidential election in our lifetimes? I really want to vote but I hate Democrats and Republicans equally and the third party is usually just splitting the vote for one of the big 2.

What will it take for a Libertarian or an Independant to get into the Oval Office?

What will it take for Americans to realize that the 2-party system and the electoral college is screwing us?

[grendel72]

What I was actually complaining about is how people will use some philosophy that some dude three or four hundred years ago came up with as a litmus test, rather than their own conscience or reason. We've all seen people do it, defending the actions of extremists of their particular school, and it honestly makes me sick.
I, as well as most truly intelligent people I know, hold positions that could fit both "conservative" and "liberal" schools of thought. This shouldn't be a problem, but ignorant motherfuckers will accuse me of being inconsistent when I am not, or ascribe views I don't hold to me, all based on these ancient party lines that were drawn before any of us was even born.

[SPOOFE]

What will it take for a Libertarian or an Independant to get into the Oval Office?
A smarter populace.

[Riboflavin]

Originally posted by Cisco
What will it take for a Libertarian or an Independant to get into the Oval Office?

Said third party acting like a real party trying to get elected with real candidates and real platforms. Not a recitation of some philosophical point like the noncoercion principle, some pie-in-the-sky platform that both alienates voters and couldn't be implemented IRL anyway, and 'candidates' who won't even do a basic TV interview. Oh, and they'd also need to give an impression that they'd be a sensible choice for president, so either a very charismatic outsider or a third party with a respectable in local, state, and congressional elections.

What will it take for Americans to realize that the 2-party system and the electoral college is screwing us? [/B]

I think a lot of people look at what the third parties are selling and sigh with relief at the 2-party system. The LP platform and Harry Browne's promises, for example, with all of the 'cut all of this, and all of this, and veto these, and remove this' scares the hell out of a lot of people. One of the advantages of the US system of government is that it's hard to effect sweeping changes without broad popular support, and the independant parties don't advocate positions that have broad popular support.

[grendel72]

Originally posted by Riboflavin
Said third party acting like a real party trying to get elected with real candidates and real platforms.
In other words being corrupt and standing for the exact same things the "real" parties stand for.
Originally posted by Riboflavin
One of the advantages of the US system of government is that it's hard to effect sweeping changes without broad popular support, and the independant parties don't advocate positions that have broad popular support.
So the positions of Al Sharpton and Trent Lott have broad popular support? They are members of major parties.
Polls have shown for years that the majority of the populace supports decriminalizing marijuana, yet it is still commonly accepted that it would be political suicide for a candidate to support it.

[grendel72]

Originally posted by grendel72

In other words being corrupt and standing for the exact same things the "real" parties stand for.[/B]
Thus, once again, giving the voters multiple choices on the ballot with each choice being essentially the same as the next.

[Riboflavin]

Originally posted by grendel72
In other words being corrupt and standing for the exact same things the "real" parties stand for.

No, but as long as the third parties keep that attitude they'll be amusing sidenotes and not serious contenders. What I'm talking about is picking implementable positions; instead of talking about dismantling 90% of the government upon taking office for philosophical reasons that don't ring true, talk about removing a few specific items and why, and work towards removing those items if they make it into office. Run on doing a part of what you really want, then work towards that part, and use your success in making things work without that office to convince people to get rid of other stuff. The attitude that any compromise is selling out works fine when you're a teenager evaluating what bands to listen to, but is not a good way to get elected.

And sorry, but having candidates who aren't scared to show up for free television time and who can do better than "I am not the best candidate" when asked "why are you the best candidate for this job?" is not being corrupt, it's running a real campaign. Sure, a third party can spend their time whining that their presidential candidate is not treated the same as the big boys, but if they can't handle local elections, why should people take them seriously in the biggest one?

(Yes, this is mostly pointed at the LP since it's the one I'm most familiar with - the fact that in NC they weren't able to find enough candidates while complaining about how difficult getting on the ballot left a bad taste in my mouth.).

So the positions of Al Sharpton and Trent Lott have broad popular support?

Unless my memory is badly failing me, Sharpton doesn't even hold an elected office, so I don't see what relevance he has to the discussion. As far as Lott goes, he's got much broader popular support than Harry Browne.

They are members of major parties.

Yet their positions are not the positions of those major parties, and neither one of them is being run as a candidate for president by one of the major parties, unlike the wacky, wild candidates routinely floated by third parties.

Polls have shown for years that the majority of the populace supports decriminalizing marijuana, yet it is still commonly accepted that it would be political suicide for a candidate to support it.

Cite, please. I am aware of polls that show wide support that is significantly less than a majority in favor of general decriminalization of marijuana, and much stronger support for medical use of marijuana controlled much like medical use of morphine is controlled. Yeah, I've seen some polls that show really high decriminalization numbers, but they tend to be rather suspect, since they'll often use 'supports legalizing medical marijuana use' in the question as support for 'supports general decriminalization of pot'. All of the serious polls just don't show a nationwide majority in favor of general legalization or decriminalization of pot.

[grendel72]

Listen, I'm no libertarian either. What I'm talking about is not so much anything to do with political parties as it is with how accepting terminology that some guy hundreds of years ago came up with inhibits real debate, and real thinking. I've seen it, and I know you have too, when someone prefaces a statement with "as a liberal" "as a conservative" "as a libertarian"- this is sublimating your own logic and conscience to things that were decided hundreds of years ago.
As far as political parties go- we'd be better off with no parties, with each candidate and office holder, as well as the voters, standing for nothing more or less than their own beliefs. You may say that that wouldn't work, but at the very least when it comes to personal debate people need to think for their own damn selves.
Thank you, drive through...

[Polycarp]

Guelph is in Ontario, but where is Ghibbilene?

Well, given that Guelph is in Ontario, it would be obvious that Ghibbilene would be in Quebec. I can see it now: Ste.-Ghibbilene-aux-Fleuves, with the old brick church on the hillside, the café where one can buy habitant green-pea soup.... ;)



More seriously, people who hold that members of society should maintain a certain standard of personal behavior and those who are strongly in favor of less government involvement in the affairs of business (overlapping sets, of course) tend to band together as "conservatives"; those who seek a certain amount of social justice and assistance to those who need it, and look to government to be the agent of instituting these reforms, tend to band together as "liberals." Each has a certain element of statism and a certain element of libertarianism built into its credo, which often results in internal conflict.

And of course some people see that no ideal is without its inherent negative impacts. (Regarding this, it'd be worth it to have Libertarian expound on the actual role of government in his Libertaria ideal, without anyone taking potshots at his thinking -- from conversations we've had, I get the distinct impression that we are nearly all of us making false assumptions about what he is really saying.)

Party and "ideology" in the liberal/conservative sense are simply convenient labels to group together those whose thinking has shared aspects, not pigeonholes into which everyone's thinking has to fit neatly.

[grendel72]

I think my rant has been misunderstood, mainly due to my not being very good at explaining my point.
I know what "liberal" and "conservative" and "libertarian" are understood to mean, what I'm saying is that to use those terms as a self identification is just a fancy way of saying "Yeah... what he said." The use of such terminology creates a false duality, causing people who in actuality agree on many issues to see each other as polar opposites. The coin doesn't have two sides, it has as many sides as there are people.

[Johanna]

The Guelphs and Ghibellines were the two contending political parties in 13th-century Florence. One was for the Pope, the other was for the Holy Roman Emperor. Trinopus's point was that nobody can tell the difference between them any more.

[Cisco]

FWIW I know what you're saying grendel, and I agree. I wish there were no political parties. It might coerce a politician or two to prove he or she had a backbone every once in awhile.

[Siege]

Actually, grendel, I can see where you're coming from, I think. I used to work with a fellow who freely admitted he was a right-wing, gun-toting, liberal-hating conservative. He and I liked to talk politics, and did so with the understanding that it was a friendly argument. I can't tell you how many times he said, "If you think that, then you're not a true liberal." I'm not, as it happens, but I was amused at how narrowly he painted the terms.

CJ