Is there a term for someone who holds highly politically liberal and highly conservative views at the same time?

Politics & Elections
21

If I might expand on my earlier post a bit.

For the first 55 years of my life, I can’t remember my dad ever expressing any opinion on politics; until I visited him a couple years ago. He watched a lot of Fox News. At one point, they were discussing Joe Biden, and my dad said that he was the most do-nothing president ever. It occurred to me that anyone who would say that probably wouldn’t like the things Biden wanted to do, so doing nothing was the best he could hope for. I held my tongue.

At some point later, he asked what my political leanings were. Before I could answer, he said that I lived in Massachusetts, so I was probably a liberal. I answered that I was a Democrat because I believed in fiscal responsibility. I told him about how I’d seen a newspaper headline in the early-80s when the U.S. debt hit $1 trillion for the first time while Reagan was president. Since then, I’d paid attention to it as an issue, and almost without fail the deficit has gone up when Republicans are in power, and down under Democrats. Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility, but when given the chance they make it worse.

Dad was kinda flummoxed by that, which was kinda my intent. I was pretty sure he’d never heard that idea before, nor paid enough attention to notice it himself.

So how does all that apply to this thread? People can hold politically opposite positions because they aren’t paying attention. That’s how they can be passionately in favor of lowering the deficit, and also support the Gulf War and Medicare Part D while lowering taxes. Everybody wants low taxes, health care for seniors, and a balanced budget. Very few people think about how those things are related, and that they can’t have everything.

22

The main issue where I don’t hold to the liberal viewpoint is how to punish crime. On that issue I’m further split between liberal and conservative depending on the type of crime. I think drug use should be decriminalized. I think that most victimless crimes (consensual prostitution, gambling, and such, as well as drug use) should have much lighter penalties, with the focus being on counseling, rehabilitation while out in the community, etc. On the other hand, I think that violent criminals, (with very few exceptions, such as a person who is the victim of longstanding domestic abuse who kills their abuser) should be punished a lot more harshly. Those guilty of murder, rape, child abuse, armed robbery, etc. should routinely face sentences of multiple decades in prison. AFAIK there isn’t a label for someone with that particular combination of positions.

23

Most I think are a mix of unthinking, dishonest or irrational, because they hold positions that are mutually contradictory, deny reality or just shift according to who they are talking to. Whether they just picked ideas they think sound good and never considered they conflict, are in straight-up denial of the facts or are just dishonest right wingers differs from person to person.

24

Way back, I read somewhere that in East Germany after the war, many of the good Nazi’s found the transition to good Communist quite natural. It seems like some people go so far to the left that they come out on the right or vice-versa. They go around the back side.

25

I consider myself all over the place. I think an abortion is a murder. Yet I believe every woman has a right to fully control her body; not all murders are necessary morally wrong (soldier defending his country, medically assisted suicide in terminally ill patients etc).

I don’t mind if someone will make money by selling human excrement for sexual purposes. On the other hand, I would establish a Ministry/Department of Leisure and Free Time.

26

That just shows that a one dimensional line is a bad way of classifying political positions. For an authoritarian, both Communism and Nazism have the virtue of being about oppressing people and the excuse given often doesn’t matter to them. If it was a theocracy taking over instead, as long as the people get the government’s boot on them it’s all much the same.

27

“Libertarian” was the first word that popped into my mind. The Libertarian Party got its first toe-hold during the second Reagan election when fiscal conservatives looking for a socially liberal (or just “stay outta my bedroom”) candidate.

There was actually a Libertarian on the ballot that people took seriously not to the extent that he might win, but he might siphon a lot of votes from Reagan-- the Reagan-Democrats who elected him.

Anyway, another term I’ve heard is the portmanteau “Conservatarian,” which I guess is Conservative + Libertarian. Conservative + Liberal would be Conservabral, or Libervative.

I used to know lots and lots of people-- mostly business owners at all levels, from independent shop owners to corporate somethings-- who all were Republican. They all get very discouraged during Bush, fils’s administration. Many actually voted for Kerry the second time, but a lot declared themselves Libertarians. A few decided they were independents. I know one guy who called himself a “Goldwater Republican.” :laughing:

I am an Army vet and former sport target shooter (DH and I used to do this together, but got all weapons and ammo out of the house when the boychik was on the way). I owned a couple of guns for different kinds of targets-- I was in no way a “gun collector,” though.

I’m here to say that if the US followed the UK or Australia with total gun bans that kept them away from ANYONE, I’d happily surrender my gun rights.

It would be tough, though. The UK and Australia are islands. That makes it easier to control smuggling. But if the US tried it, I’d be on board.

Personally, I so liberal in my true beliefs, I’m just about a Socialist, but I’m also a realist.

28

This is it exactly. The fault lies in those who expect everyone’s opinions to fall into some fake category.

29

Yes, but I said “like” most voters want to allow abortion to save the life of the mother, and other circumstances like you mentioned. What I mean is that most voters are against “abortion on demand” in the 3rd trimester. And i am not giving my personal views- I am talking about the views of Voters.

My personal View? I am a male so what a woman does with her body is none of my business.

Which is? I mean most Liberals want drug possession crimes treated with counseling etc, not prison. But since you want-

That is close to the same.

I dont see where Liberals are against this. Except maybe in the case of young offenders.

Neither nation has total gun bans.

30

Disagree based on what the OP is actually specifying: not just having views that are on different sides of some arbitrary means of classification, but having extreme, polar views fairly consistently, be they more commonly classified as Left or Right or Authoritarian or Libertarian or elsewhere on the diamond. The extremism is the commonality.

There are those who are just attracted to being at the extremes.

31

I will not pretend to speak for FlikTheBlue, but it looks a lot like the “criminal justice” system is deeply fucked up, six ways from Tuesday. It seems to be based around kingdom and royalty and does little to address the real social issues related to crime.

Apart from the ineffective “corrections” system and arbitrary enforcement practices, I would go to the extreme of looking at the very underpinning of the legal system itself. Laws should largely be replaced with a set of broad principles so that “there was no law against doing that” could not be used as an excuse for bad behavior – which, of course, would have to be balanced with a mechanism by which a party would be able to get a ruling on whether something they intend to do is likely to be ok.

If I was writing the constitution, one of its central principles would equate to “you have lots of freedom, but don’t be an asshole.” Freedom is fine, but we should all have it and should not have to tolerate your crappy behavior, because, freedom!

32

Yeah, but that only works for some combinations. An old buddy of mine with moderate-conservative social views (deriving in part from their somewhat Calvinist-leaning evangelical faith), yet rather socialist pro-welfare state/higher taxation economic views is sorta the antithesis of libertarianism. But I still wouldn’t exactly call them a liberal. Last I talked to the them they had declared a bit of a pox on both a both parties because they found the Democrats were a little too immoral in their inclusive social policies and thought the Republicans were a little (a lot) too fascist and considered Trump himself an immoral monster. End of the day they have mostly voted Democrat and anyone-but-Trump as the lesser evil, but to some extent they’re marooned politically.

33

I’ve come to the conclusion that a significant number of Americans don’t have a cohesive political philosophy or even have an idea of what they’re really voting for.

34

One thing that’s been increasing for 50+ years: people choosing their positions on issues based on party loyalty.

Pro-choice Republicans and pro-gun-rights Democrats used to be more common. IMO Republicans have fallen for this more than everyone else.

Social media has amplified peer pressure to fit in.

35

This term might work.

36

Well, yeah: not red, not blue…

37

I’m a democrat. And own guns. Repubs don’t realize we exist. My wife and I will be going to the gun range twice a month to keep sharp.

38

I have long been of the opinion that binary voting is problematic. We need some sort of mechanism that gets rational normal people and also rational weirdos of all stripes into government. This would help bring the outsiders back from their enclaves, if they felt that they had something of a voice. Our system seems to be designed to create conflict, not to manage it.

39

That was DH & me before we had a baby. We moved all firearms (which wasn’t many, and would have been even fewer if DH hadn’t inherited a few from his father) to off-site storage and got rid of all ammunition when I was pregnant.

We used to go to a range once in a while-- twice a month if we had the time, but not usually that often.

The boychik is now in college, and still lives with us because he’s going locally, but we figure at 19, he can learn gun safety. We can even teach him to shoot, so we brought the guns, disassembled, in their locked boxes, back into the house. Haven’t taken them out yet.

It’s not our only “skewed” belief kinda off the liberal-dar, but one fiscal issues, we are almost socialists.

I’m wondering if there’s no word for this because it’s really pretty normal.

I mean, there’s the ideal of the liberal, who is pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-union, pro-single payer health care and child care, etc. But the actual person who checks every box is rare.

Nearly every self-identified liberal has some belief that, in isolation, is a “conservative” belief. Maybe it’s a simple as thinking that corporal punishment ought to be an option for parents-- not the first go-to, but an option when the kid is doing something very dangerous, or when nothing else has worked (which incidentally, I believe, and the boychik was spanked a total of twice in his life).

Honestly, the “perfect” liberal is probably someone who is inflexible and does not listen to debate and reasonable argument, and derives every belief axiomatically.

Anyone remember the old statistics riddle from Psych 101:

Which is more likely?

  1. Karen is a feminist.
  2. Karen is a feminist who believes abortion should be legal.

A lot of people pick 2, because, well, “pro-abortion” in a feminist stance-- but the answer is 1, because the more conditions you put on something, the less likely it becomes.

So, the more beliefs you ask of someone, even if they all can be called “liberal” (or “conservative”), the less likely you are to find someone who believes them all.

40

I had 12 guns. All inherited. I gave 8 away to a friend when I moved to suburbia.

Then my wife surprised me when she said she wanted to learn how to shoot. OK… After much deliberation and training, she bought a handgun. I bought another as well. First guns I have ever bought.

So we are pistol packing liberals (we don’t ‘carry’. Yet.) We do exist though. I don’t know what to call us. Other than anti Trump. Understand that that is not a threat. The guns are for fun, and well my wife might carry one on hikes. She’s been threatoned by coyotes, and a woman was killed by a cougar recently. Not far from here.