What is YOUR definition of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’? How would you define the two terms, and why do you believe they are defined in such a way? What do you think a typical political conservative wants? What do you think a typical political liberal wants? Do you identify yourself as ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’? Do you see yourself as a ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’? How do other people react to your political views? How do other people view you - more conservative or more liberal, compared to them? Have you ever counted the number of topics you are interested in? If so, then do you have more agreements with the liberal opinions or conservative opinions? Do you have a family member or friend who has opposing viewpoints, compared to you, or do you and your acquaintance think similarly? What issue do you have a strong opinion of? What issue do you have a weak opinion of? What issue do you have no opinion of? Why or why not?
I think the two terms only make sense if (i) they are thought of in both the fiscal and social dimensions and (ii) one realizes that people can take many different views on different subjects within each dimension.
Fiscal conservatives generally want a smaller government when it comes to the government doing stuff. Some emphasize the amount spent by government, others emphasize the activities performed by government.
Fiscal liberals generally don’t really care about the size of government–they want the government to accomplish their social goals, and whether doing so increases the size of government or not just doesn’t seem to them as something to be concerned about.
Social liberals generally want a smaller government when it comes to the government restricting stuff that citizens can do. They generally want the government to leave citizens alone and not try to accomplish social goals.
Social conservatives generally want the government to leave citizens alone in certain areas (e.g., owning guns) and want the government to accomplish their specific social goals in other areas (e.g., gay marriage and abortion).
I came up with a cute distinction when I was in college. I don’t think it covers the whole breadth of the differences but it did reflect the American political climate (in, oh, 2000 maybe).
The most extreme conservative only cares about people he knows.
The most extreme liberal only cares about people he doesn’t know.
To add to my post above: because conservatism and liberalism have two dimensions, it kind of irks me when people talk about “conservatives” and “liberals” in just those terms (i.e., without specifying a dimension). If someone doesn’t specify, I generally assume they are talking about the fiscal dimension. And I think some poor souls just don’t know what they are talking about when they use those terms, really.
It seems that Lliberals in America believe the GAO and the Scientific Method; Conservatives believe, something else.
Conservatives are selfish. Liberals are stupid.
I actually like the way Dave Barry described them. Liberals are the type of people who would stop and help you change a flat tire and somehow manage to set your car on fire. Conservatives would even stop to try to help though because if they did then they would be late for ugly pants night at the country club.
Wow, this is the second thread I’ve seen from the OP where there a lot of questions stringed (strung?) together and reads like a school assignment.
Anyway, a few generalizations of socially and fiscally conservative Republicans and socially and fiscally liberal Democrats.
Democrats_____________________Republicans
Pro union_______________________Pro big business
Pro choice______________________Pro life
Pro social programs______________Pro self reliance
Reduce or end corporate welfare___Reduce or end personal welfare
Faith in the federal government____Faith in state and local governments
Excluding religion from politics____Including religion in politics
Pro quotas and set-asides_________Pro merit only
Open marriage to gays____________Keep marriage between straights
Legalize pot_____________________Keep pot illegal (but seems to be changing)
To my surprise, I’m actually in agreement with most of this.
The only quibble I’d have is with the fiscal conservative ideology. While I agree that this is a good definition of what they believe in principle, their actual execution has become so distorted it’s hard to credit this as their position anymore.
The other three groups - fiscal liberals, social conservatives, and social liberals - might take a meandering path but they’re generally heading in the direction of their stated goal. But fiscal conservatives for the last thirty years have said they’re heading toward smaller government and ended up increasing the size of the government. So it’s hard to say what the real position is anymore.
I try to keep some realism in my politics. I’d rather vote for a guy who says he’ll increase government spending by twenty percent and does it than a guy who says he’ll decrease government spending by twenty percent and then increases it by fifty percent.
[QUOTE=Alpha Twit]
I actually like the way Dave Barry described them. Liberals are the type of people who would stop and help you change a flat tire and somehow manage to set your car on fire. Conservatives would even stop to try to help though because if they did then they would be late for ugly pants night at the country club.
[/QUOTE]
So liberals are stupid, but nice, but conservatives are not nice and have no redeeming qualities? Yeah I’m not buying that. I don’t think stereotyping what a conservative or liberal is by the supposed character of that person is going to help anyone. The image of the conservative rich country club member vs the liberal pot smoking hipster are what’s tearing this country apart. They are political ideologies, and the sooner people start thinking of it that way, and not just some foreign species, the sooner this country can grow the fuck up.
[QUOTE=Nobody]
Democrats_____________________Republicans
Pro union_______________________Pro big business
Pro choice______________________Pro life
Pro social programs______________Pro self reliance
Reduce or end corporate welfare___Reduce or end personal welfare
Faith in the federal government____Faith in state and local governments
Excluding religion from politics____Including religion in politics
Pro quotas and set-asides_________Pro merit only
Open marriage to gays____________Keep marriage between straights
Legalize pot_____________________Keep pot illegal (but seems to be changing)
[/QUOTE]
As for what I identify myself as? Well, let’s go through this list shall we? I’m all for the idea of a union and totally get why they were created, however these days many unions serve no purpose than to just take your money. I’m all for big business and capitalism and Wal Mart and what have you, but there definitely needs to be restrictions. I’m pro choice. While I’m a fiscal liberal in the sense that I don’t mind big government, I don’t like the idea of a lot of welfare. I prefer the idea of non-government charities, but understand that government welfare has done a lot of good. I also prefer the idea of one solitary nation and find the idea of states rather outdated, so I have faith in the federal government and think it is definitely within its rights to override state rights. Religion has no place in government policy, simple as that. Not a fan of quotas, so I prefer merit I suppose. I’m all for gay marriage and the legalization of pot. So overall I’d say I’m a moderate liberal, and have no problem identifying with that.
I actually think that most people think they go together. For some reason, a pro-lifer must also be pro-big business, and if they aren’t, we have to invent a new term for them: libertarian.
There’s the reality of political parties. The Republicans have brought fiscal conservatives and social conservatives into a long term coalition.
To be conservative and liberal in their original definitions are little more than difference of emphasis and not necessarily contradictory with conservative emphasizing the importance of tradition and the foolhardiness of fast-paced, top-down ordered change while liberalism meant equality before the law, political freedom, and free market economy.
Of course nowadays conservatives are economic liberals and social conservatives (and various combinations and degrees thereof) while liberals are Keynesians and social liberals (again of various combinations and degrees). Although I prefer the term “progressive” to describe American-style “liberals” (while most people who are conservative like that term most liberals prefer terms like “progressive”).
Liberals run things for the benefit of the poor and middle class.
Conservatives runs things for the benefit of rich.
Everything else conservatives say they stand for is merely a smokescreen to get poor and middle class people to vote against their own self-interest.
Although it would be too big, complicated, and confusing as hell, it would be interesting to see a Venn diagram, or something like it, with the following categories:
Republicans
Democrats
Socially conservative
Socially moderate
Socially liberal
Economically conservative
Economically moderate
Economically liberal
Although to be honest, I think that whatever you are socially, you’re most likely to be economically. So I’d guess there are very few socially conservative / economically liberal or vice versa combinations of people. But that’s just a guess on my part, so no cites.
Liberals see government as a means to protect the weak from the powerful; conservatives see government as a means to protect the powerful from the weak.
Fiscal conservatives recognize that a free and robust economy benefits everyone through allowing wealth creation. Fiscal liberals think that wealth is a fixed amount and should be distributed across the population in ways that make fiscal liberals happy.
I don’t see how that contradicts my thesis.
I tend to agree with that except for the part about fiscal conservatives. I think ‘in theory’ they want smaller government but when they are confronted with that meaning less SS and medicare for them and less education spending for their kids they decide that no they do not. I think ‘fiscal conservatism’ is 90% rhetoric at this point, too many people are financially dependent on government spending (the vast majority of people couldn’t fund retirement w/o social security and medicare, and I don’t see fiscal conservatives turning down UI payments, or clamoring to pay 100k out of pocket for K-12 education for each of their kids) for true fiscal conservatism to ever take hold, no matter what rhetoric says about it.
http://www.good.is/post/reminder-44-percent-of-tea-partiers-are-on-medicare/
Also I don’t agree that liberals think wealth is a fixed amount. We want wealth redistribution, but from what I’ve seen we know that wealth will grow with time just like fiscal conservatives (but we want the newly generated wealth redistributed to a degree too). Some countries in Scandanavia has a GDP growth rate of 3-4% a year as an example.
Well the latter combo (ie Libertarians) are pretty influential even if small in numbers.