What Makes One Liberal or Conservative?

Great Debates
1

This is a question I’ve been asking myself for quite some time. Even though most people’s political opinions cannot be described in their entirety with a single label, many people, including, I’m sure, those who check the political debates on this board, know that often, it will be possible to describe a person’s set of beliefs as “liberal” or “conservative”. Here, I want to restrict myself to the economic political axis: a “liberal” will someone who thinks it is the government’s right or duty to involve itself in the economy, through regulation of labour or business, or even through actual involvement in the production or distribution of products and services, at least in some cases, while a “conservative” will be someone who thinks the government should shy away as much as possible from any involvement in the economy.

My question is, what, and I’m searching for very personal and psychological reasons, makes one a liberal or a conservative? I have heard a few answers to this question, but none of them seem entirely satisfying to me. I have heard that often, younger people are more liberal than older ones, presumably because they don’t “have it made” yet, and thus would like a social safety net in case they find themselves in need, while older, successful, people, don’t need it anymore: lower taxes, for example, would be more beneficial to them. This, which I may call the “egoism” explanation, may be part of the truth, but it certainly isn’t everything: most people, liberal or conservative, would claim that their ideas, if applied, would benefit the whole of society (although not necessarily every member of the society), not just them. Plus, many young people are conservative, and many older people are liberal.

Now, I know that many individuals, including among this board’s members, hold opinions that are rather “cut and dried” on this subject. They think that their view is right, and that the other side is wrong. They think that liberals are hopelessly naive, or that conservatives are callous. I don’t think it’s the case. Many intelligent, thoughtful and benevolent people have reached opposing conclusions on these issues. I know that it’s sometimes hard to see the other side’s point (see this thread, in which, among other discussions, some liberals claim not to understand the conservative viewpoint, and conservatives, the liberal viewpoint), but I think it’s clear that the reason why some people are liberals and others are conservatives is not just “the other side is stupid”. But other than the suggestion I made earlier, which is clearly insufficient, I can’t think of anything that could explain why different individuals find it natural to hold such differing opinions. So, if someone has ideas about this, I would like to hear about it.

2

I believe that everyone should have access to a minimum of food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education. I believe everyone should have a maximum freedom, privacy, and safety. I also believe that government should be fundamentally fair. I don’t care whether it’s the free market, or the government, or a government-private sector mix which accomplishes these things. People have characterized me as a liberal, or a neo-liberal, or a radical centrist because of this. I do tend to lean towards looking at data rather than keeping to pre-coceived ideological notions to achieve my goals. But, my overall goals I think have remained pretty firm, and I think this comes from my moral beliefs about what is right and wrong (I’m not implying that people who disagree with me are immoral, just that my personal set of beliefs led me to these societal goals).

3

In my opinion, both want to spend tax dollars.

One on people, one on corporations.

Me?

I prefer spending it on people.

YMMV of course.

4

This is slightly US-centric, but in his new book, Jimmy Carter postulates that the real difference between liberals and conservatives today comes down to foreign policy.

Conservatives believe in unilateralism and military supremacy.

Liberals believe in multilateralism and emphasize diplomacy.

That is (of course) dramatically simplified, but it is a theory that Carter proposes which seems to ring somewhat true here in the USA. At least to me.

  • Peter Wiggen
5

Getting my first impressions in the late 60s - early 70s left me with a highly jaundiced view of the government’s mandate or competence to manage much of anything.

6

I’m not sure what I am, but from what the Hate Speech radio tells me I’m a flaming LIBERAL. I believe there should be a reasonable safety net, social security, welfare(to a point), food stamps, child care subsidies etc…
I believe in progressive taxes, the more I make, the more they can take, works for me, I still take home more. If I’m making Bill Gates money per year, do I really care about the government taking 3 more or less percent. What can you do with that money anyways, if your not happy at 500 million a year, then nothing can make you happy.

I guess thats what a liberal is, except, I’ve been told, they hate america, and love terrorists. By actually questioning the leadership, a liberal is also a traitor(sp?). I also hear they take great joy in killing babies, millions of them, they may also use these dead babies in omlettes, I’m not sure. Psychotic liberals tend to believe in the “theory” of evolution, and discount the “idea” of creationism. I guess that means liberals are retarded for not understanding that an unsupportable idea trumps a theory, since afterall it is only a “theory”. A liberal, unlike a modern day ‘conservative’ supports the efforts to combat global warming.

Now if I was a modern day conservative, I would believe in selling america down the sewer pipe, since of course I’m a fiscal conservative, which means, spend spend spend, which also means, don’t fund, don’t fund, don’t fund.
As a conservative I believe in giving really rich people huge tax cuts so that they have more money to build new factories overseas, which will stimulate the economy in the U.S. with massive layoffs. Besides if you give a break to the lower classes they might eat out a bit more, stimulating the economy locally, or buy a new toilet at the local hardware store, wouldn’t want that, thats trickle up economics and might benefit everybody and everybody knows that conservatives don’t like anything going up their orfices, thats sinful.

Also if I was a true modern day conservative, I would want to know what your doing in your bedroom at all times. If you happen to get pregnant, I need to know whats going on with that also. If you don’t want it, too bad, I won’t take it or support it if you can’t, you would think being such an intelligent conservative that I would realize that if i force you to have it when you can’t support it, that i would support it, sorry, wrong.

As a modern day conservative, I believe in letting the NRA give me money, however I believe in completely destroying the enviroment, in turn destroying the hunting grounds that 90% of the NRA members want their guns for. As a Hate Speech radio proclaimed flaming liberal, I honestly thing the NRA and the Dem party have a lot more in common than the NRA and the Rep party.

As a modern day conservative (Its kind of funny that the word conserve is the base for conservative, doncha think??) I don’t believe in global warming, which means that I’m now allowed to pollute and develop anything I want, because jesus will take care of it. This will in no way effect the NRA and their hunter friends with loss of wildlife. I guess that makes me, the conservative, pro pollution.

7

I argue that at the root of the difference between those on the Left and those on the Right is the question, “Do you trust people?” Leftists have a more generous view of humanity. We believe that people, in general, are basically decent and competent. Rightists believe that people, again in general, are basically selfish and untrustworthy. Needless to say, this thesis has been strongly challenged mostly on the basis that lefties don’t completely trust every individual. Not being fools, of course we do not. Nontheless, we are more idealistic.

Regarding the examples from the economic political axis given in the OP, leftists are more willing to rely on governmental intervention because we believe in people. The government, which is after all a group of people, is, or can be, competent to regulate the economy. Being “Men of Little Faith” conservatives don’t trust the government to do so. The Law of Unintended Consequences is bruited about and the like.

As for the question of how one develops an opinion of human nature, I would say it has to do with human nurture. A person who is instilled with the idea of Original Sin from childhood isn’t going to have a sunny view of humanity. To them we are all sinners, after all. People who grow up in a more liberal environment tend to be… more liberal. As for the age thing, young people tend to be more idealistic so they tend to be further to the Left than older people.

I think the OP’s point about personal interest is also accurate. The more wealthy you are the more conservative you tend to be and I don’t belive it is a coincidence that it is in your interest to be so. As a leftist I believe we basically want to be good people. If you have a lot of money it makes sense for you to adopt an ideology that justifies selfishness. Otherwise you might feel bad about supporting policies which allow you to hoard resources.

Just my 2sense.

8

Very personally, I’m a liberal largely (but not exclusively) because I’m gay. First of all, a large chunk of the conservative agenda consists of a campaign to limit my humanity, so it’s a done deal on that count alone.

Also, partly of course because I’m gay, I have a very well developed sense of injustice; of people whose lives and opportunities are limited based on the personal judgments of other people. This is wrong. I feel that each individual person has fundamental right to equal opportunities of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and that we require a collective effort–i.e., a government–to “moderate” the access each of us has to those opportunities.

I believe that as a societal animal, we have rights AND responsibilities; that we pay for our rights by living up to our responsibilities. And I believe that a liberal government acknowledges both equally, while a conservative government neglects the “responsibilities” side of that equation, to a degree of coercive imbalance.

I equate conservatism with schoolyard bullying; that the individual with the biggest fist or the least shame ends up with all the lollypops. And I believe that humans are better than that, and that schoolyard bullies only get away with what we let them get away with.

9

In one word, values. That which you consider most important, you will invest your efforts and political interest in. (Sounds strangely like a quote from somebody, I just realized.) I’m a Liberal of moderately libertarian bent because I find the values implicit in maximal individual freedom combined with social responsibility to be the ones that most appeal to me. I can respect the idea that the values Conservative statists value are the ones most important to them. Likewise for Liberal statists and Conservative libertarians. The one thing that irks me is the arrogation by one group of a claim to exclusiveness of the term “values.”

10

Being neither, I can’t answer the question. :wink:

:smiley:

11

:confused: :confused: :confused:

Which side pushes for more regulations? Which side pushes for higher taxes and more social programs (gorvernment run vs privately run)? Which side pushes for government interference in employment contracts (minimum wage laws, bolstering of unions, harrassment laws, etc.)?

I don’t see much trust there. Economic conservatives (and that’s what we’re talking about here) trust people to make their own decisions. If we were talking about social liberals vs social conservatives I might agree with you, but the OP specifically was asking about the economic side of things.

12

I do think that there is some fundamental differences in the way that liberals and conservatives think.

Of course, it’s tough to put your finger on any of this because even the two terms “liberal” and “conservative” have many different meanings, and can be broken into many subgroups by category.

However, speaking in a very general sense, I do think there are some fundamental differences. A good example of this is Isreal and the Palestinians. For some reason, conservatives seem to be mostly supporters of Isreal, and liberals seem to be largely sypathizers of the Palestinians. There’s no real political reason for this. Demographically speaking, most American jews tend to be Democrats. So, why this trend? I think it speaks to one of the aspects of conservative vs liberal mindsets.

13

When I was younger, I was conservative (socially and fiscally). I believed that what happened in my life was completely under my control, and the same was true of everyone else. Life was “fair.” People got what they deserved.

Thus, if someone was poor, it’s because they made bad decisions. If someone was pregnant, they deserved to suffer for it. If someone got into debt, they should have shown more restraint. If someone fell ill, they should have taken better care of themselves instead of eating Twinkies. If someone married unwisely, they should have had a clue. If someone was uneducated, they should have paid attention in class. If someone had a genetic disease, they should have had more responsible parents. If someone lost their job, they should have done more. If someone couldn’t find a job, they just weren’t looking. If someone committed a crime, they should have learned better morals.

Et cetera, ad infinitum.
Now I look at the world and say:

I’m human. There isn’t anything special about me. I make bad decisions, too, but I’ve been lucky enough not to be destroyed by them. People are worth more than the quality of their decisions. Success isn’t everything.
What caused the change? Probably marrying someone with a disability. I realize now that life isn’t fair, and that I’ve been the beneficiary of a lot of good fortune while others haven’t. Even with a sick husband and no extra money, I’m one of the lucky ones.

14

My take on it.

Like I say, it really comes down to personal definitions of “unfair”, “property” and other tricky words. Neither side has its heart in entirely the wrong place. Both have a vaguely similar idea of the intended destination, just different suggestions for the route to get there by.

15

I think it’s largely upbringing and temperment, with some adult experience. There’s an old cliche “Liberals are guilty, conservatives are angry.” This is an oversimplification (For one thing it only applies to white liberals of a certain income), but there’s some truth in it. The intellectual reasons we give for our ideologies are just so many clothes we put on them. Their essence lies deep within our souls.

16

Not sure from the OP whether you intended to be asking our opinions as to what, in general tends to make people either liberals or conservatives, or if instead you meant you wanted to know, from each of us, what lures us to the perspectives that we hold. (Looks like most folks are replying in the second sense).

I’ll venture an answer in the first sense: we’re more disposed to listen to the thoughts of people we already agree with on other matters. If, let’s say, you think Governor Huckabee of Alabama has held. promoted, and explained really good positions on church-and-state, and on federalism, then you’re probably a bit more receptive to what he might have to say about tax reform than you would be to someone you think has sounded like a blithering idiot on those other two issues. As a consequence of this, a small handful of powerful and polarizing issues will tend to draw a lot of folks into a sort of groupthink about other issues as a consequence of listening to those they agree with on the big stuff —like clouds of gases condensing to form stars, consensus on a wide variety of issues congeals out of people’s tendencies to ratify the thinking of folks they respect on issues they don’t care strongly enough to fully think out on their own.

You’ll note this isn’t a particularly complimentary view of partisan politics, as it more or less says that people are rather lemminglike once they’ve picked out who to follow.

As with many such things, I see more of a tendency on this board for folks to make up their own minds on a much wider variety of issues and drink less of the partisan koolaid*
I’m not all that easily categorized. Unlike the stereotypical conservative, I do not think the economic system, left to its own devices, constitutes a fair playing field (it isn’t, it’s a nasty and vicious system whereby the less you have the harder it is to obtain anything at all). Unlike the stereotypical liberal, I don’t think much of tax-and-redistribute approaches to fixing that, not only because they focus too much power in the hands of the redistributing authorities (govt) but also because it has nasty effects on our overall efficiency.

Socially, I’m “pro-choice by default on everything” , or at least everything that doesn’t directly victimize someone else — own an assortment of assault weapons, smoke marijuana, have an abortion, rent your crotch out for money, keep rusting Cadillacs on your front lawn, have sex with your own sister, commit suicide, publicly admonish the mayor for being a vicious and deranged menace to the town, distill corn liquor and distribute it to your friends, refuse to sell your old shack to the condo developers, etc —that is to say, the restriction of any human conduct, aside from that that directly coerces or assaults another person, shoudn’t be allowed to government unless they can make a compelling case for why failing to do so would be thoroughly injurious to the fabric of society.

Neither conventional liberals nor conventional conservatives go anywhere near far enough in this direction. In general, the conservatives have more of a tendency to support “freedom for businesses to do as they please” while liberals have more of a tendency to believe “individuals should be protected from threats to their personal freedoms”, but in the name of “protection” liberals can often support a wide range of interferences themselves.

Internationally, I’m pretty much down with the liberals. There are things I like about the US — the philosophy behind the political structure, the idealized vision of maximal personal freedom and maximal democracy and equality — and there are things I don’t like: the damn borders. I want to see the end of nations and nationalism and the expansion of those personal freedoms / democracy / equality, and the merging of our traditions with those of similarly-oriented societies, until the world runs that way as one participatory egalitarian democratic state with well-treated free citizens and no enemies, planetwide. The liberals often do stupid, poorly-thought-out things, and in particular half-assed things, that don’t pursue this agenda aggressively enough, but the conservatives are total ostriches and scarcely pass muster as sane on this matter. To hear most of them on the subject, you’d think the continuation of the United States as a political entity is not only an end unto itself but one that trumps all other considerations, i.e., better to be in a domestic police state constantly beset by neverending global warfare w/lousy standard of living than “lose our soveignty” as a separate nation, no matter what the parameters of the world government might be.

General trend: vote liberal and agree with more liberals, have to hold my nose quite often though, and often cheer conservatives for straightforward understandings of things like a breath of fresh air.

17

I see no reason to believe that economic conservatives trust people more than economic leftists. As I alluded to in my post, it seems to me that ideologies such as economic conservatism exist to justify hoarding resources and that is why so many wealthy people take it to heart. It allows them to ignore with good conscience the misery the policies they favor impose on less fortunate individuals. In this view economic conseratives push for deregulation not because they trust people will rarely or never behave immorally but rather to allow immoral, but profitable, economic behavior to continue.

As I said, leftists don’t trust people completely. We realize that individuals will act selfishly at times. Thus the need for economic conservatism.

Just my 2sense

18

I would submit the idea that liberal and/or conservative don’t mean what they used to. They have become labels or slams, to be used as weapons against “the other guy”. Liberal has become codespeak for handwringing, bleeding heart, do-gooder, freedom haters. Conservative has become codespeak for big business, screw the poor, talks directly to God, war-monger. None of these definitions is true. However, that is what the labels have devolved into.

19

Or, if you were more cynical, you could say that leftists answer that question “no,” and therefore create government programs built on the notion that left to their own, without the carrot or stick, people won’t act in a trustworthy way.

Conservatives, OTOH, do trust that if left to their own, without government interference, people will be naturally good, and kind, and generous. Therefore there’s no need for government enforcement of those ideals. Therefore, they withdraw the government and wait for ordinary citizens to fill in the gaps, and prove themselves oh so very wrong.

I’m not quite that cynical yet. Or at least not all the time.

Most of the time, I really want to believe that the long term goals of most conservatives and most liberals (of which I am one) are pretty much the same. However, to get to that place, short term sacrifices are going to be made, some issues are going to have to be of higher priority than others. For example, everyone wants less crime - but conservatives and liberals have different ideas as to how much personal liberty (and in what spheres) we should sacrifice in order to get less crime.

20

I think this is backwards. For what its worth I would say I am a Liberal, but I am more undecided than anything.
Anyway, I think Liberals don’t trust people. They want the government safety nets because they don’t trust their fellow citizen’s to take care of them of their own good nature. They think people need to be forced into it.
Conservatives think that people will take care of each other because people are naturally good natured and would help their fellow citizens in times of need.
I would say the Liberal view is a bit pessimistic, but also realistic.
I would say the Conservative view is optimistic, but idealized.

This only really applies to the economic side of things. I think the views are switched when discussing the social freedoms.