What Makes One Liberal or Conservative?

Great Debates
21

Leftists ain’t exactly unqualified proponents of capitalism. We tend to see it as either a necessary evil ( liberals ) or an unnecessary one ( socialists ). That the government needs to ( at least ) moderate the ruthless efficiency of markets is not an indication that we find fault with people but rather with the system itself. And, lets not forget, those who operate the markets tend to have ideologies which rationalize selfishness.

Speaking only for myself, charity is a great thing but it can’t take the place of responsibility. It is our collective responsibility to ensure an equitable economic system and We The People can and should be trusted to do so. I’m not saying that we can’t count on individuals to usually help out their neighbors when they are down but unfortunately America is segregated by income. People who need help tend to live next to other people who need help.

22

I think Debaser is correct, and there are a lot of positions generally associated with either side that don’t have a lot to do necessarily with principle. Israel is one example.

I am conservative, and for me, the definition of conservative is commitment to the core principles:[ul][li]Individual rights []Free markets []Personal responsibility []Limited government[/ul] Not necessarily in that order. [/li]
The liberal principles are, to some degree, the flip side of the above:[ul][li]Group rights []Regulated markets []The group is responsible for and to the individual []Government as first resort[/ul][/li]
YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan

23

I am starting to believe that conservative vs liberal is not a good enough question. There is an answer from the “old school” and an answer from the “new school” that seem to be conflicting more an more.

OLD SCHOOL CONSERVATIVES: “LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP” – I mean really look and examine new situations, favoring no action or only deep precidence before acting. The school around which science was developed. It’s ok to have a new idea, but you NEVER give a talk publicly about it until you have painstakingly put years of research into it and convinced others to test your theory – and then they back you up. Alexander Hamilton, I might slot in this section, suggesting that we leave exactly economic, social practices and religious ideals that were already in place, in each area, as they were - no matter how barbaric or insane they seem, because those systems have worked in the past.

[CENTRIST: Holds to some or all of both LIB and CONS – Happy, healthy medium, allowing for slow, succinct change with a rational intent and no “wild campaigns”.]

OLD SCHOOL LIBERALS: “OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW” - extreme progressivism. If something isn’t working properly, remove it and replace it with something designed then and there to work better for a situation. I would label Thomas Jefferson as an Old School Liberal, suggesting at some point that the Constitution be completely revised (in Independence hall) once per generation.

The one thing I have noticed is that NEW SCHOOL CONSERVATIVES (G. W. Bush, Rove, etc.) often fall on the OLD SCHOOL LIBERAL side - voting for activist judges to overthrow 30 years (or more) worth of precident to move on to a system that they want to develop to replace an entire system that was not working to 100%.

JOHN MCCAIN, who is one of a mere few CENTRISTS these days, I don’t think I will get any arguments there, even on the old school.

NEW SCHOOL DEMOCRATS (J Kerry, T Kennedy, etc.) seem to also follow the OLD SCHOOL LIBERAL strain - do I need to bring up examples?

If my analysis holds true, McCain’s group of cooperating senators is as close to OLD SCHOOL CONSERVATIVE as any politician gets these days. Bush, Kerry, Pat Buchanan, Kennedy, etc are ALL OLD SCHOOL LIBERALS.

Am I insane for noticing something like this?

24

Yes, you would. From John McCain.

Look up his policy positions.

25

I would also like to mention The “LEO” test [Liberty-Egalitarian-Order] that a friend of mine in academic circles developed. I disagree with him on some issues, but his views on fundamentals of the modern political scene are very convincing.

26

By my argument, yes, he is more conservative than W Bush.

From the view of mainstreamer Republicans (including himself), I suppose they all see themselves as being conservative, so I have to agree with you there too. Ok, will do.

27

I think it both breaks down like this.

A liberal and a conservative look at the world and see groups at every level competing for resources and engaging in social conflict.

The liberal says: This is not the way I think the world is supposed to look. Resources should be allocated differently and we must eliminate potential sources of conflict. We have to start programs, spend money, and start working right away in order to fix this. All people must march in unison to fix these problems.

The conservative says: This is the way the world really is. All you can do is focus on doing the best for yourself and for others that you choose. People should be free to face the consequences of their successes and failures. No one should be forced into paying for social programs because that is a form of involuntary harnessed labor. Everyone should work independently to create their own sphere of influence and when those succeed, it benefits everyone else too.

28

I am not sure entirely. Life experience plays a role though, and a person will look to see if communal or individual effort made thier life better and develop a political philosophy (Sam Stone is a good example of someone whose life improved due to individual effort and who is as a side effect more conservative/libertarian). Someone who realizes they have had alot of help from others may look at their life and after seeing all the help they’ve gotten from taxpayers (healthcare, education, gov. standards on food/medicine/transportation/environment, scientific research that made alot of our technology possible, etc) may feel that they wouldn’t have made it if not for communal responsibilities. Conservatives may have life experiences that imply that individualism is what made their lives good, they fought against social orders and limitations to write their own destiny and feel being tied down and looking for others to help you is a bad way to live.

What I have noticed and what is weird is that most of the diehard conservatives I know are/were carried through life financially. They either have well off husbands or well off parents. You’d assume someone who has a gigantic safety net would realize the value of the safety net and want that security given to others. But I think that some of them just aren’t empathetic enough to understand that not everyone has that safety net and they take it for granted that that net doesn’t exist for 95% of people. So they vote conservative because they live in Ivory towers. At the very least that explains several of the diehard conservative I know, people who lead (financially) strife free lives and who don’t realize that that option isn’t open to most people.

29

I don’t think liberals view government as first resort. I think conservatives view the government as the last resort, but liberals just view it as a legitimate resort, no different than the free market and no more/less legitimate.

I’m not sure what constitutes group rights. What are those exactly? Do you mean living in a liberal society where nobody can insult black people w/o being arrested (group rights for all black people) vs a conservative society of individual rights where you can say what you want?

30

I already gave my thoughts on how the definitions have “evolved” into insults, so here is my “philosophy”

  1. Most people are basically good. I am not naive enough to claim every last one of them is.
  2. A safety net is a good thing. Sometimes people, through no fault of their own, go through a rough patch and need a hand. Some people, through illness or injury, or layoffs just can not support themselves. These people need and deserve help. However, I do NOT support the idea of “career welfare” for able bodied people who simply choose not to work.
  3. I believe that in international matters, disputes should be solved diplomatically. Armed conflict (war) is to be used only as a last resort, and then only when absolutely necessary as a last resort. I totally reject the neocon idea that war is just another tool for furthering agenda or empire. I reject the idea of preemptive war because someone might do something some time in the future. There is a difference between a just war and an unjust war. In line with that, I support a very strong military. We went into two world wars, with an inadequate, understaffed and poorly equipped military and they took a terrible beating, waiting for the US to get back up to speed. Never again.
  4. I believe that initiative and daring should be rewarded. Nobody should be “punished” for being rich or doing well in business. However, I do not believe in the robber baron mentality. The best businessman is the honest and ethical businessman. Business IS good for America, but only when it is honest. “Enlightened self interest” is a GOOD thing. Greed, in small doses can be good. It drives people to do more, make more, and advance themselves. Competition is good. However there should be some oversight and some regulation when necessary to curb those who are crooks.
  5. I believe the criminal justice system should rehabilitate, but I recognize that there are those who do not want rehabilitation and can not be “corrected”. So, there should be some level of discipline too. Not Devil’s Island, but not a Country Club either.
  6. Like the “old time” conservatives, I do not believe in change for the sake of change. I prefer the cautious and thoughtful approach. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, fix it.
  7. I believe in equality, but not to the extent that it stifles or punishes those who excel. Excellence, skill, and intiative are to be encouraged and rewarded. Everyone has the right to try, but success is not guaranteed. Much like the way we all have a right to pursue happiness, but happiness is not guaranteed. Same deal.
  8. I still say that any rights not specifically listed in the federal or state constitution default to the “you have that right” state, as unenumerated rights. In the many cases where a right or privilege is to be limited or curtailed, there must be a valid reason tied directly to the public good and general welfare. I see the constitution as limiting government power, not limiting individual rights and freedoms. The State derives its power from the consent of the governed. The State does not dole out rights.

If this rambling post made any sense, feel free to comment, judge, flame, whatever. As to whether I am liberal or conservative, you decide. I’m not sure, with the way the origianl meanings have shifted.

31

Thank you for your answers, they’ve been interesting to read and I think that they are a good explanation of why some people hold those differing opinions. I will make a few particular comments below.

SentientMeat, thank you for linking to your political compass threads. I had read a few of them at the time, but I’m sure that they would be a good explanation of why people hold the opinions that they do. An illustration of their thought processes, if you may. I’ll go check them more attentively.

Shodan, your post is interesting, but I don’t quite agree with some of what you see as liberal principles. You claim that “The group is responsible for and to the individual” and “Government as first resort” are part of these principles. I would agree with the first, but I think that it’s not the opposite of “Personal responsibility”. I, as a liberal, believe that people are primarily responsible for their place in society. I do believe that hard work is a virtue. On the other hand, I think that without “the group” taking some part of responsibility, some injustices will happen. Of course, there will always be injustices, but I believe that it is morally a good thing to try to reduce them. As for the government, I don’t think that it should be seen as the first resort. It has an important role, but the individual also has an important role. (On preview, Wesley Clark already said some of these things.)

jsgoddess, your post was also interesting, an in a way it says what I’ve said in the previous paragraph: while people are responsible for themselves, in some cases injustices may occur. On the other hand, there are economic conservatives who are as aware of you of the fact that sometimes people will live failures despite their best efforts, but still believe that the advantages of an unregulated economy offset these potential problems. In fact, I would submit to these people the following question: do you think about this? Do you think that some people, despite their best efforts and despite the fact that they made good choices, find themselves in a difficult situation, and that you could be one of them one day? And if so, what are the advantages of an unregulated economy that make you be willing to take such a risk?

Wesley Clark, you touched something that was closer to my original idea: what is the reason why a person, over time, develops a worldview that makes them more liberal or more conservative. (I see that 2sense also addressed this subject.) And I think that you may very well be right: some people will see their life improve through hard work, and will tend to become more conservative, while some others will live hard times and more easily fall down on their feet again with the help of their support net, and will tend to become more liberal due to this experience. Some are also just clueless, as you mentioned.

AHunter3, you may be right that for some people, it is just the fact that they will follow people whose opinions they agreed with in the past. But I’m mostly looking for reasons why people who take the time to consider their opinions will ultimately choose one or the other.

So, at the risk of becoming more IMHO-y, I will ask this question: to liberals and conservatives, what it is in your life experience that has helped you choose the positions that you hold today? Have you lived a politics-changing experience, like jsgoddess, or was it more gradual, or do you have the same opinions you’ve always had (in which case, were they also your parents’ view)? This, I think, might help us understand the real origin of these beliefs.

32

I consider myself a libertarian. This means that I generally align myself with the Repubican party even though some of the current presidential policies are contrary to libertarian beliefs. I am a fierce individualist and I have always been that way. My name even refers to individualism. I grew up in a very poor Southern town. I only want to be left alone to live my life and take care of my family in any way that I see fit. I am known as a very compasionate person one-on-one and yet I feel little sympathy for abstract groups.

I am perfectly prepared for any personal consequences to my conservative beliefs. I have been absolutely destitute all the way through wealthy in my adult life. I have experienced a range of horrible events that few have shared. Even if “society” did chip in and help me when I was at my lowest, I wouldn’t want it. That is the way that valuable experience is gained and I feel that I have become a stronger person because of it. I feel that it is my right to prosper or fail, live or die, based soley on the qualities that live in me whether or not I chose them.

I feel like liberals are trying to build their own dreamworld and yet the dream doesn’t seem appealing to me even it it was successful. It seems controlling, contrived, and authoritarian. I would probably support conservative policies just based on my personality but I am also convinced that conservative economic polices will do more to help everyone than liberal social policies ever will.

33

It comes down to your belief in the proper nature of government.

As a libertarian, I believe that humans should be free to live as they please, giving and taking to no one else other than through freely agreed contracts. No one has a right to the property that I have earned or inherited. As long as I am obeying the laws and not using force against anyone else, what I do with my time, my effort, my recreation, or my life in general is simply no one else’s business.

As an analogy, think of the fabric of society as being a big tent. Government should be the poles and the guy wires - just enough structure to keep the tent up and allow everyone under it to move around freely.

Liberals see government differently. They see it as a mechanism of social change. It’s not so much about freedom as it is about forcing people to do things in order to make a ‘better’ world. If the natural order of things is that a small percentage of the highest achievers will over time create much more wealth than others is socially ‘unjust’, then government must be used as a tool to right this wrong. If the zeitgeist is that SUV’s are ‘bad’, then the government should be use to punish those who are making the ‘bad’ choices.

So there’s a fundamental philosophical difference. There are also practical differences. Conservatives and Libertarians tend to be distrustul of government power. Liberals are distrustful of private power. My economic conservatism is, I believe, extremely well grounded in fact and economic understanding. I believe there are very good reasons for government power being inefficient and dangerous. I trust the market to reach the ‘right’ choices much more than I do the government.

It’s interesting to look at the way conservatives and liiberals look at an issue like ‘price gouging’. The default positions are that the liberals will complain bitterly about it, while the conservatives will believe there are solid economic reasons for prices to be where they are. It’s almost an emotional vs intellectual reaction, but the heart of it is that liberals fundamentally distrust businesses and the market itself, while conservaitves focus on the inabiity of government to manage price controls.

However, I also recognize that some regulation is necessary to keep the market functioning well and to maintain order and defend the country. I believe that we need to provide basic welfare and other social assistance simply because too much inequality rips the fabric of the tent. The government should keep the tent up and keep everything stable, but otherwise stay out of the way.

34

For myself, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. My parents were part of the 60s counter culture. They were working class intellectual hippies so I learned to question, and resent, authority. Equally importantly, I learned not just what to think but how to think. As I grew older I began to question even the limits of the liberal ideology I had inherited. I desired a world without bosses and I kept pondering it until I could conceive of how it might actually work in the real world. Once I suceeded I was an anarchist.

Just my 2sense

35

This meme that Liberals want govt regulation and Conservatives don’t is getting old. Conservatives want to control who you can have sex with, how you can have sex, what you watch on TV and the movies, what you listen to on the radio, and whether you can have abortions and access to birth control.

To me the difference is that Liberals want to protect the minority from the majority and Conservatives want to protect the majority from the minority. IMHO going too far in either direction is wrong.

36

I was once far more liberal than I am now. However, I spent several years working in various social-service agencies (homeless shelters especially), as well as needing some services myself, and the experience caused me to reject a lot of the reasoning behind liberal social policies in favor of a more libertarian/conservative approach. I still remain very interested in issues of social justice, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the traditional liberal solutions (i.e. government programs) are at best inefficient, and at times are counterproductive. A part of that is what I perceived as a tendency by liberals to view poor people (or other disenfranchised) as victims and only as victims, which in my experience, is a terrible thing to communicate to people whose lives need improvement.

Of course, I routinely am told that I don’t exist, as everyone knows the conservative emphasis on personal responsibility is just really a cover for heartlessness…

37

Most of the replies here have concentrated on the definitions of liberal and conservative, but what about the OP’s question? Both life experience and rationalisation can lead people in either direction, IMO at least. A bit like religion - like when a devastatingly tragic event in one’s life will lead some to lose their faith, while for others it will reinforce it.

What I’ve often wondered about is what is it that makes us veer almost instinctively towards right or left?

Some mentioned values instilled at home, but how many right-wing families have produced lefties and vice-versa? Environment, geography, ethnic group, age, financial status are all factors too, but they are not definitive either. There are more than enough exceptions to the ‘rules’. e.g. The so-called sixties generation is just as likely to be reactionary as not.

I’ve just finished reading ‘Boyhood’ by J M Coetzee and he describes his idiosyncratic ideological development as a growing boy in a very reactionary environment - 1950s South Africa. His family were, admittedly, not as extreme as others, and more educated, but they shared racist values with most others of their race and class. Coetzee describes his confusion when faced with poor blacks and coloureds (sic). He said that he knew, from reading fairy tales, that poor people were always good, yet this contrasted with what he was exposed to from all quarters.

My own liberal instincts come partly from family culture, where and when I grew up, the people we associated with, and certain types of moral message in children’s literature. Some things stick with you. I remember reading a story in which the characters, animal lovers, reviled the cruelty towards animals in the circus. I took on those ideas and they have stayed with me ever since.

I wonder if it is some sort of personality trait that is the deciding factor? There has to be choice involved on some level. I’m sure I also read books with messages that are not of a liberal flavour (crass anti-foreign attitudes in Enid Blyton, for one) and this did not stick. Why is this? I could have chosen to shock my family and peers and become a conservative, but even now that I have mellowed on some counts, my instincts remain stubbornly liberal!

38

This describes the younger me pretty well. I had advantages that very few people have, yet my successes were “mine.” I did a lot of “Even if I were broke, I’d never go on Welfare. And neither should anyone else,” even though I wasn’t going to be broke any time soon. I thought I deserved credit for my life and was really damned clever for it.

Four of my siblings still think they are pretty damned clever for it. My family says things like, “Oh, there aren’t any poor people left.” I said they were acquaintances in that thread, but it was my sister and my mother. The shame!

39

Or up or down, given Sentient’s reminder that political views are not a bifurcation. I would say that I’m to the left of most people here on matters of social liberty, and to the right of most people here on matters of economic liberty. This pulls me away from both sides, and toward a different pole: libertarianism.

How I came to this place was by acceptance of the principle of noncoercion. I take it as given that so long as a person is both peaceful and honest, she should be allowed to pursue her own happiness in her own way. Because this is my first premise, I discard any premise that may contradict it, including justification for a common good. My eye is on the means, not the ends. The ends are always unpredictable, and unforseen consequences await every plan. All that concerns me is that the means are ethical; then, whatever the ends, they will have evolved from an ethical base.

I’m often accused — wrongly — of believing that people are perfect, peaceful and honest by nature. Were this true, I would advocate anarchy, since no government would ever be needed for a perfect populace. Rather, I advocate a strong government whose sole task is the enforcement of peace and honesty in human dealings.

My conflict with both the left and the right is that I do not believe that society benefits from the coercion of people who are aggressing and deceiving no one.

Leftwise, redistribution of wealth serves merely as a dilution of society, pulling all, including the best achievers, toward a lowest common denominator. Yes, it sounds like a noble goal to establish an entity (government) that will feed everyone and tend to what most people at least believe to be fundamental and basic needs. But the problem is that it doesn’t work. The War on Productivity I Mean Poverty fails for the same reason that people say my philosophy is pie in the sky: people aren’t perfect, and that includes politicians and bureaucrats. The sheer numbers of people who fall through the cracks — from abused children in Florida to hungry families in Appalachia — is staggering. “But it would be worse,” I’m told, “without these safeguards in place.” I’m then given a comparison between either feudal England or wild west America and today as reasonable justification. The logic is baffling to say the least. No one knows what private technology — such as that which led to everything from the polio vaccine to helicopters — might have done for the plight of the poor and disadvantaged. No one knows because it hasn’t happened. It has been said that if government were to have attacked polio, there would be the most impressive iron lung you’ve ever seen, but no vaccine. That’s because imagination and creativity does not come from paper shuffling and law making, but from freedom to be ingenious and enterprising. That’s why we have a bucket of bolts forty-year-old technology leading our space race.

Rightwise, diminution of personal liberty does not benefit society as a whole. A central plan of morality is no more useful than a central plan of economics. The War on Americans I Mean Drugs is a joke at our expense. And I mean expense. The reason that the right has become indistinguishable from the left with respect to the budget is that forcing people to homogenize costs a lot of money. It may seem like a noble idea to foster teamwork by sanctifying national symbols like the rah-rah rag, but the downside is exactly the same oppressive boot to the neck of ingenuity and progress that is caused by punishing economic success. Both the creative type person and the entrepreneural type person are needed. When a government regulates diversity to the point of suppression, and forces upon its people a plan conceived by well-meaning do-gooders, entrepreneurship dies and is replaced by cut-throat competition among the powerful and privileged fortunate enough to be contributors to the grand plan. Gays should be allowed to marry because they should be allowed to pursue their own happiness in their own way. God Himself does not force His moral code on other people, leaving them instead to be free moral agents and make their own decisions. Why in the world have men of faith presumed to interfere with what God has done? That’s why America has lost its world standing. Freedom is the greatest political morality, and America used to be a beacon of freedom. It is fast becoming a fascist bastion of oppression, with secret gulags and religious nuts running amock like some bizarre partnership between Josef Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

To the left — get your mind off my wallet. To the right — get your mind off my zipper. Pursue your grand plans among like-minded volunteers if you must, but leave me the hell out of it. Please.

40

Well, it’s a continuum, of course. But I think one of the characteristics of liberalism is a tendency to trust the government over individuals or private organizations. Look, for instance, at school vouchers. Conservatives generally favor them, and liberals oppose them. Without going into the merits of the proposal, part of the basis for conservative support is that it gives more decision-making power to parents (individuals), and liberal opposition is (in part) because it removes that decision-making power from the government. The partial privatisation proposal for Social Security is another example. Conservatives say it’s good because people can decide for themselves how much risk to take. Liberals say it’s bad, because government is presumed to be more capable of managing retirement money than individuals themselves. (Of course there is a lot more to it on both sides.)

I would say that liberals think government is “a legitimate resort” in a lot more instances than do conservatives.

I was thinking more about stuff like affirmative action/quotas, where people are presumed to be entitled to things based on their membership in a preferred group, which liberals often support and conservatives generally oppose. Liberals often argue that you have a right to a certain level of consideration because of past injustices committed against your group, while conservatives argue that the important thing is your rights as an individual.

I don’t think the notion of free speech clusters any more to one side or the other. There are free-speech absolutists on both sides, and people who want to restrict “hate speech” or other kinds of special exceptions.

Well, sure, and if the group takes responsibility, different injustices will happen. A lot of what determines if you are liberal or conservative is what you are willing to tolerate. Which is more important, the injustice against the individual white guy who has to meet a higher standard for something, or the collective injustices that have been committed against blacks?

The rights of the individual vs. those of the group is not the only determiner of conservative or liberal, but it is part of it. And you can argue both sides.

Regards,
Shodan