Defining Conservativism and Liberalism - Help?

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
I am trying to formulate the core differences in ideology between Conservatives and Liberals. I’m painting with a large brush here, and any and all help would be appreciated. Hopefully, we can come up with a decent definition. Hmmm?

The main difference between conservatives and liberals is also what binds them. Both want people to be able to be self-sufficient and hard-working…both for themselves, and for the sake of the society as a whole.

Conservatives believe that this can only be achieved through the least amount of government intervention as possible, thinking perhaps that every time the government attempts to help one group, that it is doing it to the detriment of another.

Liberals feel that although people should all work to become the best that they can, that most people do not start on the same level, nor do they have the same opportunities to excel. Liberals feel that these artificial barriers are unfairness caused by the society and should thus be repaired by this society and the government, which rules over it.

Comments?
 
Conservatives want to be self-sufficient and wealthy
NOT for the sake of the society as a whole but for themselves.

Other than self hate, self doubt as a basis for Liberal beliefs you can click my Sig link to help you understand yourself and other Libby's

Oh and "have a nice day"...
 
Know what I think? I think people should stop tellin' people what they think is what I think.
 
I'm a conservative liberal. :D
here's a basic example of a liberal site, that isn't completely wacko.... :swing:
http://www.cato.org/about/about.html

I'm very adimate about my liberties, but consider myself to be conservative
by and large. I mean there does have to be "law" though. :confused:
 
Winky said:
Conservatives want to be self-sufficient and wealthy
NOT for the sake of the society as a whole but for themselves.

Other than self hate, self doubt as a basis for Liberal beliefs you can click my Sig link to help you understand yourself and other Libby's

Oh and "have a nice day"...
Click to expand...

I read your link..interesting. He compares liberals with children and naive nascicistic ones at that. Libs don't like the words 'good' and 'evil' because they're too absolute.
So...what you're saying is that Conservatives don't believe in grey areas and are only out to help themselves...in addition, they believe that people are basically evil...except for themselves..the last bastion of good in the world.

What I like about your article is it's comparison with child-like thinking. Children don't see the greys of arguments, they can't see both sides, they're looking out for themselves (the world revolves around them) etc... Sounds more like something a Conservative would be like, not a Liberal.

In either case...I was hoping that you'd provide some input on how a conservative thinks (being one yourself) instead of providing yet another Lib-bashing site.

Make a statement that describes your ideology, not as it is measured against another group, but as a stand alone statement.

"We are conservative because liberals are stupid and we're not them." just won't cut it.
 
Alrightie I'll play.

"what you're saying is that Conservatives don't believe in grey areas"

Yes I had this selfsame debate on the Fourth with the Lawyer that lives across the street. She was flipping out that I believed that!!! I mean it was driving her nutz!!! lol

But to me it is all so simple! The concept of gray is always mentioned to hide an evil never to justify something that is right. Doncha think that if things being equal and there really was a gray then something good would fall in there once in a while. LMAO

Another tenet I live by but not all Conservatives would agree, that reality exists. A is A
My ‘feeling is’ lol that most liberals 'think' that each person makes up their own reality as they go along. Not that it exists independently of them. That man's goal is to correctly interpret reality and make it serve him. Not only does the altruist mindset think that they can make up the rules as they go along but that we are at the whim of the universe unable to command our destinies. Someone or something else is to blame.
Just as Good seldom finds itself in the vaunted gray area, when a Liberal succeeds they certainly are ready to take all the credit.

Yes a child like view
one that says “I’m able to do want I want. Outside of the ramifications of my actions”
Right and wrong often times can fall into a gray area. In this magical place,
we are not bound by such constraints as good and evil. We can decide.

Give this a try over the next day. Make a metal note how many times you encounter people in the next 24 hours that blame something that they were responsible for on something else. On circumstances. Also note ‘what’ they blame.
Once you focus on this you will soon be amazed. Sometimes they will seem quite insane.

A women told me of how her Ex-Husband borrowed her Van. She told him that she wasn’t driving it because it had a bad tire. So we all know who or what was to blame when he was driving it on the freeway, the tire blew and the 15 year old unseatbelted daughter of the guys girlfriend was killed in a roll over accident.

It was the TIRE’S fault!!! They actually believed this!!!

So wouldn’t it follow from a liberal point of view as has been bandied about that GW was responsible for 9-11
Oh certainly not the Terrorists Oh no.

Yes Bish to me there is only right and wrong. My favorite response when I tell a Liberal this comes something in the form:
“How can you have the audacity to decide right and wrong!!!”

I say that each of us MUST decide our very survival hinges upon it.

Oh and Les don’t feel bad our Democrat Presidential candidate vehemently denies
being a Liberal. While conservatives will shout it from the Rooftops
“I am a Conservative!” Must be that gray area thing again?
 
If you really want to find out if your dealing with one or the other. Just use the test outlined above.

When something they were responsible for goes awry
analyze their words and actions.

Slick Willy was a case study!

With my Kid I made clear to him at a very young age.
Your actions have consequences and no amount of obfuscation will change that reality.

Own up to what you do right and wrong don’t tell me it’s in the gray area.
 
Nice description.
Allow me to reprase and rebutt from a Liberal point of view.

  • Conservatives don't believe in grey areas. Only Right and Wrong/Good and Evil
    Any effort at explaining why something happens is actually an effort in hide an evil instead of justifying a good.
    Reality exists independantly of the individual
    The individual is in command of his/her destiny
    No outside forces act upon the individual

From a Liberal perspective.
There is right, wrong and neutral. Neutral is an action which cannot be defined by right or wrong. The definition of right or wrong in such cases is based upon the opinion of the viewer and not the person doing the action. ie. Muslem Women's Outfits - for the Moslem woman, this is a good thing. It's an affirmation of faith. From some non-Muslim women's point of view..it's an abhorent treatment of women...a subjugation. This is a wrong. The truth is that it is neither right nor wrong. Calling it wrong is non-Mulsim women's attempt to push their own values onto others. Bullying.

Birth-control - from the Catholic perspective...this is evil. From a Protestant's perspective...it is a good. It's neither...it's neutral.

An effort at finding out why an evil happened isn't an attempt to hide it. It's an effort towards preventing it from happening again. If someone steals from a charity...it's evil. If s/he is doing it because he is paying off a drug habit, that is its cause. If you remove the drug habit, that person is unlikely to steal again. Finding the cause, you remove 2 evils...drug use and theft.

Relaity exists independantly of the individual, but through effort, the person can change their little bit of reality. Where they live, where they work, who their friends are etc...

The individual is not the sole force in someone's destiny. I'm not talking about God, but other individuals. People don't live in a social bubble.
If you work hard, but your boss doesn't like you...you aren't getting that raise or promotion.
If you work hard at a relationship, but your spouce is abusive or cheats on you...your relationship is doomed and you certainly won't love as openly again.
If you're walking down the street and you get mugged by a group of black men...your view of black men will change..for the negative.

Every day, we interract with hundreds of different people. Each person somehow affecting the others...usually in minor ways. The closer you are to the other person, the more they affect you and the more you affect them.

Try this...smile as you walk down the street. Don't say anything, just smile. Notice how many people start smiling around you. Their day is a little bit lighter for it. You don't see the repurcussions of your actions beyond that, but they're there.

Try this too. Really lean into a co-worker...let 'em have it with both guns. Then watch that person bite at their other co-workers for the rest of the day, watch them as they go home and get pissed off in traffic, then kick the dog for an infraction that they'd normally overlook, then get into a fight with their spouse, then scream at their kids. etc etc... They're just doing it themselves? Did you plant a little seed of evil in them?
 
Nixy said:
:nono: Shouldn't this be in RW?
Click to expand...

I didn't think so..it's an opinion piece, not a news piece. Then again, a lot of the more serious opinion pieces end up in RW 'just because' they're too serious for the LL. I never did get that. :p

I put it into the LL, because there are a lot of OTCers that avoid the RW like the plague..and I wanted varied responces. :swing:
 
Bish your response was great.
We certainly have different views of the same world.
What you have written shows your thoughts and they are indeed 180 degrees from my own.

I got a chuckle from each of your examples.

I saw how you looked at each of the situations and how you drew conclusions that have a common thread. No personal responsibility.

An endless series of attempts to dodge the issue.

“Finding the cause, you remove 2 evils...drug use and theft.”

Both are evil choices. Neither is connected in anyway except by the evil person that made those choices.

Choosing to dress like you just arrived from the seventh century is a choice. But if you choose to apply for work in an American lawyers office or fly on an American airline
lose the Burka baby.

If you scream discrimination on religious grounds or claim the drugs made me do it.
(the devil made me do it lol) then only Liberals will come to your defense.

It’s not your boss’s job to like you. It’s your job to make the boss like you.
The right wing American will wear a tie to work even if he’d rather not
and chose not to be a dopehead so he can get ahead, make a living, feed his family.
But he sure as heck doesn’t want his paycheck docked to pay for the living expenses
of the guy who chose to get high and steal and is now in prison.


C'Mon I read Dale Carnegie Yes if you make friends and influence people as opposed to going around making a royal pain in the ass of yourself of course you will get a result as a reaction to your actions.

For every action there is an opposition and equal reaction.
Taking an inappropriate action and expecting a different result is the basis of Liberalism.

Taking dope and stealing, dressing like you are some primitive Bedouin straight off the sub-Saharan desert is not equivalent to being honest wearing a tie, working hard pleasing your boss, providing for your family and calling a spade a spade.

I suppose we will have to agree to disagree.
 
Actually...you'd be amazed at how much we agree upon. My examples are perhaps a bit off.
It’s not your boss’s job to like you. It’s your job to make the boss like you.
The right wing American will wear a tie to work even if he’d rather not
and chose not to be a dopehead so he can get ahead, make a living, feed his family.
Click to expand...
It's not his job to like you...but then again, it's not his job to treat you any different because he doesn't like you for whatever reason. A black man working his ass off, working overtime etc...for a bigoted boss, will never be able to make his boss like him, nor give him his due. Shit happens, right?

I'm a Lib, but I work 2 jobs plus freelance to put food on the table and pay the house and car off. I wear the shirt and tie, shave daily etc...all that stuff. Doesn't make my boss chose me for raises. The putz who ass-kisses a lot, but comes in late, and takes extended lunches does get his raise.

For every action there is an opposition and equal reaction.
Taking an inappropriate action and expecting a different result is the basis of Liberalism.
Click to expand...
Actually..i think that it was Freud that said that it was a sign of insanity. I'm pretty sure that he didn't mention Liberals :D

BTW...This wasn't meant to be an argument. We don't have to agree on anything except the description of ourselves. You describe Conservative, I'll describe Liberals and hopefully, we both come out of it with more knowledge.
 
If I choose to deal with someone. and in my dealings with this person I am fair equitable honest and pleasant. And this person returns my actions with deceit treachery and hatefulness I am to blame for having chosen to deal with this person. A Liberal as a matter of course would blame the other person and absolve themselves of all guilt in the outcome.

If a women begins a relationship with an adulterer and the louse cheats on her should she not A: consider it no harm no foul because cheaters cheat and B: realize she is to blame for the situation for going with an adulterer?

No I can hear you saying "Oh he deceived me" "I had no way of knowing he'd do that" C'mon be honest with yourself. He was a Liberal and it was a gray area and you knew that going in. lol
 
MrBishop said:
"It's not his job to like you...but then again, it's not his job to treat you any different because he doesn't like you for whatever reason. A black man working his ass off, working overtime etc...for a bigoted boss, will never be able to make his boss like him, nor give him his due. Shit happens, right?"

That's right it's the bosses RIGHT to be a bigoted asshole and it's the RIGHT of the colored person to choose not to work for such a lousy bastard.

"I'm a Lib, but I work 2 jobs plus freelance to put food on the table and pay the house and car off. I wear the shirt and tie, shave daily etc...all that stuff. Doesn't make my boss chose me for raises. The putz who ass-kisses a lot, but comes in late, and takes extended lunches does get his raise."

What a putz gets has nothing to do with me, it’s his raise not mine, his raise doesn’t put my kid through school or pay my food bills mine does.
Try showing up inna Burka and see how much of a raise you get lol. Kissin' asses gets the raises but I don’t see it as kissing ass, it’s called serving the customer Heh heh

Actually..i think that it was Freud that said that it was a sign of insanity. I'm pretty sure that he didn't mention Liberals :D

"BTW...This wasn't meant to be an argument. We don't have to agree on anything except the description of ourselves. You describe Conservative, I'll describe Liberals and hopefully, we both come out of it with more knowledge."

Funny thing is it may always end up at odds because we are poles apart on every issue. I have no need to argue. And I am not able to describe Liberals and Conservatives except through their actions.
Click to expand...
 
If a women begins a relationship with an adulterer and the louse cheats on her should she not A: consider it no harm no foul because cheaters cheat and B: realize she is to blame for the situation for going with an adulterer?
Click to expand...

wtf is this shit?
 
Do you take umbrage at my statement?
This was the advice I recently offered to
the teenage daughter of a friend.
Hillary seemed to find Billy’s infidelities
(multiple) to be acceptable.
No woman with an ounce
of self respect would do the same.

The young woman said that her ex BF didn't respect
women. I got her to see it wasn't about whether or not he did this or that but how she respected HERSELF.

The Liberals in this country didn't see a problem with Billy being an adulterer a conservative (Gingrich) once his infidelity was revealed quit his position as speaker of the house. He didn’t quibble over whether or not adultery was right or wrong.
I never said Conservatives were perfect just that they react differently than Liberals.

Yeah Nix is right move this to the nasty Real World!
 
In a man woman relationship there are two things that you can never do. One is smack a woman around and two is cheat, everything else as they say is "fair in love and war."
 
of course not Winky, no umbrage at all.

It's obviously entirely my fault that my "devoted" husband rather than working or sleeping after the poor guy worked soooooooo hard to provide for his family as I believed, was instead out porking hookers/hot dog girls/random skanks.

My fault, obviously. How could I have been so dense in blaming him and his lack of character instead? :tardbang:
 
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