I don’t know how to define liberal
But I know one when I see them. Rich says:
First, I’m opening up the comments section to all of you to post your definitions of liberal and conservative. Tell me and howie how you would define the terms. In your oomments, please identify how you describe yourself.
Second, I’m going to invite two bloggers, one conservative and one liberal, to define their ideologies, and I’ll post their definitions here in a future post. I’m going to let a true conservative and a true liberal to speak for themselves, rather than attempt to speak for them.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Here’s what my dictionary says:
lib-er-al (lib’uhr uhl, lib’ruhl) adj.
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in
political or religious affairs.
2. (often cap.) designating or pertaining to
a political party advocating measures of
progressive political reform.
3. pertaining to, based on, or having views
or policies advocating individual
freedom of action and expression.
4. of or pertaining to representational
forms of government rather than
aristocracies and monarchies.
5. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant.
6. free of or not bound by traditional or
conventional ideas, values, etc.;
open-minded.
7. characterized by generosity and
willingness to give in large amounts.
8. given freely or abundantly; generous.
9. not strict or rigorous; free; not
literal: a liberal interpretation of a
rule.
10. of, pertaining to, or based on the liberal
arts: a liberal education.
11. Obs. of, pertaining to, or befitting a
freeman.
n.
12. a person of liberal principles or views.
13. (often cap.) a member of a liberal
political party, esp. the Liberal Party
in Great Britain.
[1325-75; ME
August 25th, 2006 at 9:31 am
More importantly, I think drawing the distinction between leftist/liberal and right wing/conservative would serve a better purpose.
August 25th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Well, there’s the divide over social, cultural, or moral issues: the division between liberals whose priority is the free choice and expression of the individual and conservatives who prefer to subordinate this individual freedom to traditional norms and/or religious teachings. Liberals especially revere the first ten amendment of the Constitution (except for the 2nd one, oddly enough) and conservatives especially revere the Ten Commandments of the Bible.
There’s the divide over security issues: the division between liberals whose priority is individual liberty—particularly the freedom of movement and association of individuals and also of members of minority communities (civil liberties and civil rights)—and conservatives whose priority is national security, who prefer to constrain the movement and associations of some individuals (and of some minorities), if that would enhance the security of the nation as a whole.
Liberals are those who prioritize individual freedom, conservatives are those who are willing to subordinate this to traditional values or community interests.
Until we discuss economic issues. This is the third divide in American politics: the division here is between conservatives whose priority is the freedom of individual entrepreneurs or corporate enterprises and liberals who prefer to subordinate this individual freedom to government regulation and limitation.
So liberals generally favor individual expression on the social and security issues but government regulation on the economic ones. Conversely, conservatives generally favor restraining individual expression by government regulation (or preferably by self-restraint informed by religious teachings or by traditional and patriotic values) on the social and security issues but free enterprise on the economic ones.
Sorta.
August 25th, 2006 at 11:12 am
LIBERALISM: A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority.
RE: Left or Right In Politics
What Is Your Political Compass?
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-is-your-political-compass.html
August 25th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
A liberal wants to blame society for an individual’s failings. A conservative wants to blame the individual for society’s failings.
August 25th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Phelps, I dig it. Reminds me of a friend of mine’s saying which was something like:
Conservatives think the people can handle the public stuff but can’t handle the private stuff.
Liberals think people can handle the private stuff but not the public stuff.
August 25th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
That’s tough, because different people have different definitions. I’d most of what’s been posted above is from Liberals, especially the dictionary bit. What a Liberal says he is, and he really is, are exact opposites. A liberal says he is for individual freedom, then sets out to eliminate as many individual freedoms as possible, going to such extremes as wanting to limit what we eat, what we drive as a vehicle, what we smoke, etc. He wants to find ways to limit our most basic functions, such as having children. He wants us to apply for permission from the government for our basic functions in society (licenses, permits, fees, ad nausium are the rule of the day). You will be correct far more often than not if you simply regard a Liberal as a Marxist. The Liberal will almost invariably argue otherwise, which simply demonstrates another aspect of socialists– they are chameleons. Oh, and they love to paint conservatives as religious nuts, while subscribing to a form of purely faith-based worship of socialist ideals (purely faith-based because socialism has never worked anywhere, ever, yet they still believe in it passionately).
A typical conservative is one who says he favors the Bill of Rights and economic freedom, low taxes, limited government, etc., and then tries to prove how good a Liberal he can be by supporting the next Big Government Socialist entitlement program. A real conservative is like this guy. He wants to conserve our uniquely American ideal of Liberty and freedom;
Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.
Representative David Crockett (TN)
There are approximately four or five real conservitaves on the planet that I know.
August 25th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Brevity being the soul of wit, I repeat this definition of a liberal, which I heard years ago from a caller on a talk show;
“A Liberal is one who will give you the shirt off of someone else’s back.”
That one actually did something to me, and I started to change my attitude. Before that I considered myself a Liberal. Now I just want to see them all shipped off to Cuba, though we could keep a half-dozen or so around for laughs.
I wish I have a similar one for a Conservative, but alas, no. I’m sure some Liberal will come up with one.
August 25th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
For:
1. Legalized abortion (which explains their shrinking demographic base);
2. Taking money from people who work for it, under threat of imprisonment, and distributing it to people who don’t (if you disagree, be sure to watch the Katrina coverage this week);
3. Death as a taxable event;
4. Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and others who profiteer by threatening economic sanctions against corporations;
5. The Arab street;
6. The alphabet and dead tree media;
7. Gun control, common sense gun laws
8. Class action lawsuits and the trial lawyers who perpetrate them;
9. Affirmative action, adding points to test scores, giving government contracts to “minority contractors” (which ironically includes blacks in Jr.’s hometown of Memphis, even though they comprise 62% of the population.
Against:
1. The second amendment;
2. Hate speech;
3. Welfare reform (even though Billy Jeff Clinton tries to take credit for it)
4. Making nice with Castro and Hugo Chavez;
5. Letting convicted felons vote.
Poster boy: Jimmy Carter
Antichrist: Ronald Reagan
August 25th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
hmmm. Uncle, you got more comments on my post than I did. I’m not sure I like what that says about my blog.
August 25th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Liberal: bad.
Conservative: good.
August 25th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
One I’ve seen before…
Conservatives want America to be a Christian nation, Liberals want it to act like one.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Manish, That was obviously written by a Liberal.
So, Jesus advocated confiscation and redistribution of wealth by order of law, did he?
I though he was an advocate of charity, rather than extortion, but maybe I’m mistaken. I haven’t the Bible in about 30 years.
That’s just for starters– I could tear that one to shreds further, but I think you get the point.
There is a great bit written by someone far more clever than I, whose name I don’t recall, but he came up with a great illustration of government abuses, he calls the “Gun to Your Mother’s Head Test”.
If you’re contemplating spending tax payer dollars, you are in essence planning to put a gun to your mother’s head. (She is ordered to pay taxes. If she doesn’t, she will have her property confiscated physically. If she resists, they will shoot her)
If you you would not put a gun to your mother’s head to get it done, you should not advocate taxpayer money be spent on it. ‘Course, some people WOULD put a gun to their mother’s head, for just about any reason. Therse people are called politicians, or criminals, depending on job status.
Jesus Christ, if I’m not altogether mistaken with regard to his intentions, would have advocated other means of helping people– Means that do not involve coercion. And did you know that there are it fact means of getting things done that actually DO NOT involve coercion? No, really, it’s true. The problem is that they require a modicum of imagination.
August 27th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
So many, many different definitions… Historically, liberals embraced change, and conservatives wanted to think very hard about the full effect of any proposed change on the social order before allowing it to occur. The result is that the conservative position on any particular issue is likely to be the liberal one of a few decades past. In Henry VIII’s England, conservatives wanted to keep the Catholic church as the only legal. In 17th and 18th century England, conservatives wanted the law to strongly disfavor adherents of all churches but Anglican, and to preserve the divine right of kings, while the first liberals wanted a democratically elected Parliament to wield the ultimate power. And so forth, on down Barry Goldwater in 1964 defining conservatism in terms very similar to 19th century liberalism.
For a definition of “liberal” from a relatively sane person who still identifies as such, I found this definition on Armed Liberal’s dormant blog:
… and who is willing to use deadly force to take your earnings to fund these hopeful programs and to toss you in prison for violating some arcane regulation intended to protect you from making stupid decisions.
A conservative is someone who thinks there is a big problem with that, in that government is inefficient and corrupt by nature, and therefore the liberal’s favorite programs will fail and often even aggravate the problems they purport to solve – but who also either believes that somehow his own favorite programs are magically exempt, or cynically continues policies he knows will be disastrous for political or financial advantage.
A libertarian is someone who distrusts all government programs.
Alternately, the short and snarky definitions: In non-political contexts, “conservative” means cautious, and “liberal” means generous. In present-day politics, liberal primarily means generous with other people’s money. Conservative, if elected to office, evidently means the same thing. They often disagree about where the money should be wasted, but that’s about the only difference – and they’ll vie to show the most suppor for the most disastrous programs, like the war on some drugs.
Did I say conservatives were cautious? They often go beyond that, to hysterical fear that leaves them unable to think about which threats are actually the greatest. And so do liberals. Look at either group’s positions on drug laws or on defense.
August 27th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
If you you would not put a gun to your mother’s head to get it done, you should not advocate taxpayer money be spent on it.
It was your grandmother’s head when PJ O’Rourke said that back in 1988 or something.
August 27th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Someone should recycle the argument a dozen years from now, saying if you would not put a gun to your own head…
August 28th, 2006 at 9:01 am
IF “liberal”, in that it is derived from liberty”, means liberty to the people, then I am a liberal–a classic liberal like Jeffrson, Madison, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams..etc. But it seems that most of today’s so-called liberals are actually leftists who want more government control except for a few pet liberties. The same is true of today’s conservatives who only want to conserve certain pet rights and not others.
Actually I want to conserve the wording of the Constitution and Bill of Rights so as to restrict the government and make for a liberal society where the liberties of the people are conserved. Doesn’t that make me both conservative and liberal (using them as adjectives) regarding the government?