A Hypothesis On Conservatives and Liberals

[SlowwHand]

I guess you're a Radical Liberatarian, Ozzy.
Find your self a place in the middle of the circle with the other Radicals.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Stuie
Yup, it's a circle not a line, with the far right and the far left basically sharing the same ideology. I learned that in 10th grade.

Or, you can do this with it...

Oh no! It's the commie-nazis...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Compromise = sell-out.

This view leads to nothing being done except civil wars .

Well maybe its about time we had another. Lord knows you people need your clocks cleaned.

[Q Classic]

Compromise = sell-out.

if you say so. just remember, if they didn't have a compromise, you could kiss the formation of congress and our government goodbye. not that that would be a bad thing, necessarily--but can you guarantee that something better would have taken its place?

Well, we can't execute criminals anymore but we can kill all the unborn babies we want!!!WooHooo...

i think it's important to be as consistent as possible. which is why i oppose euthanasia, capital punishment, and abortion. that said, abortion is still believed by many to be a good thing, and we cannot allow a tyranny of the minority to exert its will on those who do not share those same beliefs. as for euthanasia, it's still wrong, and as long as the laws have it on the books, i'm all for keeping it illegal. if this schaivo case goes to the supremes, and they rule in favor of euthanasia, then i'll have to accept that it's legal, albeit wrong.
in such cases where what is correct is not yet believed by the majority, you cannot impose your will on them. you must convince them first.

But that'd require me to say you were right.

Sure, he's on the right.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Good ol' Slowwy, right on schedule.

That's an interesting point to make about moderates, that moderates are fundamentally conservative, in resisting change.

However I take fault with che's definition of progressive.

"Progressives are like liberals with spinal cords. Here you find the activists, socialists, social democrats."

There are also conservative activists, but you do not have a label for them. All you have are conservatives and reactionaries.

I think we need to work out some fundamental definitions of what is liberal and what is conservative before trying to discriminate between conservatives and liberals.

Now, conservatives believe that man is inherently bad, in that regardless of the society, human nature cannot be changed.

Liberals believe just the opposite, that with the proper society, one can change people's behavior. The only reason we see people do bad things is because of the society and not the person.

That's just for starters. I want to see what other people have to say about the fundamental distinctions between liberals and conservatives.

Naw, thats not right at all. If anything its liberals who have the belief that man is inherently bad, or perhaps more accurately, inherently dumb and incompetant. People cannot be trusted to run their own lives and others must step in to do it for them.

This isn't just a biased interpretation I cooked up, I had a long discussion with an old girlfriend about this and this is what her political views boiled down to.

[KrazyHorse]

More like I don't trust anybody to not **** over other people if given the chance. And 10 000 years of human history proves me right.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Naw, thats not right at all. If anything its liberals who have the belief that man is inherently bad, or perhaps more accurately, inherently dumb and incompetant. People cannot be trusted to run their own lives and others must step in to do it for them.

Actually, the liberal view isn't that you needed to be protected from yourself, it's that you need to be protected from others.

This isn't just a biased interpretation I cooked up, I had a long discussion with an old girlfriend about this and this is what her political views boiled down to.

She sounds like an idiot.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Good ol' Slowwy, right on schedule.

That's an interesting point to make about moderates, that moderates are fundamentally conservative, in resisting change.

However I take fault with che's definition of progressive.

"Progressives are like liberals with spinal cords. Here you find the activists, socialists, social democrats."

There are also conservative activists, but you do not have a label for them. All you have are conservatives and reactionaries.

I think we need to work out some fundamental definitions of what is liberal and what is conservative before trying to discriminate between conservatives and liberals.

Now, conservatives believe that man is inherently bad, in that regardless of the society, human nature cannot be changed.

Liberals believe just the opposite, that with the proper society, one can change people's behavior. The only reason we see people do bad things is because of the society and not the person.

That's just for starters. I want to see what other people have to say about the fundamental distinctions between liberals and conservatives.

I woud say that its radicals who believe that man is inherently good, and can so society should be remade in order to reshape man. Conservatives believe that man is inherently bad, and that society needs to control mans badness. Liberals Id say, tend to want to avoid mans nature altogether - they want the state to avoid the question and focus on pragmatic issues. Or, to put it differently, they view human nature as something good ENOUGH that it doesnt require change, and can be trusted to manage itself, for the most part. Im trying here to use liberal in the broad sense - a Lockean ideology that covers BOTH classical liberals and contemporary welfare state liberals (who I think are strongly linked, despite differences on specific policies)

[Q Classic]

aren't all ex-girlfriends idiots?

[chequita guevara]

Everybody hate-on the moderates!

[Japher]

Everybody hate-on the moderates!

I'm trying! What would an moderate extremist be?

[Q Classic]

me. and please, the term is militant moderate.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Japher

I'm trying! What would an moderate extremist be?

Comatose.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Naw, thats not right at all. If anything its liberals who have the belief that man is inherently bad, or perhaps more accurately, inherently dumb and incompetant. People cannot be trusted to run their own lives and others must step in to do it for them.

Actually, the liberal view isn't that you needed to be protected from yourself, it's that you need to be protected from others.

This isn't just a biased interpretation I cooked up, I had a long discussion with an old girlfriend about this and this is what her political views boiled down to.

She sounds like an idiot.

She's gonna be a teacher. And my guess is her thinking isn't much different from most teacher union types. She is very intelligent, and while it may sting a bit for most liberals to admit it, I think this is a real characteristic.

Now I'm not talking leftist anarchists, they would fundamentally disagree. But her views are indicative of most mainstream liberals, socialists, and commies.

I still keep in touch, and we actually saw this division play out in a discussion the other day. I introduced her to the Wikipedia and I was extolling its virtues to her and she really had a problem with it because there was no executive oversight, editing and control over the whole project. Not to say that isn't a common criticisim, but faith in humanity is not a trait I assign to modern liberals.

KH summed up my response. Yes, people are falliable and often can't be trusted. I'd rather give that falliable person the power to screw up only his/her own life, rather than give that fallable person the power to screw up everyone's lives. My ex, and many liberals disagree. Of course many conservatives disagree too. Which is why I don't fit on your line, Sloww.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, people are falliable and often can't be trusted.

But this is a mere cynic. You can be just as much as a leftist cynic, as a conservative cynic.

Does your girlfriend believe that through bettering society, you will improve the quality of the people? That's a classical tenet of liberalism.

People cannot be trusted to run their own lives and others must step in to do it for them.

This stems from the concept that through improving society you can improve the person, therefore, society ought to be able to take care of people so that they can be improved.

Just because she would trust an executive oversight, does not mean that she lacks faith in people, just that she trusts the executive to assert control and authority.

Sounds like a liberal authoritarian, a truly modern concept.