The Liberal And The Conservative

[WinePusher]

Liberals generally favor government subsidy programs (welfare, social security, medicare), a government regulated market and they favor a type of non interventionist foreign policy. Liberals usually see big coporations as the problem and favor higher taxes and more oppurtunity for poorer americans. Social Liberals are for abortion, gay marriage and illegal immigration

Conservatives generally distrust the government and are propnents of a free market. Conservatives favor a strong national defense and a strict adherence to the constitution. Conservatives are for lower taxes and are generally aganist government intervention and subsidy programs such as welfare. Social Conservatives are aganist abortion, gay marriage and illegal immigration.

So, are you a liberal or a conservative and why?

[Euphrates]

It depends on the issue.

Sure, you can be conservative about some issues and liberal about other issues, but you probably have a more generalized problem-solving philosophy. For example, if you were confronted with a generic government program that was necessary but wasn't working properly, would you want to make some upgrades to that program while it's "in the shop", or would you want to fix it without making unnecessary changes? Everyone recognizes that there's a problem and everyone wants to fix the problem, but liberals want to give it upgrades while conservatives want to keep it simple.

There's another way people talk about being liberal and conservative. When someone says something like "I am socially liberal" they are using the term in a much more general sense. In this sense, conservative people support whatever is more tradition, and liberal people support change from the traditional... it's not about solving problems. So when someone says "I am progressive on health care", they are simply saying that they support a change from traditional health care.

[Classicus]

I'm a socialist.
And, no, that's not the same as a communist.