• If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
• If a liberal doesn't like guns, he feels that no one should have one.

• If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn`t eat meat.
• If liberal is, he wants to ban all meat products for everyone.

• If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
• A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

• If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
• If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.

• If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.
• Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

• If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
• A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

• If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
• Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.

• If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
• A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

• If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
• A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

...

That's funny



Based on Webster's definition of liberalism and conservatism I've always considered myself both a liberal and a conservative. They were once each noble ideals. Now they're political slurs.

The "Liberals" take offense.
The Conservatives look at it as a compliment.

I'm not so sure about that. I personally avoid either term nowadays for fear of being lumped in with all sorts whackos from both ends of the political spectrum.

Very true.

Although, I've seen many a lib get bent out of shape over the label lib.

Me, I've been called a neo-con, hawk, etc.. :shrugs: whatever

I'm pretty sure you've been called more than that.

You are right. In fact, historically, what we know as "conservatism" today was rightly called "liberalism" in the late 18the and early 19th centuries. After all, liberal comes from "liber" - Latin for "free". The type of free the term referred to was individual liberty (there's that "liber" again) from overextended and repressive government regimes. This liberalism promoted a reliance upon individualism. That is, it believed in reducing the role of the state and enlarging the role of the individual. It also believed that power should be dispersed toward more local levels of government. As Milton Friedman described in his classic Capitalism and Freedom: "if government is to exercise power, better in the country than in the state, better in the state than in Washington."

Beginning in the late 19th century and especially after 1930, the term became more and more associated with a very different set of economic and political ideals, characterized by the readiness to rely on the state. The 20th century "liberal" has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism (the federal govt. as our big daddy) against which classical liberalism fought. The new liberal favors the concentration of govt. power at the federal level. They would say the very opposite of the previous Milton Friedman quote.

It doesn't matter what you call these polar opposite views. They represent two very distinct and clearly delineated methods of government and it's not difficult to look back through the last two hundred years and see how these two have differed in the type of nations they have produced. As a very wise man once said: "the tree is know by its fruit." With that in mind, it's also not a difficult matter to determine from history which of these general approaches to government has resulted in living conditions which most people would almost assuredly prefer to live in if they had the choice.

..