What's a Conservative....What's a Liberal?!
I was having a brief chat with a young lady yesterday; all of about 20 years old, and from what I can tell, a very nice girl. She has asked me questions about what I do with this publication and what it’s all about, so I gave her a brief outline. When the conversation got to my very conservative leanings, she asked me what that meant. I didn’t quite understand the question; but she really didn’t know what being ‘conservative’ means. I gave her a very fast thumbnail explanation of the term citing smaller government, lower taxes, and fewer regulations; and she kind of understood…sorta.
Well, that chat inspired some thought, and I decided that it’s more than likely that many of her age group, (all age groups really) may not really understand the differences between conservatives and liberals, and all those in the middle, etc.
So, Cherisse, thank you for bringing this to my attention; this article is addressed to you, and the many others, mostly younger people like yourself, that have never been taught or heard anything different than one might expect from the agenda of a modern public school system. I hope it will give you some sort of real insight as to where ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ are coming from. As you’ll see, you have to consider your own values and principles, and balance them between what happens, what you might like to happen, and what should happen according to the law of the land, (i.e., the US Constitution).
For starters, I think whether one claims to be in the camp of ‘Conservative,’ ‘Liberal,’ ‘Moderate,’ a little of all, or something else, we need to really come to the table and see where we can find at least some common ground, because the constant bickering is becoming more and more divisive all the time, which as a conservative, I believe is what ‘they’ want.
Even more confusing still is when someone says they are a ‘social liberal,’ but a ‘fiscal conservative,’ or vice/versa.
I’ve broken it down into some main topics and issues to hopefully make it easier to understand what each group generally believes about specific issues. This is by no means a complete list, nor is it in any particular order; it includes a mixture of social and domestic, fiscal, and foreign topics, and there are lots of variables. It is very much generalized, however I would argue very accurate. I might add that it used to be almost strictly party driven, with Conservatives being Republicans and Liberals being Democrats; however that has become very blurred over time. As many have said, “JFK would be considered a ‘right wing nut job’ by today’s standards.” As a side note on that comment, (‘right wing’ means conservative, and ‘left wing’ means liberal).
Anyway, here we go:
1. Conservative: Limited Government, less taxes, less spending; restore Fed to original intent of providing defense and maybe some infra-structure such as roads, etc. The entitlements and bloated government that have been created during the last century are outrageous and not part of original intent.
Liberal: Expand Government; control everyone from cradle to grave. Indoctrinate the masse to that school of thought.
2. Conservative: Balance the Federal Budget, lower the debt ceiling, and operate the government as they would their private finances and homes.
Liberal: Spend, spend, spend!
3. Conservative: Eliminate wasteful Federal Departments such as Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Education, FEMA and a whole lot more.
Liberal: Expand or at least maintain these bloated bureaucracies.
4. Conservative: Term limits for all offices at all levels of Government. Period.
Liberal: Believes term limits are achieved by who gets the most votes in elections.
5. Conservative: Make salaries and benefit packages of elected officials commensurate to those of working families. Eliminate tenure and lifetime pensions after only 6 years, and eliminate lucrative political careers.
Liberal: Continue the practice.
6. Conservative: Protect the sanctity of marriage, (i.e., one man/one woman) while allowing for legal rights for domestic partners. Also known as DOMA, (Defense of Marriage Act).
Liberal: Support gay marriage.
7. Conservative: Pro-Constitution and Bill of Rights such as 2nd Amendment, (Right to Keep and Bear Arms) and 1st Amendment, (includes freedom of speech, etc.).
Liberal: Anti-2nd Amendment and would restrict all private ownership of firearms. They would restrict the 1st Amendment so that among other things, pastors could not speak freely from the pulpit about social issues that contradict Biblical teaching, and speaking truthfully about such things as radical islam would be prohibited anywhere at any time. Conservative Talk Radio would be restricted or banned.
8. Conservative: Mostly pro-Life, (some with exceptions that I don’t personally agree with).
Liberal: Pro-Abortion, Pro-Choice, abortion on demand; tax-payer paid.
9. Conservative: Regarding illegals; anti many things including, but not limited to amnesty, anchor babies, free housing, medical, food, licensing, voting, and generally giving them a free ride. In a nutshell, control our borders like every other country does. Just try breaking into Mexico. We just ask that people come here the old way. LEGALLY.
Liberal: Pro-most of those things to the point that liberals won't even say the word illegal.
10. Conservative: Pro drilling our own oil, and building refineries it to get us off foreign oil dependency, which is encompasses many things including of course lower costs for fuel and goods, economic growth, and this is very much a National Security issue.
Liberal: Anti all of these things.
11.Conservative: Pro-strong military with ROE, (rules of engagement) that do not tie the hands of our troops, for example; in most cases, our men and women cannot carry loaded weapons, and may only ‘lock and load’ when fired upon. Many lives have been and are lost due to such practices. Another example is that politicians, not Generals, run the wars. We have soldiers that are imprisoned for doing their jobs, such as in the case of Lt. Michael Behenna.
Liberal: Weaken our military via ROE that favor our enemies, set dates and inform our enemies when we will leave; which is ridiculous. Open homo-sexuality to the point of allowing one to choose which uniform one will wear based upon gender orientation. Our enemies view such things as weakness.
12. Conservative: Pro-Israel. Conservatives support our only ally in the mid-east and want to defend her.
Liberal: Most don't seem to care about Israel and believe we can appease ours and their enemies into being nice which has never worked...EVER.
13. Conservative: Believes we should define and name our enemies and stop pandering to them.
Liberal: Hates to call acts of terror...ACTS OF TERROR! For example, the Ft. Hood shooting is called 'Workplace Violence.'
14. Conservative: Believes in the greatness and exceptionalism of America, citing our many achievements and humanitarian aid to the rest of the world throughout our history.
Liberal: Tends to think less of America and are mostly self-loathing. And they 'back it up' with revisionist history. That is to say, they re-write the books to match the lies.
15. Conservative: Wants to restore our nation to what the founders originally intended, based upon the Constitution and other original historical documents.
Liberal: Wants to change things into something resembling the tyranny we escaped in Europe.
16. Conservative: Mostly believes in God and recognize that our founders built the nation on Christian principles. Very easy to prove this. A great place to start is by looking up David Barton of Wallbuilders, Int’l.
Liberal: Wants no mention of God, and especially Christianity in any public or private venue, citing 'separation of church and state,' which was merely something Jefferson mentioned in a letter. All the while allowing for Islamic classes in many public schools. There's a lot to this issue; little of it Constitutional.
17. Conservative: Wants to ensure the constitutional integrity of laws and their enforcement.
Liberal: Up to and including the president believe they can circumvent the Constitution at will.
Cherisse, this list just scratches the surface. There is a lot more. Some will agree with all, some, or none of what I’ve had to say here. I guess it depends upon whether they are Conservative, Liberal, or something else.
At the end of the day, use this as a tool to consider how you think of things. Where it comes to deciding for whom to vote, forget such unimportant things as race and gender. Ask yourself how you feel about these and other important issues, and see how your candidates line up with them. No candidate will ever line up exactly, however you need to select those candidates that match as many of your values and principles as possible.
It’s really a matter of each person recognizing who they are and what they believe. Anyway, that’s how I see it.