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Originally Posted by Moby and Lucille
Conservativism, is in terms of organization is organization geared towards the individual and liberalism is organization geared towards the group.
The ideal of conservativism in this respect is personal responsibility and charity and productivity. Everybody stepping up to the plate for their fellow man and keeping the nation well lubed. The worst case scenario of conservatism is eliteism. The favoring of the rich, or at the very least, if not favoring the rich, the lack of restraint for the rich. Without healthy restraint, the wealthy could conceivably over time amass more and more wealth and power while the poor lose proportionately, and we end up with a dark-ages setup where 2-5% of the population live in absolute wealth and lord over the 95-98% that live basically peasant lives. The total annihilation of the middle-class.
The ideal of liberalism in this respect is the group tended to by the group. Government regulated and controlled prosperity for all equally. No one taking advantage of one another, the government takes care of all. The worst case scenario of liberalism is socialism. The taking away of individual's rights and freedoms in the name of the well-being of the collective. Everything legislated. Being able to say and do almost nothing because you're not allowed to offend anybody. Possible illegalization of organized religion. Socialism would not work because if everybody gets the same amount, nobody will really be able to afford to put anything into anything and not only would that result in the elimination of the middle class, it would result in the elimination of the upper class too. If you have a two and a half car garage and a finished basement, you have too much stuff. Share the wealth!
Socially, the conservative is about enforcing or at least encouraging the time honored ins and outs of society and the basic principals of which are based on judeo-christianity. They are loathe of deviations from the "tried and true". Liberals are about getting out from under the thumb of judeo-christianity and shedding off certain time honored traditions. Embracing what had previously been loathe and loathing things that had previously been embraced. Changing the flow of society while conservatives aim to preserve it. A good example of which is immigration. Conservatives expect the foreigner to adapt to our way while liberals aim to adapt our way to the foreigner.
So, where am I in this? I am officially an independant. I am not completely trusting of either party, nor do I agree with either party completely, but I definitely have a lean.
In the financial/governmental style side of things, I am pretty neutral. I feel that either side, if left unchecked is pretty scary. I support a pretty even balance between the two ideologies. I feel that the playing field should be as level as possible for everyone, those who can taking care of those who cant with restrictions on those who would take advantage of the others, a sort of affirmative action based on class yet I am opposed to affirmative action based on race or gender or sexual orientation as I believe it's not fixing a problem, it's just creating a problem to counter the existing problem. The manifest of affirmative action is to create advantages for the disadvantaged with the intent of neutralising the situation. It doesn't do that, what's more like it is david not killing goliath, but just jabbing at him repeatedly with a pointy tooth pick. Not solving any problems, just aggrivating existing ones. Judgement should be based soley on merit, not color or gender or sexuality.
In the social aspect I lean pretty heavily to the right. I believe that our country should be governed by judeo-christian principles. It's what this nation was founded on, when in someone's house, you play by their rules, you don't go and rearrange all their furniture. I believe that's what's happened with the liberals, their trying to take God out of everything. Oh, sure, general spirituality and "exotic" religions are encouraged and protected, but the backbone of our country (judeo-christianity) is some old, tired, disproven system of keeping control on people who just want to be free and should be barred from having any influence on the way the country is run. If you want to believe in it, keep it to yourself and embrace the christless society anyway.
That rules of the house/rearranging furnature analogy works also with immigrants. If they want to come over to my house, fine, but play by my rules, don't expect me to play by yours unless I come over to your house. There's nothing wrong with us learning foreign languages for knowldge sake, but if a foreigner is going to live in an english speaking country, they need to speak the language. Learning a foreign language to learn a foreign language is beautiful and empowering, but learning a foreign language to accomodate someone who just doesn't want to learn our language, who expects to come over here and have baby powder poured on his bottom is just wrong.
I believe in many aspects of the tried and true. I believe in spare the rod and spoil the child. I believe that having both parents out working harms the children, I do not believe in a child raising themselves, not that the one staying at home needs to be the mother, either parent can be the bacon maker and either can be the home maker, but there should be one of both. I believe more emphasis needs to be put on education, and education needs to return back to being taught to think for yourself and not just being programmed to be a good worker bee. I belive in teachers being able to discipline the child. I believe in prayer being allowed in schools. I am very pro-life.
I do not belive in special priveliges for minorities, the problem isn't going to be fixed by bestowing minorites with trivial benefits, but by changing the majority. Reform needs to come from within. We're wrong about a lot of things, and need to change them, but not by allowing ourselves to be poked in the eye with a tooth pick, and speaking of which, I am not at all happy with the idea of minority scholorships and television stations, etc. BET is culture, WET would be racism. Gay only scholorships is fine, but straight only scholorships would be discrimination. That crap doesn't help ANYBODY! That's not equality, that's reverse discrimination!
I'm all for equality, but absolute equality would be the complete absence of penalties and permissions, of sanctions and special priveliges. It would be color blind, gender blind and sexual orientation blind. Affirmative action is none of those things, it's just the mistakes of the past played again, only in reverse... it's not undoing the old mistakes, it's redoing them, only from the opposite direction.
However, even here, I'm not totally in agreement with the conservatives and in total disagreement with the liberals. I'm not one of those "evil" conservatives that wants to see all women in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, see all blacks drinking from their own "colored" water fountains and attending their own "colored" schools and all gays burned at the stake. I feel that women are just as capable as men, blacks just as capable as whites, and gays just as capable as straights. I believe gender, race, and sexual orientation should not even be a consideration in judging their merit. The conservative extreme WOULD NOT hire a gay person just because they are gay, the liberal extreme WOULD hire a gay person just because they are gay. I say hire them or not without taking their gayness into account at all. In all things, we should judge only by individual merit.
I believe diversity should neither be encouraged nor discouraged, it should just be whatever it is going to be. I cannot think off the top of my head of a social issue where I agree strongly with the left and disagree strongly with the right, but I can think of some issues where I am about smack dab in the middle.
For instance, I am opposed to gay "marriage" as marriage is clearly defined as a union between a man and a woman, and having two men unite and call it marriage to me is like subtracting 2 from 4 and still calling it 4. It's a contradition in terms, HOWEVER, I am in favor of any kind of union under any other name that would bestow the same rights on a gay couple as a marriage would bestow on a straight couple.
Anyway, that's politics in a nutshell from someone who is disappointed with George Bush but given the choice to go back and vote again, would still choose him over John Kerry.
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) for me to describe my political ideolgy is: One foot is dead on the center, and the other is off to the right. And most of the stuff I'm on the right side about is stuff that's influenced by my faith. Most everything else I'm pretty "straight down the middle of the fairway" on. 
at least you didnt reply with, "I HATE YOU"
