Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Okay, this is a bit more theory and concept than the rest of what's going on lately. I'm pretty much done venting about the election, now I want to discuss the basis of our individual ideology. I'll start with Liberals in the next post:

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Liberals: Try to "protect" the individual by limiting the rights of others to harm or negatively affect them. Gun control, environmental laws, and protecting the poor from poverty are examples. Unfortunately, it's impossible to to protect one person's rights while taking away anothers.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Conservatives: Try to "protect" their way of life by limiting the rights of others: pro-life, anti-gay, and pro-religious laws. They too, contradict their own intent by taking away the rights of people who think differently than they do.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

this is obviously very simplified of course, so I'd appreciate both sides helping to add to this discussion of why there's really no such thing as a true liberal or true conservative- we're ALL somewhere in between. The political spectrum is an illusion. It's much more complicated than that.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Lastly, I won't tolerate bashing of any kind in here. This thread is strictly for philisophocal discussion, not debate. I'm only interested in a frank discussion of how we generate our views as individuals, not in who is right or wrong, except by discussing the fallacies and shortcomings of the political parties main political stances. so don't ***** when I delete your post if you're not here for my purposes. You have the rest of the forum for business as usual.

FUNKED1

Liberals: Try to protect their way of life by limiting the rights of others. Taking away rights to gun ownership, confiscating assets of citizens they find to be too rich, denying the rights of unborn children, trying to restrict religious expression and speech, trying to achieve government involvement in every aspect of life. The belief that the people should answer to the government and not the other way around.

Conservatives: Try to protect the individual by limiting the rights of the government to negatively effect them.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Nice party line. I'm asking everyone to discuss why the two party system forces each candidate into contradictory views. Explain why it's okay for you to limit the rights of homosexuals to live how they wish, with all the rights and priveleges of heterosexuals, but liberals can't limit your right to own firearms?

FUNKED1

Party line? I'm a libertarian. I was just pointing out a contrary (and accurate) alternate view. I don't think government should make any laws regarding sexual behavior other than rape and child molestation.

FUNKED1

Also be careful not to confuse Conservatives and Republicans. A lot of GOP policies are very far from traditional Conservative thought. But the center has moved so far left in the last 100 years, that the GOP has made huge concessions to get votes.

Same goes for Liberals and Democrats. The DNC has gone from being a liberal party to mostly unapologetic socialists.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Where's the contradiction? You gave the conservative's mantra, not the flaws in their logic. The contradiction is conservative-backed laws like banning gay marriage, abortion, drug laws, etc. That all sounds like government telling people what to do to me. I'm not discussing the merits of those views, I'm still pointing out contradictions. Please try to keep up.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Who gives a crap what each party stood for 100 years ago. Won't change what they do next year. And you're bashing again, try to be impartial. You don't have to hate an idea to find it's flaws, and if you can't be impartial when examining your own beliefs, then you're just another sheep. I'm using the terms "conservative" and "liberal" as they apply here, today. republicans=conservative and democrats=liberal under current understandings of the terms. Of course there are exceptions, but you won't see any of them making a serious bid for the presidency any time soon, unfortunately.

FUNKED1

I agree with that. I think my posts show the contradictions. Both sides are corrupt hypocrites. So I don't vote for either.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

I wouldn't go that far with either side. I think "imperfect" is a more apt term. I think the Libertarian party has potential to become a viable third party, but odds are they'll get forced into the same problem as the Dems and Reps, which is having to choose views to gain support, rather than making views and taking the support they get. So far they are staying consistent with their views, but it isn't catching on enough. We'll see what happens over the next 10 years or so.

FUNKED1

Bashing? Huh?

And this isn't bashing?

Maybe in TV culture those are the current understandings. Among academics or outside this country, those understandings are not so current.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

Bashing.

I didn't say your views were wrong, I was pointing out your failure to meet the purpose of the thread with that post.

I live in America, and in America George Bush is a conservative and Kerry is a liberal. I'm not wasting any more time defining the terms, because we all know what someone means when they say liberal or conservative. You put one of each in a room and we all know which is which. Move on.