:CONSERVATIVES - believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals.
:Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems.
:LIBERALS - believe in governmental action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all, and that it is the duty of the State to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Believe that people are basically good.
:Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people's problems.
Those descriptions are fairly accurate.
Any person with half-a-brain can see that the "C's" believe in the individual more than the Government, and the "L's" believe in the Government more than the individual. Our Country was founded on the notion that the individual is much more important than the Government, and that is why they severely limited the powers of the Government.
The "L's" obviously think our Founding Fathers were full of shit. I DARE the "L's" to defeat that assertion. I DARE you. You'd better be prepared, because I am.
Despite the fact that some individuals and particularly Corporations abuse that Freedom, it is clear from those clear definitions given above, our Founding Fathers were loathe to be "L's."
I see the Government as an entity that gives us the Liberty to solve our own problems, and only intervenes when human greed and tyranny gets in the way of our Liberties. I do NOT see the Government as our Nanny, who micro-manages our lives and "gives us a bunch of stuff" from money stolen from other people as payment for "helping us out."
"Any Government that can do things FOR you, can do things TO you." The more one lets government do the former, the more they will do the latter. That is one of the reasons we live in a near-Police State today in the USA. The US Government is like the WTS GB: "cede your Liberties to us, and we will make it worth your while." Bullocks to that, I say. Fuck them. (Pardon the "French", they used to say. "They" who said that assumed French people used the "F" word inappropriately, I guess. However, I never heard a French person use the "F" word, so I guess "they" don't know that much, after all.)
beks,
:Sorry Ann, a conservative with libertarian leanings is the kind of person who would step on some one's fingers while they were trying to climb up out of a hole.
Give an example of what you are talking about, please. I can give an example of just the opposite: Joe Blow is trying to start up his little business, but he is flummoxed by a mountain of bullshit red-tape, fees, hiring requirements, affirmative action bullshit, licenses and taxes, and Government interference at all levels, so he gives up or goes belly-up and gets a job working for a Company that has mega-tax advantages given by a Government who "helped" the Corporation get out of their own hole they dug for themselves, using 200 billion dollars of stolen tax-payer money, who then pays Joe Blow ten bucks an hour and treats him like shit, because he is easily replaced by some other Joe Blow who also got the same treatment from the "Government who helps people." Meanwhile, the Company executives are giving themselves 8 figure bonuses using the bail-out money and travelling around in their Corporate jets telling their branch offices to "cut expenses" and to fire the dead-weight employees, especially those nearing retirement age who have worked there for 30 or 40 years.
The Company I am talking about should have let nature take its course: FAIL and go BANKRUPT, sucker. You screwed up. Die. It's your fault. Don't let the Government use stolen taxpayer money to help you out, no matter how much you bribe them to do it. Die, sucker. Die.
Talking about stepping on someone's fingers while they were trying to climb out of a hole...the Government does that better than anyone else for the little guy: you know: the kind of guy that BUILT this Country into what it was.
:At the same time bowing down to huge champagne swilling megalithic corporations and saying "why are you being so mean as to tax them?? "
Yeah. That's the downside, and that is a valid observation. As I said, the Supremes have been wrestling with that issue since the founding of this Republic. The solution is not letting the Government intervene in ALL of our lives to solve those problems, but letting the Government intervene in those areas where others deprive us of our Liberties, while preserving the Liberties they haven't yet stolen from us.
Farkel
