[Agent Steel]

"Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, "of freedom"[1]) is the belief in the importance of individual liberty and equal rights.[2] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but most liberals support such fundamental ideas as constitutions, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, free trade, and the separation of church and state."

Quoted directly from Wikipedia. Let me take each piece of it and explain why it is good:

Individual Liberty - I ask whomever is reading these words to ask yourself if you would like to have as much individual liberty as possible. If you say yes, then you must support Liberalism. Note that I say as much liberty as possible, not infinite liberty or to become the ruler of the world.

equal rights - This means that all people deserve certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away from them. No matter who you are or what you are doing, you deserve to have at least a minmum amount of freedom. For example, no one deserves to be subject to cruel and unusual punishment.

Constitutions - A way to keep a nation strong by adhering to the principles started by the founding fathers. If we breach these holy words, we have disprespected our country and we have let personal corruption get into the way of common goodness.

liberal democracy – The right for people to have a fair voting process that allows each individual an equal opportunity to change things, as opposed to letting the state or a dictator make each and every single command. If you disagree with dictatorships, you must support Liberalism. If you want to become a dictator yourself, then fuck you, you don’t get to do that.

free and fair elections – Goes along with what was mentioned above.

human rights – As said above, freedom from excessive torture or cruel and unusual punishment.

capitalism/free trade – These both allow the people, not the government, the right to run the businesses and the economy. This allows for the height of human potential to be reached.

separation of church and state – Religious indoctrination is dangerous, and separation of church and state allows individuals the freedom from religion. Freedom from religion is important because it allows each individual to make up his/her own mind, not have the state tell them what to think. Being told how and what to think is one of the essences of evil, because it decreases the amount of leaders in society and increases the amount of followers. Blind followers are capable of great evils. If you agree, you must support Liberalism.

"Conservatism(Latin: conservare, "to preserve")[1] is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were."

Quoted directly from Wikipedia. Let me take each piece of it and explain why it is bad:

maintenance of traditional institutions – This allows no room for growth, innovation, development, and evolution towards a more enlightened society. As we look back through history, we should be grateful that we have knocked away several traditional institutions that used to be common practice, including public torture, witch burnings, slavery, and other barbaric and atrocious practices.

minimal change in society – Anyone who adheres to this belief would be perfectly comfortable sticking to fucked up practices, no matter how evil, simply because they were taught from a young age that conservatism is good, and no matter how great a new innovative idea is that comes along, conservatives would try to find some absurd way to preach against it. To name a few fucked up practices that have irrational and unnecessary pain and suffering in the world, there is the tradition in Saudi Arabia of women having to wear burkas, or robes, to cover themselves up when they go out in public. Adhering to this tradition allowed for a dozen young women to be burned alive in a school building because they didn’t have their robes on and were not allowed to leave the building because of it. If they go outside with little clothes on, they are expected to be raped. Saudi men have no shame or problem adhering to these conservative ideals. Another example is the tradition in Africa to cut out women’s clitorises so that women would have no desire to leave their homes. These sick and disturbing practices are being upheld throughout societies across the world, all in the name of “conserving” holy traditions.

oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were." – Read up on the history of Pol Pot. This is exactly what he wanted to do. He went out of his way to massacre and exterminate the best of brightest of society, because he had a sick twisted and insane belief that society needed to return back to the times of barbarism. This desire to keep mankind primitive is completely backward from progression. To want to eliminate all the progress and innovation made by use of intelligence, hard work, and technology, is beyond evil. Pol Pot deliberately used his powers to fuck society up. Only mankind is capable of such evil, because only man has the power to do so. If you are against Pol Pot, you must condemn Conservatism as being evil.

[BassHole]

Funny really, all the things you said about "liberalism" apply directly to modern conservatism...

[Agent Steel]

Funny really, all the things you said about "liberalism" apply directly to modern conservatism...

I'm aware of this, and that's why I never understood why these people call themselves conservatives. Why do they do that?

[yourstruly]

@ Agent Steel -

That's very cute to quote wikipedia's one paragraph blurb about two complicated and far too often oversimplified ideologies, but it's going to leave you with an elementary analysis at best.

I don't presume to know all the reasons that someone might call themselves a conservative, but I can give you two very good ones: it describes either their views on the proper role of government, and it describes their views on what social and cultural norms ought to be.

Fiscal conservative: Believes that the government should be restrained in the extent to which it interferes in our economy. A conservative (and I mean genuinely conservative, none of this neo-con trash) view on government economic policy generally involves lower taxes, less spending, less intrusive regulations, less welfare programs, less redistribution of wealth, and less bureaucracy. The unfortunate truth is that many (if not most) of today's self-labeled "Republicans" follow a corrupted and hollow shell of this once great economic ideology. One only need look at the increase in the size of government under George W. Bush to see how far removed modern "conservatives" are from true ideological conservatism.

Social Conservative: Believes that individuals should be restrained in the types of behaviors that are considered socially acceptable and/or legal. The idea is that a solid bedrock of morality and tradition will lead to a more cohesive and just society. Naturally, a certain amount of religious influence is present here.
While I personally tend towards social liberalism, there is an increasing number of disturbing studies involving the negative consequences of the sexual revolution on poverty in this country.

That is why many of the most intelligent and well-meaning people in America choose to self-identify as "conservative."

Believe me, I know first-hand how fun it is to sit at home on your computer and come up with clever platitudes and put downs about whole groups of people. However, please consider for a moment that your attitude might prevent you from ever grasping the true nature of the political climate in this country.

[foilist13]

@Agent Steal:

You have reduced Conservative Ideology to the glorification of stagnation. Shockingly Conservatives have a message beyond "don't change anything." yourstruly has made a good summary of the general view points among real conservatives, so I'll not add to it. However, the Liberalism you have describes is not remotely what is practiced by Liberals today. The idea that a rights based ethics system is present in Liberal ideology is simply not true. Modern Liberals are Utilitarians. They are willing to sacrifice the rights of some people for the good of the many. Conservatives tend to be more rights based in that they refuse to violate the rights of the few for the benefit of the many (neither side is terribly consistent, but this is the general trend).

Secondly, your little article here would seem to suggest that conservatives do not support democracy or the constitution. This is a blatant misrepresentation. Liberals are making a constant pull away from the constitution, while conservatives are the ones trying to maintain it. Conservatism is evil my ass. I am not conservative, but even I can see how belittling and illinformed that article was. You're clearly a smart guy, but you've shut your mind off completely to what I presume your parents have raised you to believe is an evil ideology (I obviously don't know your situation, but statistically this is probably the truth).

[Mazhi]

When you look at it in European terms, it's more clear.

Source: Wikipedia

American versus European use of the term "liberalism"

Today the word "liberalism" is differently used in different countries. One of the greatest contrasts is between the usage in the United States and Continental Europe. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (writing in 1956): "Liberalism in the American usage has little in common with the word as used in the politics of any European country, save possibly Britain." In Continental Europe, liberalism usually means what is sometimes called 'classical liberalism', a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economics, and more closely corresponds to the American definition of 'libertarianism' - itself a term which in Europe is instead often applied to 'left-libertarianism'.

What Americans call "liberalism" now is in Europe "social democracy". In Europe, liberals and conservatives have similar views on the economy, but differ in social issues where conservatives tend to be more reactionary.

[Agent Steel]

So where am I going wrong here? Who gets to determine what is called liberal and what is called conservative? It seems to me that anytime someone disagrees with a diehard right winger in even the slightest degree, they get accused of being liberal. What the hell is that??

I think Wikipedia's definition is correct. I think people get very, very hung up on current events that they do all this BS labeling that doesn't make any sense. What exactly is liberal and conservative in your mind, in America? Cause it's certainly not the way I see it. Not at all. I absolutely cannot stand dishonest labeling.

Here's another thing that ticks me off...Why do conservatives only, only ever attack the most lunatic fringe far left mobs that they can find, and then accuse the whole ideology of liberalism as being bad? What the hell is that?

[yourstruly]

So where am I going wrong here? Who gets to determine what is called liberal and what is called conservative? It seems to me that anytime someone disagrees with a diehard right winger in even the slightest degree, they get accused of being liberal. What the hell is that??

You are going wrong by making a simplistic and, frankly, laughable characterization of two ideologies based on quotations from wikipedia.

The fact that your thesis to begin with is "conservatism is evil" betrays how woefully unsophisticated and narrow minded your thoughts on these issues are.

Who gets to determine what anything is called? "Conservative" and "liberal" are words that refer to certain things, and will convey a certain concept when used to communicate in human society (at least American society).

No one has "accused" you of being a liberal. You have loudly proclaimed the fact in the most condescending way you possibly could have. Naturally this makes you an easy target.

Here's another thing that ticks me off...Why do conservatives only, only ever attack the most lunatic fringe far left mobs that they can find, and then accuse the whole ideology of liberalism as being bad? What the hell is that?

Your hypocrisy is astounding.

Read over your initial post in this thread. Most of your points are built off of using right wing extremists to demonize conservatism as a whole. You talk about oppressive burkas, Pol Pot (who was actually a left-winger), and slavery as if the existence of these extreme examples somehow proves anything about Conservatism as a whole. And then you have the audacity to talk about how ticked off you get when people demonize your ideology based on a handful of extremists? Who has remotely done that in this thread?

I don't mean this to be rude or condescending, but I honestly recommend that you return to your AP Gov class in high school and wait until you are older before you come back. Maybe you aren't in highschool, maybe you are in college, whatever, it doesn't matter. This isn't ad hominem, I just seriously don't think you understand enough about the issues you are trying to debate to contribute or learn anything meaningful on this site.

[foilist13]

I think it is clear that the subject of discussion here is American Liberalism vs American Conservatism, so while articulate and informative, Mazhi's post is not terribly useful.

@Agent Steal: I think you need to do a little reading as yourstruly said before you post something that aggressive and wrong.

1) Do you really think there would be serious and long lasting debate if Conservatism was that stupid and evil?

2) Do you seriously think Ronald Reagan (prominent conservative president if you didn't know) would advocate slavery, be a mass murderer like pol pot, or try and reintroduce public torturing?

Have you ever met a conservative who thinks any of those things?

[Agent Steel]

To everyone here:

You are completely missing what I'm saying. I'm talking about the real meanings of the words in a broad historical context. I'm not talking about the little scenes that people are hung up on in America right here and now. I don't pay attention to that. As far as I can see, it's people making up modern labels against people just so they can put them down and gain a political advantage over them. How convenient for the right wing party to accuse the gay agenda as being "liberal". How convenient for them to also accuse anyone who is in favor of drug legalization as being "liberal". What they're doing is using the majority to their advantage and getting them to join their side of conservatism, when they themselves don't even know what conservatism is.

The people that get attacked and thrown in with the "liberal agenda" don't even call themselves liberals. That's why it's total BS to label them as such.

Have you ever met a conservative who thinks any of those things?

No, but I have met conservatives who are pro death penalty. I've also met conservatives who believe in the 2,000 year old traditions of the bible which DOES advocate such things as slavery, genocide, and the end of the world. If you really think conservatives are not this way, why do they cling to such ancient bronze age traditions written in in a 2,000 year old book, mainly to justify the slaughtering and butchering of thousands of innocent people overseas? It's just as bad as anything.

[yourstruly]

WE CAN TELL YOU ARE IN HIGHSCHOOL. You might even be younger than that. You honestly are not at a point in your development where you are going to be able to understand what we're saying.

Don't take it the wrong way, it's just obvious to anyone who thinks about it.

Have a good one friend.

[Agent Steel]

I'm actually 22 and my High School GPA was about 88 or 89 at the end of all 4 years...I also have 40 college credits

[Rei Murasame]

To be fair, Agent Steel has a point here in this line:

What they're doing is using the majority to their advantage and getting them to join their side of conservatism, when they themselves don't even know what conservatism is.

This is the complaint I've said about American conservatism (and to some degree what now passes as mainstream conservatism in some parts of Europe now too) numerous times now, where they present what is essentially radical liberalism mixed with some Evangelicalism and/or Calvinism and misogyny, and then call it "the Right", when on closer examination the whole thing sits atop 100% Liberal foundations and is merely a variant of it, where Liberalism is of course defined in the way that Agent Steel did at the beginning of this topic.

Of course I disagree with Agent Steel's rather disparaging portrayal of the Real Right. However accusing mainstream modern conservatives of actually being Liberals, is an accusation that does have a lot of merit to it. (Interestingly, BassHole confirms this with his comment: "Funny really, all the things you said about "liberalism" apply directly to modern conservatism...")

The reason I think this issue is coming up more and more recently, is because it seems that the 'post-enlightenment consensus' (I just made that term up, but you know what I mean by it, I mean the de-politicisation - or in other words universal acceptance of - Liberalism) has begun to fracture as some people are beginning to either re-assert Liberalism (as Agent Steel has been obviously trying to do in this thread) or repudiate Liberalism (as I often do in my threads), irrespective of the political party that they identify with. This sort of thing could result in political battle lines being redrawn (re-politicisation of Liberalism!) if these discourses result in coherent and recognisable Liberal and Anti-Liberal 'teams' being formed.

It's still too early to say how it could all play out, but the fact that hung parliaments and general political deadlock have now become commonplace, is an indicator that the political battlefield, that 'the situation on the ground' has changed but the political map has not yet been redrawn to reflect that change.

[foilist13]

Yes, slinging the word "Liberal" is often used in a negative context. That is a separate issue though. Agent Steal is making a serious and misguided attempt to demonize the entire right wing of the political spectrum. I think it is incredibly naive to think that right wingers are fundamentally more evil or contain a higher percentage of malicious individuals than does the left. You are entitled to your political leanings, but don't pretend that those on the other side are evil people.

On a side note, the death penalty is the oldest form of punishment in existence. It is certainly not unique to the right wing.

[pugsville]

all very nice Agent Steel, but

the stuff you say about the constitution isnt that position that

"Constitutions - A way to keep a nation strong by adhering to the principles started by the founding fathers. If we breach these holy words, we have disprespected our country and we have let personal corruption get into the way of common goodness."

isnt that a conservative statement rather than a liberal one?

[Agent Steel]

Conservatives don't care about the Constitution, they've admitted it themselves. They get so caught up in the moment of the times that they forget to see the bigger, larger picture of what's going on in world. They'd rather make radical decisions based on fear and the belief that they are part of a holy war. It's despicable.

[Rei Murasame]

Agent Steal is making a serious and misguided attempt to demonize the entire right wing of the political spectrum. I think it is incredibly naive to think that right wingers are fundamentally more evil or contain a higher percentage of malicious individuals than does the left.

I agree with you totally on that, yes. He seems to be claiming that we are some kind of very simplistic and fundamentally evil force.

"Constitutions - A way to keep a nation strong by adhering to the principles started by the founding fathers. If we breach these holy words, we have disprespected our country and we have let personal corruption get into the way of common goodness."

isnt that a conservative statement rather than a liberal one?

Well, what he's doing is talking about a totally Liberal constitution and then saying that you should defend and protect it, so within the context of American history they would call it a 'conservative sentiment' to be strongly re-asserting that it must be defended, but in absolute terms, it is the ideology of Liberalism that he is attempting to conserve.

The reason that this sort of behaviour is exceptional (in a bad way, in my opinion) is because it distorts the meaning of what conservatism is supposed to be, conservatives aren't supposed to seriously entertain any a priori specifications on how to behave. Conservatives make laws, but they are laws that can be abrogated if they should start to become more of a hindrance than a help.

Conservatism at its root is supposed to be about mothering a nation, and serious mothers do not want to tie their hands by agreeing to adhere to unconditional limitations on their potential parental power. This doesn't mean that we will always be acting, but by asserting that the State is in a permanent state of intervention (ie, it is actually actually alive and having a relationship) it enables conservatives to take actions in your life when and where we/they need to.

This is why conservatives usually do not write constitutions, and if we do write one for some reason, we certainly won't write one that unconditionally limits the power of the State over the citizen.

[foilist13]

Conservatives don't care about the Constitution, they've admitted it themselves. They get so caught up in the moment of the times that they forget to see the bigger, larger picture of what's going on in world. They'd rather make radical decisions based on fear and the belief that they are part of a holy war. It's despicable.

This statement is despicable. Come on man. I'm not Conservative, but this is ridiculous.

[Rei Murasame]

Conservatives don't care about the Constitution, they've admitted it themselves. They get so caught up in the moment of the times that they forget to see the bigger, larger picture of what's going on in world.

I doubt that the American Republicans would say that, from what I've seen they seem to follow that document even when it totally cripples their ability to be taken seriously.

An example would be the 'New York Mosque' controversy. They were against the idea, yet paradoxically for its construction, because they support the first amendment to the US Constitution at all times, no matter how absurd it causes them to look. These are guys who can't even stop themselves from giving Scientology a tax break.

Most damningly:

What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth. These qualities are the bequest of our Founding and of our cultural heritage. They have always marked America as special, with a unique role and mission in the world: as a model of ordered liberty and self-government and as an exemplar of freedom and a vindicator of it, through persuasion when possible and force of arms when absolutely necessary.

[...]

It was, to simplify, the most individualistic elements of English society — basically, dissenting low-church Protestants — who came to the eastern seaboard of North America. And the most liberal fringe of English political thought, the anti-court “country” Whigs and republican theorists such as James Harrington, came to predominate here. All of this made America an outlier compared with England, which was an outlier compared with Europe. The U.S. was the spawn of English liberalism, fated to carry it out to its logical conclusion and become the most liberal polity ever known to man.

They are conserving Liberalism. So what you actually have is the Left wing of liberalism (you) and the Right wing of liberalism (them), fighting over how best to defend and promote Liberalism.

And to quote the same wiki article on conservatism that you used at the beginning of this thread:

In the United States, conservatism developed after the Second World War when Russell Kirk and other writers identified an American conservative tradition based on the ideas of Edmund Burke. However many writers do not accept American conservatism as genuine and consider it to be a variety of liberalism.

[Nattering Nabob]

Conservatism is nothing more than the old guard trying to hold onto power...

They oppose "Big Government" simply because government (in the U.S. at any rate) passed laws declaring various kinds of discrimination illegal...discrimination which ensured their hold on power...