What makes you a conservative or liberal

[Pumpy Tudors]

To me, the only thing that classifies someone as a conservative or a liberal is their need to tell everybody how they feel about every political issue. Only conversatives and liberals do that.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by JediKooter

Long post about things he believes.

Thanks for writing that for me. I knew you and I had a lot of the same thoughts and this just solidifies it.

[Abe Sargent]

My own phrase for what I consider myself is a Rhetoric Conservative. I am conservative to the extent that most modern Republicans and conservatives claim to be, but aren't. I'm a 1994 conservative. I believe that government should get the fuck out of our lives as much as possible.

1). Spending should take a nose dive. WTF was up with the spending increases in the 2000s under supposedly conservative government?

2). This includes shutting down Dept of Education, merging Commence with Treasury, folding Vet Affairs into Defense, removing multiple agencies with competing but similar interests (such as park service and forest service, and CBO and OMB, etc).

3). Stop telling me what I can and can;t shoot and with what. I think crossbows, bows, old guns, new guns, semis, full autos, and more should be fully legal. In fact, I'd argue for private ownership of tanks, battleships, military vehicles, and any missile short of nuclear.

4). WTF is government telling me who I can and can't marry? Save for family (which is an obvious medical reason), people should be allowed to marry multiple people, same sex, trannies, or whatever. I don;t give two shits, and neither should the government either.

5). Affirmative Action is weak and does virtually nothing. It does require institutions to have offices and hire lots of people and creates make jobs. Knock that shit off and terminate the program.

6). To big to fail is stupid. Companies should not have the government prop them up because otherwise it would hurt the economy and lose jobs. That's a social system, not the one we created. Knock that off.

7). I'm tired of all of this stupid taxes, holes, loopholes, and people taking 14 days to figure this stuff out because they have complex stuff like farms, or self employed income. Just pass a law that institutes a federal sales tax (and probably instituted as a value added tax for safety) and then ban all other taxes. We should not be a nation of lawyers and accountants.

8). What welfare and social security is used for should shrink. After my mom died, my sister and I got checks from social security until we turned 18, despite my dad being gainfully employed. Why? That's not what the programs are designed for. They are already in bad enough straits.

9). Pass a Constitutional amendment that forces all bills to be about just one thing. That prevents riders from being attached that force bills to be about many different things and prevents a lot of underhanded politics and fake spending. Politics is fine, but I want it in the open.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

To me, the only thing that classifies someone as a conservative or a liberal is their need to tell everybody how they feel about every political issue. Only conversatives and liberals do that.

I take it you haven't met the libertarians around here.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

I take it you haven't met the libertarians around here.

You mean the "I REFUSE TO CALL MYSELF CONSERVATIVE OR LIBERAL BECAUSE LABELS ARE EVIL, BUT CHECK OUT MY LIBERTARIAN LABEL" folks? Yeah, they're just conservatives and liberals calling themselves something different. It's like how I call myself a diesel locomotive even though I'm a man.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

You mean the "I REFUSE TO CALL MYSELF CONSERVATIVE OR LIBERAL BECAUSE LABELS ARE EVIL, BUT CHECK OUT MY LIBERTARIAN LABEL" folks? Yeah, they're just conservatives and liberals calling themselves something different. It's like how I call myself a diesel locomotive even though I'm a man.

You're no Batman (or food processor repairman)

SI

[Coffee Warlord]

Sack wins this thread.

Now that that is out of the way. The terms "conservative" and "liberal" are utterly, 100% irrelevant these days. No one knows what the fuck a conservative or a liberal IS.

Ask 20 people who label themselves [Con/Lib] why they are a [Con/Lib], get 20 different answers, 19 of which will be in direct contradiction with one another.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Thanks for writing that for me. I knew you and I had a lot of the same thoughts and this just solidifies it.

You're welcome.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Now that that is out of the way. The terms "conservative" and "liberal" are utterly, 100% irrelevant these days. No one knows what the fuck a conservative or a liberal IS. Ask 20 people who label themselves [Con/Lib] why they are a [Con/Lib], get 20 different answers, 19 of which will be in direct contradiction with one another.

For some reason this reminds me of the recent polls where Generic Repub beats Obama but every individual candidate trails Obama.

edit: For Generic Repub, it seems people simply apply their own definition of what that means and voila, victory. It's the failure of any of the candidates to meet those idealized versions that keep them from pulling in front. I'm pretty sure what that says is that most conservatives and/or independents are pretty sure they'd vote for themselves, they just aren't sure about any of the folks in the current field.

[sterlingice]

However, by that same token- "generic republican" is everything to every person. Some like fiscal conservatives, some like social conservatives, and some like both. But as soon as you start attaching positions to a candidate then you start paring down your voting base. It's not any candidate's fault that when one person thinks "Generic Republican", they imagine someone close to Ron Paul, another person thinks "Generic Republican" they think something like Michele Bachmann, and yet another person sees "Rick Perry" when they think "Generic Republican".

Sure, in practically every Republican's mind, "Generic Republican" conjures up images of Ronald Reagan but that is the commie fighting, low taxes, smoothing talking Ronald Reagan. But they forget that he's also the immigration amnesty, deficit ballooning, massive government war on drugs Ronald Reagan.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

However, by that same token- "generic republican" is everything to every person.

That's basically what I was getting at, perhaps I failed at boiling it down though.

Sure, in practically every Republican's mind, "Generic Republican" conjures up images of Ronald Reagan

Naturally, I'm the oddball. He isn't what comes to my mind, for some of the very reasons you mentioned.