I am always looking to promote understanding among everyone so to that end I will post the DICTIONARY definitions of Liberalism and Conservatism as they relate to politics. Then I will post several hypothetical situations and ask that you guys look at each and decide what the %26quot;liberal%26quot; thing to do would be, and what the %26quot;conservative%26quot; thing to do would be based on those dictionary definitions only. Please don%26#039;t use your personal opinion as to what they mean. I got the definitions from dictionary.com
--------------------------------------鈥?br>
Liberalism: a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.
Conservatism(2 definitions): The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order.
A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and opposition to sudden change in the established order.
--------------------------------------鈥?br>
Now take a look at these situations and please give me what you think the liberal thing to do would be, vs what you think the conservative action would be.
1. Your country is a colony of another country and it taxes you without allowing you to have representatives within its government. The choice comes up whether to attempt to secede from that country through revolution, or stay under the country%26#039;s governance as it is. What would either side do?
2. You are a legislator and a bill is proposed that would create an agency to explore a brand new path of scientific research and technology that has never been done before in the history of mankind, and there%26#039;s no guarantee that it will be successful... but if it is successful your nation will gain huge amounts of prestige and it has the chance to usher in a new age in technological breakthrough. What is each side%26#039;s vote according to the definitions posted?
3. (last one I promise.) You operate a plant that manufactures a luxury consumer good and have the chance to be the first plant owner to adopt a radical brand new method of manufacturing that would drastically reduce costs to the point where your goods are now affordable to most people in the country at the expense of forgoing the traditional manufacturing process. Which action would each side take?
Thanks all and have fun with the questions :). Bonus points if anyone guesses what real life scenarios I was referring to with these hypotheticals.|||Your text book definitions are not modern day conservatives and liberals, also liberals should be changed to progressives. Having said that,,just going by the text book questions......
1. Liberals would secede while conservatives would fear change. Conservatives would look at ALL the possible outcomes of seceding and weigh their options. They would be afraid of making things worse by letting people they don%26#039;t know start their new country verses people they already know are bad, lesser of two evils. Meanwhile the liberals would blindly jump for change and not give a moments notice to the possible bad outcomes. Anyone who spoke out against their idea would be blasted as uneducated for not believing in THEIR blind ideas.
2.Liberals would be all for it, going by text book definition, even though funding for this agency could bankrupt us with absolutely nothing to show for it in the end. Conservatives would again, weigh out the pros and cons of it and be leary of spending more money on possible wasteful things.
3. Same on the last one.
Dude, the last two were hard, just going by definition, conservatives don%26#039;t want anything and don%26#039;t want anything to change but that is not true in modern day conservatism. Nothing for the liberalism definition is what a modern day liberal believes.|||You can%26#039;t simply describe Liberalism or Conservatism by just the dictionary definition. There%26#039;s much more weight to it than that.|||Libs would support all three. The American Revolution, NASA, Henry Ford ?|||Neither really applies to #3 because it is purely a business decision for the managers of the business to weigh the options and decide on. Political leanings shouldn%26#039;t play a role.
The irony in all of this is how you are obviously trying to focus on Liberalism as promoting advancement and yet in #3 you would find Unions strongly against the proposed changes. Yet Liberal groups tend to strongly support Unions and Unions consistently vote that side of the fence.
Also ironic is that it is Liberal groups that are so strongly in support of more and more government programs. Yet the reality is that the more dependent you become on some group other than yourself, the more individual freedom you lose.
That%26#039;s exactly what%26#039;s going on right now. The voice of Liberals today do not actually represent true Liberalism. Conservatives are a bit trickier. There are some that don%26#039;t represent real Conservatism,, but I think most do want to maintain the status quo but that%26#039;s not quite that simple. The status quo is intended to be the original design of the US with strong focus on individual freedom and an economic system in which it%26#039;s the individuals and businesses who decide how to run themselves. So while they do practice the conservative ideal of maintaining tradition, that tradition IS to allow freedom and limited government involvement.
What%26#039;s really interesting is how only something like 15% of the US population considers themselves Liberal. A much higher percentage consider themselves Conservative, but an even higher percentage consider themselves Moderate. So how did we end up with a president and Congress that is extremely Liberal leaning?
