Liberal or Conservative?

If you really are a radical leftist, why did you vote liberal?

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Because nobody defined it, and I take it to mean egalitarian.

Liberals are "liberal" with the constitution. They have expanded government far past what the framers could have ever imagined.

But why? It seems to me they did it for egalitarian reasons.

Conservatives are "conservative" with the constitution.

Also, there are just too many libertards in the "other" category.

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Been thinking about this recently and decided to bump out of curiosity. See, I'm vegan, and being vegan I've spent my fair share of time lurking vegetarian-themed forums aaand... suffice it to say, Movie Forums feels VERY DIFFERENT.

I'm pretty heavily adjusted to much more... liberal environments and I find it odd, if not amusing, that I recently find myself not infrequently siding with conservative perspectives. Although both terms really feel more like relatively indefinite labels attached to much more complex dichotomies and I honestly find myself thoroughly repelled by this notion of binary politics, I still think it's interesting to see debates in the thick of it from both sides.

I've spent long periods of time with people who had radically opposing views of the same subject and while I was privy to their personal perspectives due to my general impartiality it seems it nearly always comes down to "you don't get it" whenever I offer a counter to either side, presumably because I'm not on their side. People don't like Devil's Advocate for some reason, it's very frustrating. Sometimes I'M just trying to figure things out, you know?

Anyway, it's a perplexing feeling to be talking into a wind tunnel on one forum and then finding the complete opposite scenario in another. I mean, I come from a largely atheist-dominant prioritarian... hippie community. The contrast is both refreshing and weird.

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Nice picture of you.

I've never drank that stuff. No idea what it tastes like.

It depends on which topic we're talking about. Generally I'm socially liberal and economically conservative, but even in those areas I sometimes side with the opposite group or feel indecisive.

I noticed that I'm becoming much less of a pure ideologue than I once was. I feel much more comfortable switching sides these days, whenever I deem it necessary.

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Really? Well, then how are you still alive? I thought vampires needed fresh blood on a nightly basis.

Mmmmm... waffles.

Not either tbh. I don't like Liberal and Conservative being used as catch all terms for left and right because people who actually think about their positions in my experience are rarely all left or all right and the people who are all left or right are just extremists in my mind.

Socially Liberal and Economically Conservative as Cobpyth said is the closest i could categorize my positions.

I want to see the results without voting, as I don't consider myself either, partly because it's limiting. And in what context? We have people from all over the world. Depending on who I'm looking at, your left is my right. Even to say "left of center" is a wide gulf.

I guess you could say I'm a Bernie Sanders liberal, but I'm unwavering, and would never support Clinton - I don't consider her a liberal, just an opportunist, and she's not the only one. Many just go with the wind.

I think yours is best categorized as all over the place Liberal, since we've clearly seen you show right leaning views.

Nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with you still pretending you are the king of the left.

The American use of labels "liberal" and "conservative" is different from the usual.

I am a liberal, but not in the American sense instead in the classical sense: individual freedom, which means a State geared towards the protection of individual rights (like private property and enforcement of contracts) against coercion by other individuals or the State itself. That means, for instance, I am in favor of the legalization of all drugs but also that people should be able to bear arms. And I don't think anybody has a right for things paid with other people's money.

American "liberals" are contradictory in many ways: they think individuals should be free to express their sexuality and to consume drugs, however, they don't think individuals should be free to trade with each other. American "conservatives" are the inverse: they support economic freedom but not personal freedom. I support both.

The US was founded as a classical liberal state, it was an experiment based on the European enlightenment, but gradually it evolved into a modern "welfare liberal state", which spends too much money. The reason why old right US "conservatives" support economic freedom is that the old right is connected with the Liberal traditions of the US. This makes American conservatives pretty unique from a global perspective.

Still the US today is much closer to classical liberalism than most of the world and I greatly admire US's institutions. Brazil is basically what would happen to the US if they did what Trump and Bernie are proposing.

That's classical liberal. Which is also my position. Nice to see the youth here supporting classical liberalism.

I can get behind that.

You are basically describing libertarians.

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Libertarian = Liberal in the classical sense. They had to make up a new term because the term Liberal has changed meaning. The US in it's inception was a "libertarian" country.

Still some libertarians have become a bit tad radical in my opinion:

Some libertarians believe that 5 year olds have the right to inject themselves with heroin and drive while under the influence. They don't understand that since roads are State's property the State has the right to regulate who drives in there or that parents are a child's legal guardians. There are also some philosophical problems involved with bad parenting that I haven't quite made my mind on.

There are the so called market anarchists as well who think that the state should be substituted completely by private firms offering the services of law enforcement and judicial services. I don't think that's even actually possible.

Although I think that decentralization, like giving more power to local authorities over national authorities, would effectively implement competition between government services.

My educated guess he was asking if we are liberal or conservative in the modern sense. Not if we would have been conservative or liberal in 1960. But as always thanks for the social commentary.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/a...ldwide-crisis/

Nice article on the state of modern political movements and the rise of "illiberalism". I like that they use the word liberalism in its classical sense.

It's certainly possible.

I'm not offering anything constructive; I just wanted to say that when I read that, this was all I could think of: