Please. We're both painting with a broad brush, but my experiance is that conservatives don't want to be told what to do with their money. While they might be very generous, they would resist being forced to give some of their stupid-lawsuit-begotten gains to charity.

Good point Dana. I was thinking the same thing - after I posted, of course.

Spexx, no one should be "told what to do with their money"
After all, it is their money.

The facts, and your disdain for anything conservative, remain.

I find this an odd view of ideology. To me, 'ideology' is just the name given to a coherent worldview. I don't look at an issue and ask myself what the correct view might be according to my chosen ideology. Rather, I hold a set of general views, and find myself taking positions on matters as they arise, which indicate to me that my views seem to fit with an existing ideology. I therefore identify myself as being 'leftwing' or 'socialist'.

I don't look at an issue and think, right, what is the Socialist response to this? I respond to things and it so happens that many of those responses can be deemed socialist. There are times when my view does not correspond to what is understood as socialist ideology. But I categorise myself as socialist because my views broadly correspond to a socialist worldview.

'Ideology' isn't a crutch.

The whole splitting lawsuit money with charities thing won't work anyway. Juries would factor that in to their calculations and just double the amount of money they award.

What am I?

1. Guns are cool. Everyone should go shooting one at least once to see what it is.

2. Guns alone do not keep a people free, but they might help sometimes.

3. Education is the most important thing a culture can promote.

4. All major religions' descriptions of creation are wrong, and the Gods they describe are fictional superstitions grown out of an ignorant, young human race trying desperately to make sense of its puzzle without starting from the necessary clues. To sum up: if there is a God, He is not who they say He is.

5. Some cultures are more productive than others, and they should be admired and copied, as they extend and improve the lives of all.

6. If a law is bad, it is not immoral to break it. If a law is terrible, it may be one's duty to break it.

7. The free market has been one of the most remarkable ideas ever, leading to a maximization of human activity that has massively improved the world, and led more people out of poverty than any other system ever devised.

8. Where wealth is created, it is not a "zero-sum game" where in order for some have a larger slice of pie, it is necessary for others to have smaller slices. Wealth creation does that a little, but it also makes a bigger pie.

9. Global climate change is happening, but our notion of it as catastrophic is too alarmist, driven by mankind's built-in fear of death and disaster. Many things will actually benefit from it.

10. I am optimistic for the future, because I see humans solving most major problems and providing enough to sustain humanity with food, clothing and shelter; maybe not within my lifetime, but not too far thereafter.

11. If a city wants to encourage civic improvement, citizen involvement, a flourishing arts community, clean streets and safe neighborhoods, it must first do whatever it can to attract gay people to live there.

12. In the next 20 years, the US must reduce its military spending by half. In order to allow this to happen, in a world still full of dangerous people and ruinous ideas, EU must increase by half.

Please don't cut off my hand!:thepain:

I'm a thread killer.

I have no problem with ideology in general. Most of us have one whether it is completely independent of anyone else's or the stereotypical conservative or liberal in the US. What I disagree with is how labels affect us. You mentioned this and it does not apply to everyone, but once people label themselves as "whatever", they have a tendency to lean towards their label on new issues.

I understand that you don't give yourself the definite label of socialist, your views just tend to fall under that category, and you will still look at the world unbiasedly, as many people probably do, but it's a slippery slope that many people do fall down.

Actually I would absolutely label myself as 'socialist'. It's just that doesn't mean i walk about with a set of tenets and rules of engagement in mind. I absolutely define myself as a socialist. And a feminist. And an atheist. And a gamer. And a historian. And working class. And a northerner.

No, you just have an eclectic way of thinking.

And Gravdigr is just a typical Kentuckian.

Hey, I stepped up for Grav. Someone else can do you. Sheldon?

What am I?

I'm a...

Guess what I am now....