[lookout123]

Warch - the problem is that the terms liberal and conservative are very subjectively applied. it isn't like saying x is white/black or open/closed. who gets to decide who is liberal or conservative?

and maybe even deeper than that - how do those terms really even apply to our political philosophies ?
by most people's standards i'm a "conservative", but am i? i once had a professor who called me a flaming liberal. but why? i support a limited governmental role in our lives. i support a safety-net version of our welfare system - not large scale entitlement programs that have crept up on us. i support a large standing military with the budget necessary to maintain the US military's place as the best trained, best equipped in the world. i believe in a fiscally responsible method to government A & R. i would support a law making lobbiest groups illegal. although i oppose quota systems and the direction that affirmative action programs have taken, i support the idea of a color blind society. i don't really care about gay marriage, and i don't believe we need too many laws about reproduction.

my political views could go on page after page but what i am getting at is that each of have views that are labeled as "liberal" and "conservative". it is very subjective and there are shades of gray - as if your liberal/conservativeness is on a sliding scale. a while back Jag and i were throwing the terms about when talking about news outlets. he stated that CNN is right leaning, i disagreed. what it boiled down to is that he was comparing CNN to BBC and european outlets. it is all a matter of perspective.

neither liberal nor conservative are good or bad. they are just different views of the world. good and bad leaders apply each of their preferred labels to themselves and what they view to be the unfavorable label to their opponents. the problem is that the uneducated, ill-informed grab their "knowledge" from headlines, commercials, pamphlets, and worst of all - the grapevine. they believe what the world around them tells them to believe. liberal=democrat=takes care of working class/are tax and spend fiends; conservative=republican=believe in limiting the power of gov't/are in bed with big business and the rich.
there is some truth in these stereotypes, but there is more inaccuracy than truth. we don't vote for parties, we vote for and are governed by individuals. people that will be "liberal" or "conservative" depending on the situation.
if we made a scale where 1= liberal and 10 = conservative people like michael moore and al franken would be pretty close to a 1 while rush/hannity types would be 10. most of us are pretty close to 5's but would move a couple of points in either direction, depending on the specific issue.
the problem is that we get caught up in the labels. we become to proud of being liberal, not conservative; or vice versa that we forget to just think about the specific issues and the specific candidates (read job applicants). that is the D's and R's like it, because they keep us common folk battling against each other to the point that we don't just pull back from the situation long enough to vote them both out in favor of someone who is really willing and able to put the american public ahead of their own dreams of avarice.

anyway - that is my view of the peanut gallery.