1) Liberalism vs. Conservatism are not about "the status quo"

When people try to distinguish the terms conservative vs. liberal in terms of their being in favor or opposed to the "status quo", you can be sure they are confused, because this Latin expression simply means "the current state," in contrast to a proposed change. It's a useful expression, when one knows how to use it.  But it's a purely relative expression with absolutely no meaning of its own.  To illustrate how useless relative terms can be, imagine contrasting people as "westerners" vs. "easterners" without identifying any reference point.  Everybody is east of something and west of something else. So what would those terms mean to you, if you had no idea what the reference point was, i.e. Europe, the U.S.A., or some other geographical area?

When any "status quo" is overturned, it is replaced with a new, and possibly opposite, "status quo". Let's take the French Revolution as an example. If you described the revolutionaries as "liberals" because they were opposed to "the status quo" before the revolution, would you call them "conservatives", after the revolution, just because they represented a new "status quo"? If so, would you call the former monarchists who staged a successful "counter-revolution" as 'liberals" because they opposed the "status-quo" over which the radical revolutionaries had presided for a time?

Here's a perfect illustration of my point, an actual quote from a post I ran across on the internet, where the author actually embraces this absurd view :

"In reality, given the current state of the US, I'd say that the G.O.P.  is more "liberal" than the DNC ( "Democratic National Committee") simply because it's the G.O.P.  that's trying to change much of the 'status quo' here in the U.S., by banning abortion, bringing prayer back to schools, cutting taxes, etc.  I would have to label that as quite "liberal" given that the DNC is trying to maintain more of the status quo."

One the most influential conservative leaders of our time, Paul Weyrich, put it well when he said: "We (conservatives) are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country."   (Do you see how silly it would be to consider such people "liberals" because they oppose the 'status quo'?)

Pushed to its logical conclusion, this understanding of the terms should lead people to use "conservative" as a synonym for "party in power" and "liberal" as a synonym for "party out of power".

2) Neither is liberalism about favoring "big government" :

There are problems, too, with the idea of "liberals" being contrasted to "conservatives" on the basis of their favoring or opposing "big government".
        In situations like the middle ages, and modern dictatorships, it is normally conservatives who have identified with the "big government",  while it has been "liberals" who have lead revolutions to overthrow such governments.

In our own history, for example, Our founding fathers (and mothers) who opposed the big government , the British empire were the liberals of their day, while the conservatives who supported King George were called "loyalists".  So it is foolish to say liberals are inherently "in favor of big government".  Conservatives were always the ones who opposed "big governments" until the monarchies and dictatorships of the past were replaced by "democracies", i.e. governments designed to better meet the needs of the general population and to keep rich and powerful individuals and corporations in check.  .  ("Demos" is the Greek word for "people" and the "cracy" part means "govern").  To the extent that such governments have lived up to that promise, liberals (as I will define them below) have tended to favor such "big governments" and conservatives have tended to oppose them. 

Ever since our nation was born there has been a struggle over the way power, authority and taxation is distributed between the family, the local community, the state and the federal government.  Conservatives argue very abstractly about "big" being bad in and of itself.  But one of the reasons conservatives dislike the "big" i.e. federal government is the civil war they fought and lost with "the Union" over their preference for "state's rights".  Liberals see that very war as a perfect example of the need for a big and strong federal government, to defend weak individuals against the corrupt individuals who seem to exercise much more abusive and corrupt power in small jurisdictions and states than at the federal level.

3) Liberal isn't the opposite of Religious :

Another misconception is that liberalism is the antithesis of religion

Many liberals have problems with religion as practiced in many times and places. But it's a misrepresentation to say that "liberals" are by their nature against morality, against responsibility, against religion.  Liberals are indeed against traditional morality and / or religion, because of the way "conservatives" have taken over and contaminated those moral and religious values and institutions.  In just about every revolutionary movement in which the weak have tried to liberate themselves from the yoke of their oppressors, established religions have most often ignored the dictates of their own religion and instead of identifying with and supporting the oppressed, they have sided with the oppressors.  By identifying so often with the rich and the powerful, the church has persuaded the liberal friends and allies of the poor to oppose some religious institutions. 

4) "Right" vs. "Left" is NOT  the same as "Conservative" vs. "Liberal".

One of the greatest occasions for misunderstanding regarding these terms is the deceptive use that political regimes have made of them. Although people know that they shouldn't judge a book by its cover, or trust a used-car deealership just because it's called "Honest George's Used Cars", many view the "Communism" of the Soviet Union as the embodiment "liberalism" and the "Fascism" of Nazi Germany as the embodiment of "Conservatism".   But the world of politicians is the last place one should look to for clarity in ideas. Everybody knows that it is in their interest to be "all things to all people".  No matter how liberal they may actually be in their hearts, they will want to appear to be conservatives when addressing conservative audiences, and vice versa when it comes to conservative politicians 

Although Hitler, for example, disagreed with most of what of the Socialists of his day stood for, because of the popularity of their ideas at the time, the leadership of what had been called "the German Workers' Party", changed their name to "the National Socialist German Workers� Party" - which was somehow reduced to the nickname "Nazi". The Nazis actually showcased some "Socialist" proposals in their official platform.  But that didn't mean that they really identified with those ideas and intended to act on them!  They proved by their actions (i.e. by eliminating as many of Germany's leading liberals, socialists and communists as they could) that their were not socialists.

By the same token, just because  the dictators who led the Soviet Union, came into power by  proclaiming the very liberal ideal "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"  that doesn't mean that they ever intended to act on that principle once they had completed the transfer of power and privilege from the former dictators to themselves. On the contrary. They proved by their actions (i.e. by instituting a dictatorship that they were the very antithesis to true Socialism, which is all about distributing society's wealth and power as evenly and equitably as possible among all of its citizens, which "the Union of Soviet Soviet Republics never did.

The countries that have tried to impliment true Socialism have been first and foremost the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.
        The REAL difference between "liberals" and "conservatives" is that liberals strive to get wealth and power distributed as evenly as possible to as many as possible (for the benefit of the masses), while conservatives strive to accumulate as much wealth and power as they can to themselves (which sometimes extends to their family, class, country, or the like - at the expense of the masses).

Although the Nazis on "the Right" and the Soviets on "the Left" both PRETENDED to want to promote a liberal distribution of wealth and power to their subjects, their DEEDS showed them both to be conservatives at heart, i.e. they both crushed democracy and enacted tyrannies in their own ways. They didn't fight each other because they had opposite ideologies, but because they each wanted to be the ones to accumulate and "conserve" as much power over as many subjects as they could, just like any good "conservative" does. Every political regime is a mishmash of conservative vs. liberal ideas and policies. and that balance is constantly changing.  Although one would be justified in saying that the Soviet Union was more liberal than Nazi Germany,  it would be difficult to find more inappropriate examples of what the  model liberal vs. the model conservative state would look like.   And yet,  millions of people confuse "liberal" with "the communist left" and "conservative" with "the fascist right".

Because liberals identify with the poor and the oppressed, while their conservative rivals identify with the rich and the powerful - who have always owned most of the presses and radio and television stations - conservatives usually have the ability to turn the minds of the masses against liberals. But you are lucky to have found your way here, and you are about to discover that - contrary to the campaign of misinformation that you have been exposed to - liberalism is one of the greatest contributions to human progress ever developed.

There's a never-ending effort by conservatives to confuse people as to what "liberalism " really means. So I'm going to begin by dispelling some of these common smoke-screens :

5) "Liberal" doesn't equal "Licentious"

Many people, including both liberals and conservatives, confuse the terms "liberal", "libertine", and "licentious".

Many conservatives have been led to believe that the word "liberal" is a synonym for some or all of the following :

"abandoned, corrupt, debauched, degenerate, depraved, dissipated, hell-bent, lax, lewd, loose, playboy, profligate, reprobate, slack, unconstrained, unprincipled, unrestrained, vicious, wanton, wayward, and wicked"

those are all synonyms for the words "libertine" and "licentious", not "liberal". To be libertine, or licentious, is not a way of thinking but a way of acting, a way which most serious people view as immoral. To be liberal, on the other hand, is a way of thinking, a philosophy, an ideology. Now people who think liberally may also act licentiously, but so can conservatives. In fact, I document a great many examples of conservatives in positions of leadership in the Republican Party who have shown themselves to be more licentious and immoral than their counterparts in the Democratic Party. ( See Republican corruption galore.)

If you want to see what truly licentious "church" is, check out "the Children of God", later known as "The Family of Love" or "The Family" and currently "The Family International". Although it was founded by a very fundamentalist Baptist preacher and has a very conservative theology in most respects, unlike we "Liberals Like Christ", this church is extremely licentious when it comes to heterosexual morality.

( Playboy magazine commissioned a poll in mid 2006 which revealed that 36% of its readers are Republicans compared to 25% Democrat, 25% independent and 14% other parties.)

We will spell out what it really means to be a liberal below.

6) Liberalism isn't about getting undeserved benefits at the expense of others who work hard.

The following observations are not from a liberal, but from the ultra-conservative radio talk show host, Neal Boortz, regarding :

"Though there is good evidence that Marx actually lifted this little ditty from the Torah (an important part of the Old Testament), it has become recognized as perhaps the pre-eminent motto of Communism.

I bring this up today because it is becoming increasingly clear that the international Communist movement needs to get one of its lawyer pals to hurry out there and trademark its precious motto.

If it doesn't act fast, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is going to become the de facto motto of the Democratic Party, quickly becoming known as the Socialist Democratic Party."

Everyone has heard of "guilt by association". In this case conservatives reject the teaching of the bible because they associate that teaching in their minds with Karl Marx, while ignoring the fact that Boortz himself recognizes in the passage above that Marx stole the very core principle of his philosophy from the Bible!

7) What about "tax and spend", and "bleeding heart" liberals?

Conservatives have no problem with government taxing and spending so long as the spending is done on their own businesses and industries, so that they add to their own bottom lines.  Liberals, on the other hand, believe in taxing "the haves" - which often includes themselves -  in order to distribute wealth back to "the have-nots."  They do so in part for perfectly selfish reasons, believing that when poor people do not have reliable and sufficient income, they are much more likely to resort to crime to get what they need to support themselves and their families.  But another reason they do so is the inspiration they have gotten from the teaching of the great prophets of the Hebrew Bible on the one hand, and from Jesus of Nazareth on the other.  See LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/GODvsGreed.

Conservatives try to intimidate people like me by referring to us as "bleeding-heart liberals", because of the many instances in which we are concerned about the suffering of needy and helpless people.  Have we ever seen or heard the media refer to "bleeding heart conservatives"?  "What is that?" you ask.  Why it's conservatives who   - instead of commiserating with the suffering of the poor -    "feel the pain" of the super-wealthy.  Conservatives cringe at the thought of multi-millionaires being required to pay taxes on their million dollar income from dividends and capital gains, just like common laborers are required to pay taxes on their income from labor.  It's conservatives who "feel the pain" of the children of those millionaires, who have to pay estate taxes on whatever they inherit from their parents through no merit of their own, after the first million dollars or so is entirely exempted from that tax. The only time we will hear criticism of these views in the media is every two to four years, when a liberal candidate has paid thousands of dollars to buy a few seconds of air time from the conservatives who own just about all of the major media in America these days.

A liberal woman I know told me about a date she had with a Republican:  "When I asked this guy why he was a Republican,  he said, and I quote exactly, "because I believe that there are the haves and the have-nots in this world, and being one of the haves, I vote to keep that."   Rarely do you find such candor, especially from a conservative Republican!

What's so bad about being "Liberal"?

Conservatives seem to think that they have the power to define words any way they like.  So ignoring what dictionaries and other authoritative source say they make "liberal" out to be a dirty word.  But for the sake of those who do believe that dictionaries - not conservatives - are the authorities on the correct spelling, pronunciation and meaning of words, this is the what Roget's Thesaurus and what dictionaries like ( http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=liberal or http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/l/l0148700.html : ) say the word "liberal" means :

Adjective:
1. "Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry".
2. "Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded".
3. "Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism".
4. "Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States".
5. "Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor".
6. "Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes".
7. "Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation".
8. "Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education."
9. Archaic: "Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman."
10. Obsolete: "Morally unrestrained; licentious."

The word "conservative",  on the other hand,  is defined as:

Is the BIBLE an authoritative source for you?

Did you know that until the rich the powerful succeeded in turning "liberal" into a "four letter word", that word meant "generous", "righteous" or "noble", as you can still read in the King James version of the Bible :

You won't find the word "conservative" used in a good way in the Bible, because it's not there.  What you will find, however, in the writings of "Christian conservatives" is the twisting of Bible verses to justify their beliefs.  To give you but a few examples,

What IS "Liberalism"?

Since that is one of the best definitions of liberalism ever expressed, to whatever extent they embrace that statement Americans are all liberals, whether they know it or not!

Liberalism is simply the belief that we humans need to stick together and to fight the few powerful individuals and groups who would exploit those less powerful than themselves. We need to fight to constantly make progress together, and not to allow any of our more vulnerable brothers or sisters to be left behind.

People sometimes claim that liberalism has changed a great deal over time. Some conservatives even claim that they are the heirs of great liberals of the past! But the truth is that it's not liberalism that has changed, but the people who have needed to be liberated. While the first generation of great American liberals liberated the male European colonists of their day, the liberalism of some of those "founding fathers" wasn't great enough to extend - as it should have - to the Native American population, to the African American population, to their own wives and daughters, or to the homosexual members of their families and community. In their heart of hearts, they knew that Thomas Jefferson's words couldn't be limited to "their own kind". Abraham Lincoln said it best, "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."

We believe it is far more insightful and useful to view "Conservatism" not just as an abstract ideology, but as an ideology at the service of a passion, namely the passion of those who already have or who strive to achieve some advantage over others, i.e. in terms of what its adherents are really intent on conserving (and/or acquiring in the future).  And that is power, wealth, advantage and/or privilege, all of which are intertwined.  Over the course of history, we view the "conservatives" as the people who defended the privileges of the few, over against the efforts of the "liberals" to distribute society's wealth and power more fairly and evenly among all of society's members.  While "Communism" has been considered "leftist" and "liberal", it was only liberal to the extent that it claimed to redistribute wealth and power among the population.  In actual fact, to the extent that the policies of those who took charge of "Communist" countries were designed to preserve the advantages of the few in power over the masses, those countries were no more "liberal" than professedly "conservative" ones.  Cuba is "liberal" to the extent that it guarantees public education and health care to all of its citizens, just as the U.S.  is "liberal" to the extent that it guarantees public education and "social security" to all of its citizens.  But to the extent that both countries protect unfair advantages of some citizens over others, they are "conservative"

An interesting question is whether the effort of Marxist countries to suppress religion is a manifestation of their conservatism or their liberalism. The latter is what many have assumed, but I would argue that it depends on the religion.  If the religion in question was conservative and an ally of the former oppressive aristocracy, then I understand why Communism's liberal side would have opposed it, but if a any government has a problem with a religion that has a record of being liberal and an ally of the oppressed, then that is evidence of that government's conservatism, regardless of its reputation of being "left" or"right".

The conservative vs.  liberal struggle will always exist so long as there is an unjust distribution of power, wealth and/or privilege.  But it manifests itself in different times and places in different ways, depending on how those benefits are distributed among the various parties of a particular situation. In America these days, white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-income, English-speaking, native born, males of European heritage who are in good health, well-educated, employed and living in a decent neighborhood are very likely to be "conservative". as they have a dozen major advantages over others that they might want to "conserve" and exploit. While the victims of discrimination or oppression are naturally viewed as liberals, some of these demonstrate when they have succeeded in gaining some degree of power, wealth and/or other advantage over others that they can be conservative too. (The way some African Americans look down on the struggles of homosexuals comes to mind.) True liberals are people with the power and/or wealth to dominate others who instead use their advantages to work to empower and/or enrich those less fortunate than themselves.
        Whenever there is a chance to make progress in the perpetual struggle between those who control power and/or wealth and "the disadvantaged" of any kind, "conservatives" are the one's who identify with the "haves" and "liberals" are the ones who identify with the "have-nots".

In summary,
• The true essence of Conservatism is the emotional as well as intellectual attachment to the policy of acquiring and protecting (or conserving) as much power, wealth and/or privilege for oneself and one's group as possible (and keeping others out), while
• The true essence of liberalism is the opposite, the emotional as well as intellectual attachment to the policy of achieving as great a balance of power, wealth and/or privilege as possible among the individuals, groups and nations of the world.

• The conservatives are the ones who identify with "the privileged", "the advantaged", the strong, the "ins", the "haves", the "fortunate",   while the liberals are the ones who identify with "the underprivileged", "the disadvantaged", the weak, the "outs", the "have-nots" the "unfortunate", 
• Conservative whites favor their own kind and try to keep racial minorities "in their place", and out of the jobs and neighborhoods that they would like to conserve for their own kind. 
• Conservatives who have been in America a generation or two strive to keep (newer) "immigrants" out. 
• Conservative males strive to keep women in their place. 
• Conservative adults strive to keep a tight grip on their children (as well as everybody else's). 
• Conservatives heterosexuals don't want homosexuals to gain any ground to catch up with them. 
• Conservative Christians want their religion to be as close to the "official" religion of America as they can get away with. 
• Healthy conservatives who have insurance don't want "their taxes" spent to pay for the health care of the sick who don't have insurance. 
• Conservatives who are not oppressed by "officers of the law" have little concern about the criminal behavior of police and prison guards against victims powerless to defend themselves, and already presumed to be the guilty party in any contest between themselves and their guards.
• Conservatives who may not be all that virtuous themselves are constantly engaged in claiming to be morally superior to others ("holier than thou"), because unlike these "god-less, immoral liberal degenerates", they oppose homosexuality, god-less public education, abortion, birth-control, teen-pregnancy, sex outside of marriage, pornography, laziness (i.e. welfare), and the like.

Some of our nation's greatest liberals have been "Republicans" :

One of the greatest U. S. presidents was the Republican, Abraham Lincoln, who once set forth the liberal principle: "Government should do for people what they cannot do for themselves."

After he had been president for two terms ending in 1908, and was running in 1912 as a third party Progressive candidate.  Here is the way Theodore Roosevelt described the role of government :

" The only way in which our people can increase their power over the big corporation that does wrong, the only way in which they can protect the working man in his conditions of work and life, the only way in which the people can prevent children working in industry or secure women an eight hour day in industry, or secure compensation for men killed or crippled in industry, is by extending, instead of limiting, the power of government.

"There was once a time in history when the limitation of governmental power meant increasing liberty for the people.  In the present day the limitation of governmental power, of governmental action, means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations who can only be held in check through the extension of governmental power."  

"[A] simple and poor society can exist as a democracy on the basis of sheer individualism.  But a rich and complex industrial society cannot so exist;  for some individuals, and especially those artificial individuals called corporations, become so very big that the ordinary is utterly dwarfed beside them, and cannot deal with them on terms of equality." 

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." - Theodore Roosevelt -

Conservatives who imagine that the difference between "successful" people and "the needy" is hard work should consider Helen Keller their patron saint because of the way she overcame her many handicaps to be a very successful person. Yet this is what Helen Keller had to say about this matter:

"I had once believed that we were all masters of our fate-that we could mould our lives into any form we pleased . . .   I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life's struggle.  But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about.  I forgot that I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment . . .   Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone." (H.K., Midstream:My Later Life (N.Y., Greenwood, page 156)

"The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor."

What she learned when her eyes and ears were opened, so to speak, led her to become not just a basic liberal, but a passionate advocate of all kinds of socialist causes, like worker rights, women's rights, civil rights and pacifism.   She was one of the authors whose works were targeted by the Nazis for burning.

Are today's conservatives "classical liberals"?

When confronted by the inescapable fact that most of our nation's greatest heroes of the past were definitely not conservatives, but liberals, many conservatives claim that "liberalism" meant something very different in earlier times.

The truth is that it's not liberalism that has changed over the years, but its targets or beneficiaries. Those who benefitted first and have always benefitted most from the liberating efforts of America's founding fathers were the well-to-do, white, heterosexual, Christian, males. It's great that today's conservatives have such a high regard for the concept of liberalism that they want to claim it for themselves by claiming to be "classical liberals", but these people aren't like the true liberals among our founding fathers, i.e. the best of them who believed in liberty and equality for its own sake, and who wanted these benefits extended to women and to African Americans as well as people like themselves. No, today's so-called "classical liberals" are like those founding fathers who were content, like good conservatives, to enjoy the benefits of freedom and "equality" for themselves but resisted extending those same benefits to women and blacks, just as their conservative counterparts in our day resist extending such benefits to other minorities. Meanwhile, the true liberals of our time are not content with having won the battles to win freedom and equality for well-to-do, white, heterosexual, Christian, males, and then for African Americans, for women, for common laborers, for the aged, for the handicapped. They continue to battle the conservative "classical liberals" of our day to extend the benefits of justice and equality to immigrants, to the imprisoned, to those accused of crimes, for women's reproductive health and to those in the GLBT communities.Thursday, December 08, 2011

Some issues aren't liberal or Conservative :

There are some political issues, that have relatively little to do with "liberalism" or "Conservatism".  These only serve to muddy the waters, if they are not seen for what they are, i.e.  "neutral" issues.  When liberals are in office, for example, it's not their ideology, but their control of the government that makes them favor war, law and order, taxation, government spending, raises in government salaries and the like, while conservatives will oppose these precisely because they are the ones out of power.  But when conservatives get into power, they may very well support many of the government policies which they opposed when they were on the outside looking in.  For the same reasons, both are far more enthusiastic supporters of political reform, when they are the ones trying to gain the seats of power, than when they are the ones firmly esconced in those seats of power.
        If liberals and conservatives want to be avoid the charge of hypocrisy and/or dishonesty, they should avoid taking positions on such issues on the basis of their ideology and simply argue the merits of their positions on prudential grounds, i.e. the current circumstances require these tactics, etc.

Why are liberals tolerant, and conservatives doctrinaire?

Beginning with the easier part of that question, because conservatives identify with a group or groups of people whom they at least perceive to be superior to others, they are easily persuaded that they in possession of the "truth" (in politics, religion, morality, or whatever area about which they are conservative). And so, they tend to be orthodox, doctrinaire, intolerant, judgmental, arrogant, elitist, mission-minded, pushy, haughty and the like, very much like Paul of Tarsus.

Liberals, on the other hand, don't want to view others as inferiors, but strive to bring everyone up to the same level of equality.  So they don't want to feel superior to others or to force their views upon others, nor to have others force their views on them.  If anyone may have been justified in feeling superior to others, it may have been Jesus of Nazareth, and yet .  . .

Why are conservatives so tolerant, of dishonesty and ignorance?

Is it because of the powerful influence of the opinion leaders that they follow, i.e. people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, Anne Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Karl Rove? The ignorance and/or dishonesty of these conserrvative mouthpieces is so blattant that one has to wonder if the reason their followers don't want to admit the plain truth as that they aren't the victims in this situation, but rather the patrons calling the tunes.

The terms "liberal" vs. "conservative" have varied some over the years, but if you could boil them down to their essence, I think you would find the contrast below.  There may be few people who are totally liberal, or totally conservative, but the more liberal they are, the more they will exhibit the traits in the Left-hand column below, while the more conservative they are, the more they will exhibit the traits in the Right-hand column :

10 Policies for a better America

Although the article views the consensus on all of these issues as "non-partisan", I would argue that most of of the positions on these issues are more liberal than conservative.

See the whole article at http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=2836.

• 83% = Medicare Prescription Drug Program (2003 -200?).
• 78% = Planned Parenthood Funding ( 1970 - 200? ).
• 61% = United Nations Funding ( 1945- 200? ).
• 60% = Farm Subsidies ( 1929 - 200? ).
• 54% = National Endowment for the Arts ( 1965 - 200? ).
• 41% = Amtrak ( 1971 - 200? ).
• 39% = U.S. Postal Service ( 1775 - 200? ).
• 38% = Endangered Species Act ( 19 - 200? ).
• 36% = Title IX (1972 - 200? ).
• 35% = No Child Left Behind (2002 - 200? ).
• 35% = Social Security (1935 - 200? ).
• 34% = Comprehensive sex education grants.
• 34% = Sugar price supports.
• 30% = Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• 30% = CAFE Standards.
• 27% = Bilingual education grants.
• 25% = Dairy subsidies.
• 24% = Federal Election Commission.
• 24% = Pentagon's "Don't ask, Don't tell"
                    (re:homosexuals in the military).
• 24% = International Monetary Fund funding.
• 20% = NAFTA.
• 20% = Immigration laws administration.
• 18% = Advanced technology program.
• 17% = U.S. Agency for International Development.
• 16% = Corp. for National Service/AmeriCorps.
• 16% = Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac subsidies.
• 12% = National Endowment for the Humanities.

"If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have: no federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U. S. membership in the U.N.; no gun control; and no foreign aid. We would have no welfare for big corporations, or the "poor"; No American troops in 100 foreign countries; no NAFTA, GATT, or "fast-track"; no arrogant federal judges usurping states rights; no attacks on private property; and no income tax. We can get rid of most of the cabinet departments, most of the agencies, and most of the budget. The government would be small, frugal, and limited." - Congressman Ron Paul -