Conservatism is NOT Anarchy, nor does Liberal have anything to do with Totalitarianism.

You are right that Conservatism wants smaller government and Liberalism wants the government to take care of the people.  However, in heading straight for your extreme examples, you do the same thing you tire of everyone else doing.

I'm all for conservative government. What we have now is the most radical government in at least a century because there are no checks and balances, since the GOP controls all the branches of our government.

Other than the politically motivated impeachment of Clinton, the politics of the second half of the 90s were extremely conservative because we had oversight. We had welfare reform, a restrained foreign policy, and budget surpluses. (All the talking points have already ballyhooed about Clinton so there's no need to repeat them in response.)

If the democrats gain control of the House or Senate, that may move our government back towards conservatism because it will create oversight. The Bush administration could be required to come up with a coherent strategy in Iraq if funding is to be continued, and that could be the best thing for our country and Iraq. At the same time, there are going to be a shitload of investigations and possibly an impeachment and that's NOT good for the country. That would mean two impeachments in a row.

My political science class back in college actually has the best discription of politics. There are four types of political values: liberal, conservative, libertarian, and comunitarian. All voting Americans are roughly equally split among these for, although most libertarians and comunitarians are moderate enough that they do not think of themselves as libertarians or comunitarians.

Replacing the traditional line, this political spectrum is a squar. On one side, there is Freedom v Order. On the other side, there is Freedom v. Equality. The different political ideologies are:

Conservitive: Order, Freedom
Liberal: Freedom, Equality
Libertarian: Freedom, Freedom
Communitarian: Equality, Order

All ideologies are somewhere in these four squares. narchy is extreme libitarianism, and totalitarianism is extreme communitarianim.

Conservatism is NOT Anarchy, nor does Liberal have anything to do with Totalitarianism.You are right that Conservatism wants smaller government and Liberalism wants the government to take care of the people. However, in heading straight for your extreme examples, you do the same thing you tire of everyone else doing.

I don't think that you actually read the article. All I said was that the more conservative a governing body is, the smaller it is, and the more liberal a governing body is, the larger it is. I gave simple examples of the extremes on both ends.

The last six years or so, the US federal government has been relatively liberal in creating more power for themselves over the state governments. the GOP as a whole has definitely been liberal giving power to the executive branch over the other branches in that time.

Conservitive: Order, FreedomLiberal: Freedom, EqualityLibertarian: Freedom, FreedomCommunitarian: Equality, Order

It is nice to come up with new ideas for how to view the government, especially since the way people view what a governing body should do has changed over the years. I think that the professor should have come up with different terms than Conservative and Liberal for the first two definitions though. Those terms are pretty straight forward and have a root in everyday life, not politics. Conservative means to do less, and liberal means to do more. That is why it doesn't make sense to redefine the words to a political meaning that reflects the philosophies of the current two parties in the US.

My professor did not come up with those names. The names came strait out of the text book.

All I said was that the more conservative a governing body is, the smaller it is, and the more liberal a governing body is, the larger it is.

That's not true either. Conservatives and Liberals both want government as large as it needs to be. What is "small" about having a large military? What is "large" about having a social security program? With modern tecnology, a social security program could be run by just a handful of people, with almost no real operating costs once it's established.

I think you are missing the point, really. It isn't about the size of government at all. It's about change.

IN AMERICA *---- (very important detail, note it.):

Conservatives don't like change. They most certainly don't like IMPOSED change. Governments that oversee the lives of their citizens generally have to be large, and the ones that constantly push for social change usually need a huge bureaucracy. You end up with bean counters counting bean counters, and each has to have authority over each, and all have authority over us, and it all costs lots and lots of money.

Conservatives generally feel that things are better if you just leave them alone. The world works the way the world works, and the best thing that we can do is be the best people we can be as individuals. You can't make people better at gunpoint, and you most certainly can't make people successful by paying them when they are unsuccessful.

The perfect example of an American Liberal is Jimmy Carter. Open minded, ready to diplomatically trust even those who most people are scared of, even if the fear is justified. They believe the world is a dark place and that there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything that needs fixing fixed.

They believe in risk. Dire risk sometimes. They'll bet the farm on an effort to make change, not even really knowing if the change will be for the better. Why? Because they despise how things are now. They believe it to be unjust, and that people are suffering until they get something done about it.

The size of government is just a tertiary issue resulting from those facts. To a Liberal the government needs to be as big as it needs to be to get things done. To a conservative, very little should be done, so very little government is usually needed.

It seems like you are missing the point. Having a large military is a liberal use of government, not a consetrvative use of it. I didn't make up these things, and it only proves my point that people really don't understand the terms conservative and liberal when they use arguments that apply to the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Well Martimus, if you can find a single Liberal movement that is calling for a big military, then I might start believing what you are saying. In the world I live in, liberals go from considering the military a necesary evil to being the sole cause of war in our time.

The liberals that I'm surrounded with are so against any military presence in their lives that they recently fought the plans Milwaukee had to berth a retired U.S. Navy ship on a little slip of Lake Michigan Coast called "Milwaukee Veterans Park".

So sorry if I laugh when you say the liberalism is all excited about a large military.

Unless, of course, you happen to live in Australia, where the terms Liberal and Conservative do tend to go the opposite of what Americans and Europeans would understand them to be. Then I do understand where you are coming from. Although I don't think either the Liberal or Conservative Parties there are big fans of a large military anyway.

The confusion you have Martimus seems to come from where you get your definition of the word Liberal. You're using it in a general sense, like "He was very liberal with his criticism." The political label is more narrowly defined.

Wikipedia has a good article on Liberalism. You'll find that your use of the word doesn't really fit in terms of political philosophy. I understand where you are coming from, and sometimes it does seem that people like Reagan and Bush aren't conservative, but you have to understand that they believe they are regaining what was lost to previous Liberal administrations.

So it may seem like an oxymoron when a "conservative" tries to mandate a moral directive, but what they are doing is attempting to conserve traditional values, even by mandate if necessary. Conservative powers tend to be right wing powers for that reason. Liberals tend to think of themselves as more leaning to the left, though most end up wrapping around and becoming fascists themselves...

Just because someone considers themself liberal or conservativie does not mean that they have liberal or conservative thoughts. My whole point here is that we have forgotten what the words even mean. A "liberal" is not someone who wants to reduce the military and promote world peace. A "conservative" is not someone that believes that the government should have more power and the military should be larger. True liberal thinking means that you want the government to do more. True conservative thinking means that you want the government to do less. It seems that since Rush Limbaugh and people like him have gotten popular, the notion of the terms Liberal and Conservative have taken on entirely new - and completely wrong - meanings. You seem to be one of the people who doesn't truly understand that the terms conservative and liberal are not synonymous with Republican and Democrat. I don't blame you with people spewing out inacuracies as if they were truth all the time, but that was why I wrote this post - to convey the true meanings of these simple words.

I believe that a square ideology is much more convenient than the traditional line. The technical term is the Nolan Chart, such as this:
Nolan Chart


Also, I found this site to be interesting:
The Political Compass

"You seem to be one of the people who doesn't truly understand that the terms conservative and liberal are not synonymous with Republican and Democrat. I don't blame you with people spewing out inacuracies as if they were truth all the time, but that was why I wrote this post - to convey the true meanings of these simple words."

No offense, but you seem to be one of the people who think they can arbitrarily decide what words mean. As I pointed out to you, Liberalism and Conservatism aren't just words, they are historically defined political philosophies that may or may not fall in line with the colloquial use of the root word.

If you want to try to make a literary argument why those words aren't valid for the philosophies, fine, but don't tell me that I don't know about Liberalism or Conservatism. Neither you nor I define those, their history was well grounded before either of us were born. If you want to go rant at communists that they aren't holding to the correct meaning of the word "commune", I doubt you'll have any better luck.

Sure Martimus, and if a 6 were really a 9, I'd be fine... I'd be fine.

This reminds me of my "Purple Doesn't Exist" arguments, the only difference is, you are serious here! lol

Bakerstreet, I wasn't talking to you actually, I was talking to ParaTed2k. I didn't make up the words or the definitions. I am tired of defending this argument, when it is obvious that the attacks are based on things that have nothing to do with the original argument. I am trying to say that we should stop using the terms "liberal" and "conservative" to describe the political opinions of a person, especially when their opinions fall on both sides of the spectrum.