Can someone explain..?

Question

the difference between being liberal and conservative ? Are Democrats mostly liberals or conservative ?? what about republicans ?

Answer 1

Democrats are considered liberal because they want to live and let live, help poor people, don't care if gay people marry or what they do. They don't mind paying taxes to help poor people but dislike (read hate) corporate welfare. They believe in freedom of choice and freedom in general.

Republicans are considered conservative. They think everyone should do everything on their own. Excuse me, I mean except wealthy people whom they believe the government should help and not tax. They are against welfare for poor people and believe that corporate welfare is a good thing. They don't mind people dying in an illegal and immoral war, but are strongly opposed to a 5 week old fetus dying via abortion. They had rather the child be born unwanted, unloved, uncared for, hungry and end up either dead or in prison.

Answer 2

Some answers here are really good (such as the one from Larry S.)

I might add that generally speaking Repulicans claim to be conservative and Democrats claim to be liberal.

True conservatives are for smaller government and being fiscally responsible. They also believe in keeping society in much the same way as it has always been. They are not big on making huge changes. They were actually opposed to the civil rights movements which occured during the 1950s and 1960s. (But so were the southern democrats.)

True Liberals are in favor of government supporting the lesser among us, and using government to help people. Afterall, Government IS the people. Liberals are in favor of changes and moving our country forward..

During slavery times it was Repulicans which were the true liberals and Democrats were the conservatives.

Answer 3

Once upon a time, there was slavery.
The God fearing, liberal Republicans thought this was unfair. The ultra-conservative Democrat slave owners in the South thought they should have the States Rights to own slaves. So the liberal Republicans prevented the conservative Democrats from splitting the nation in two (Civil War) AND abolished slavery.

Fast forward. The Republicans later felt (1960s) that segregation was wrong AND treating women like slaves was wrong also. So the Republicans marched with Martin Luther King to end segregation. During this time LBJ (Democrat) was president. LBJ outlawed segregation and all of the prejudice Democrats left the party. - This was the birth of the neo-con. -

Turns out that the ultra-conservative neo-cons took over the Republican party and Carters poor performance allowed them to get Reagan into office. Reagan and the neo-cons CLAIM to be conservatives, yet their big government, huge deficit policies are anything but conservative.

Liberal and Conservative are meaningless tags today as you have conservative and liberal Democrats as well as conservative and liberal Republicans. Neo-cons are a beast unto themselves who consider everyone to be liberals who do not agree 100% with their views of the world.

Answer 4

Wow, this is a complex question.

Generally, liberals believe in the maxim that government exists to benefit all participants in a society through community building, offering a helping hand to those in need.

Conservatives generally believe in the power of the individual, that we have a moral obligation to make our own way in life, and our circumstances are dictated by our ability to be self-reliant. They see government as necessary only for physical security of the nation as a whole, law enforcement, and to help industry maximize profit.

Democrats and Republicans can be either liberal or conservative. Arnold Schwarzenegger is an example of a fiscally conservative republican who is socially liberal, meaning he embraces some aspects of liberal morality, such as a woman's right to choose.

Answer 5

Good question! The easiest thing would be to look them up on wikipedia, but as a generalization, more conservatives are Republican than Democrat, and more liberals are Democrat than Republican. There are, however, enough exceptions that to make flat out statements about either group is disingenuous.

Liberals tend to believe that we can judge society by how we treat all the individuals, including the "lowliest" of us (the poor, the mentally challenged, etc.) By definition, they are supposed to be more willing to embrace new concepts and plans -- for example, support of desegregation and woman's rights would be considered as liberal as the support of homosexuals to engage in civil unions or even marriage. The example above me, about the Republicans freeing the slaves, is from a time when that party was nowhere near as "conservative" -- modern Republicans are more likely to be against any government interference in a business's right to make money, which was the stance of the slave owners. Which is not to say we should color EITHER group as slave owners, almost 150 years later!

Conservatives tend to believe that we can judge individuals by how well they serve the society. By definition, someone who is conservative is more satisfied with the status quo and wishes society could stay the way it was in our parents' or grandparents' time -- old-time religion, abhorrance about gay marriage, not wanting to raise the minimum wage, etc.

Other splits throughout history have been the Anti-Federalists & the Federalists, during the time of the Founding Fathers.

Answer 6

The dimocryats ar fer the litle guy like me, the republecuns only help the rich lik Paris Hiyltun.