Liberal/Conservative/Moderate....what if you are all three?

Question

I'm always amazed during the political season how mud is thrown on both sides. IF you are for this then your an idiot, IF your against that...well, your an idiot! To be honest I don't know what I am. Here are my beliefs, and I'd like to hear your views. I'm against government involved in MY health-care. I believe killing an unborn child is worse than LEGAL slavery 1706-1865. I'm against the war in Iraq, I voted for Reagan twice, Bush once. I believe taxes are too high on a federal, state and local level. I believe if you don't work or hold a job you shouldn't be fed by other tax-payers. I believe it should be up to you what you put into your own body, pot, drugs, gasoline...it's not the governments business. Harm a child you go to prison forever. I'm against the death penalty, we must be better than that. I'm against human touture (waterboarding) we prosecuted Janpanese for the EXACT same thing in 1946, we called it war-crimes then..why are we better?


Okay.......what I'm I?

Answer 1

Ok, just from what little I know here...

I'd humbly suggest you're somewhere between a Constitutional conservative and a Libertarian. You're not completely liberal on social issues but not completely conservative on them either. And many of your comments do seem to be informed by a strict, narrow reading of the literal text of the U.S. Constitution.

^_^ So you don't follow what passes for neo-conservativism these days. Lots of folks don't. But hey, I could have misread what you said, I admit I could be off on the answer.

There is good news however, in that there *are* political third parties out there ("libertarian party" and "constitutional party", they're in quotes so you can copy and paste them into a search engine and look them up, no typing required) that closely match your political and social beliefs.

I wish I could say the same for myself. It seems I'm the last Bull Moose Party member in the country. -_- To elaborate:

I did lean more towards being a libertarian when I was in my 20s (that would be being economically conservative, socially liberal--in the sense of permissive, non-interference). However, as time passed in my life and the failures piled up *in spite of* my own best efforts, things began to mutate on their own in a more lefty direction. As times got harder for me in my life, I became more cynical and less hopeful...I began to see the game for the rigged affair it is.

So now...I'd identify as a Green, but the label *barely* fits. I do want to protect the environment. I do want to see labor rights restored to ordinary citizens, and see the CEOs and One Percenters *restrained* somewhat, see them subject to Rule of Law again. Warren Buffet said it best himself on national television (NBC News in fact) when he admitted that even without bookkeepers to help him out, his effective *income tax* rate was roughly *half of* his lowest-paid secretary's. And he's a multi-millionaire, bordering on billionaire.

So I do agree with *some* of the Green platform, but not all of it.

I'm not totally on board for *all* of the "social liberalism" that you hear about in Green, Socialist, and other ultra-lefty circles. I don't believe that extremist, Dworkinite, academic feminism (which openly attacks men by and large) is the way to go. I don't, strictly speaking, want to see every *last* drug legalized and widely available. I don't take *either* extreme position on the abortion issue--I see it as the kind of choice between two evils that should be *rare*, but not criminalized when necessary to a) save the mother's life, b) keep an act of rape or child molestation from becoming a *life sentence* for the victim, c) keep a single teenage mother from *condemning herself* to a life of poverty and ignorance, and d) keep willfully neglectful would-be "parents" from bringing children into the world *in a household* that's *Highly* likely to be neglectful and abusive.

In other words, Abortion really only merits being "a choice" when the alternatives are fates worse than death for mother *and/or* possible child. If that makes sense.

And I really, truly and madly believe we are *way the hell* too soft on both crime issues and on national security issues.

So yeah, I'm not 100% weak-kneed liberal here. I just want to see ordinary citizens get a better chance at life. And it *might* be useful too if our nation *wasn't* the backward laughing-stock of the world on most social issues. Really, why *do* we have to be the half-retarded problem child on issues of education, labor rights, health care, tort/lawsuit reform, bankruptcy reform, campaign finance/lobbying reforms, on and on? Why *are* we so "content" to let our poorest people, the people who are the hardest and most down on their luck (often for reasons *not* of their creation), why *do* we let them rot in the gutter? Why did we let a whole city rot in the gutter, when we *could have* fully funded maintenance and upkeep for dams and levees in New Orleans? It wasn't *so* hard a choice to make here.

Do you see what I mean? After 8 years of G.W. Bush and over 26 years of a near neo-conservative monopoly on American thought....really, I'd just like to live in a civilized country where imbeciles *don't* run riot and wreck everything they can. Is that so wrong? -_-

Ok, I'll stop....big tangent I know. But I'm just saying. You fit in somewhere. You could look up a third-party and join them. I can only do so in a very limited, conditional way, because I never *was* a hippie, gangster, or whatnot.

Hope this helps. Thanks for your time.

Answer 2

A conservative.

Except for the waterboarding, apparently, but that's only the hard line neocons. You are a conservative who is against the war.

Your confusion is because your wing of the Republican Party has been taken over by zealots, not because your views are so far off the norm.

Tell me how you feel about social issues, and we'll see if you're really far out of the mold.

Too many years of partisan politics has made us all forget - people don't come in one shape, and neither do our political beliefs. You are not the only conservative who opposes this war - you're just ahead of the pack.

We used to believe in loyal opposition, in debate, and in respecting our opponents while we debate them. This is a good time to bring all of these ideas back.

Answer 3

You're libretarian...basically a fiscal conservative a social liberal.

You dont care what people do amongst themselves as long as they aren't harming others, but you also aren't going to support people's poor decisions.

Welcome to the club. Sadly, we aren't represented to any degree...it takes independent thought to not be caught up in the partisan crapola that is played every election cycle.

I do have a question for you and others. If the death penalty is hypocritcal becaue we are telling people not to murder and then murdering them. How is "hate crime" punishment also not hypocritical? We are telling people not to hate by hating them. Peculiar world we live in.

Whats funny is that true partisan idiots will bash you on both sides, it'll be comical.

Answer 4

You're basically a Libertarian. Main views are self responsibility and the belief in limited government as the founding fathers originally intended.

Answer 5

I have no idea.

I think you should spend more time really looking at the world. Have you thought of becoming more involved with your community? I know the city in which I live is looking for volunteers. Maybe you should take a Sociology class?

Answer 6

Very good, I'll give you 10/10 even though I am English

Answer 7

You are a fiscal conservative with moderate libertarian beliefs. I'm right with you.

Answer 8

You are very conservative, almost libertarian, except for your view on abortion. You would have liked Barry Goldwater, except for the issue of abortion.

Answer 9

Your right of center moderate Republican or libertarian.

Answer 10

You're a libertarian. You lean more toward the conservative side. Good for you. Welcome to the fight.