SO what exactly is a Liberal?

Question

You always hear the word Liberal bantered about in a negative light, like

OH those Bleeding Heart Liberals, Or the Liberal Media....eg


WHO exactly.Are the Liberals? Are they opposed to the Death Penalty, Abortion, War In Iraq.....What are their viewpoints? Why are they generally not liked?

Is someone like a LOU Dobbs, who I can't stand, a Liberal???
What about Rush Limbaugh or that other guy, Glenn Beck? Are they Liberals?

If I think women should have the right to choose, that terrorists should be tortured, and that serial killers should face the death penalty, am I a Liberal? Or, what Would I be considered? Conservative? How come you never hear anyone saying OH those DAMN conservatives??

What about Republican/Democrat----do they fall neatly into the
Liberal Mold? Would Democrats be Liberals?

I'm not really sure what the heck Liberal Means..If anyone could let me know..then I will at least know if I am one or not :)

Thanks guys.


.

You guys gave me some excellent answers..I'm kind of getting the gist of why this isn't an exact science...I guess its come doen to, anyone who doesn't agree with me is a "damn liberal!!!!!"

Answer 1

A Liberal is a believer in many of the following political positions:

denial of inherent gender differences, leading to things such as wanting men and women to have the same jobs in the military (while quietly holding them to different standards)
taxpayer-funded abortion
same-sex marriage
support of affirmative action
support of political correctness
censorship of prayer in classrooms
compelled taxpayer funding of government schools for nearly all ages
government-controlled medical care
labor unions
elimination of abstinence-only program funding
income redistribution, usually through progressive taxation
a "living Constitution" that is reinterpreted rather than an unchanging Constitution as written
support for gun control
government programs to rehabilitate criminals
environmentalism
disarmament treaties
globalism
opposition to a strong American foreign policy
support of obscenity and pornography as a First Amendment right
opposition to full private property rights limit conservative talk radio by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine

Answer 2

They are more concerned about equality both in society and on economic matters than Conservatives.
People who call themselves Liberals support civil liberties and often disagree with Conservatives about the first amendment issues and the right of privacy.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Most Liberals are pro choice and oppose torture and the death penalty but not all do. None of the people you mentioned are Liberals. Liberals are usually democrats, some support the green party, but not all democrats are Liberals.
Conservatives are very negative and angry at Liberals because the Liberal point of view won the cultural wars of the 60's in public opinion, the courts and with civil right laws.

Answer 3

The Liberal ideology is a theory which holds forth beliefs that have no basis in reality.
They are Advocates of a policy that empowers a strong government to enslave its people with a high tax burden incident to the support of extravagant and unnecessary social programs destructive to both the work ethic among the lower class, and the incentive to innovate and succeed among the working class.
The problems we face today are because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.
A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous
gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy

Answer 4

I was just thinking this same thought the other day when I responded to a question on politics. The person who posted the question was defending the Bush Administration while bashing "liberals." It occurred to me that he was being quite liberal in his defense of the policies of the Bush administration. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are liberal in the sense of expressing their views. Yes, liberal can mean a lot of different things these days.

Answer 5

The word 'liberal' has sort of lost its meaning in recent years through deliberate overuse by Republicans and conservatives. They've used the word 'liberal' to mean anyone they disagreed with or anything they didn't like, even if the person or idea was not liberal at all. For instance, Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House called Bill Clinton 'the most liberal president in US history', which meant, of course, only that he disagreed with Clinton.

Liberals are about the greatest good for the biggest number of people. For instance they don't believe in 'trickle down' economics, where you make the richest people richer and that's supposed to help everyone. Liberals would rather improve the economy by giving working people more money to spend and making manufacturers and retailers compete for that money. Trickle-up, not trickle-down.

Generally liberals believe in improving the standard of living of working people. This is why many of us now call ourselves 'progressives', meaning that we're for 'progress'. Concentrating wealth to make the few richer at the cost of the many is not progress. Making the -many- richer is progress. You judge the success of the economic system not by how many new billionaires it creates but by how much better your average working guy does.

Liberals believe in government-enforced equality, meaning no discrimination by race or sex or religion on jobs, in schools, or by cops. This is why liberals are always behind civil rights laws, anti-discrimination, integration, etc. etc.

When it comes to crime and punishment, the Republicans have sort of made a fetish of punishment. For 30 years now they've been saying that crime is rampant because criminals aren't punished enough. In that time we have doubled sentences and doubled them again, we have brought back the death penalty, and we have made things major crimes that shouldn't have been major crimes, like casual drug use. We can't build prisons fast enough now and major criminals-armed robbers and rapists--are being released from prison to make room for shoplifters and petty drug users who have mandatory sentences.

Liberals believe in a more realistic view, but of course conservatives call this 'coddling criminals' or 'hug a thug'. So for the last few years Democrats and Republicans alike have tried to out-do each other on being 'tough on crime'. It's cost us a fortune but hasn't helped the problem at all.

And the same goes for national defense. Republicans chronically say the Democrats don't want a strong defense, so now both parties compete in defense spending. We spend more on weapons and military than the whole rest of the world combined, and 16 times as much as all the countries put together that we could call 'enemies'. But neither party now thinks that's enough!

In the 1980s, under Reagan, the 'center' between liberalism and conservativism moved far to the right. I was centrist then but I'm a liberal now, even though -I- didn't move. The Democratic Party is about as conservative as the Republican party was before Reagan, under presidents like Nixon and Eisenhower. The only real liberal among the current group of Democratic candidates is Dennis Kucinich, and he is getting less than 5% of the vote from Democrats.

Answer 6

Liberalism refers to a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.Liberalism has its roots in the Western Age of Enlightenment.

Broadly speaking, liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for a number of principles, including extensive freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market or mixed economy, and a transparent system of government.All liberals – as well as some adherents of other political ideologies – support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law

Answer 7

ADJECTIVE:

1.
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.
2.
1. Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor.
2. Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes.
3. Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation.
4. Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education.
5.
1. Archaic Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman.
2. Obsolete Morally unrestrained; licentious.

NOUN:

1. A person with liberal ideas or opinions.
2. Liberal A member of a Liberal political party.

Answer 8

Liberals are everyday people whose common sense dictates that waterboarding...torture...is wrong, invading a country...Iraq...that had nothing to do with our terrible national tragedy of 9-11 is wrong, the Patriot Act, which curtails freedoms guaranteed under our Bill of Rights is wrong, that lying a patriotic American public into supporting a war that never needed to be fought in Iraq is wrong.

Liberals are realists.

May God bless those who oppose the war that never needed to be fought in Iraq. May God damn those who lied us into this war.

Answer 9

Thomas Jefferson
FDR
John Kennedy

Answer 10

A liberal thinks with an open mind, famous liberals were James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, liberals think if given the facts the people will make the right decision. the liberals think humans are more important than Corporations and that the US constitution is more than a piece of paper.