Re: The Land of Opportunity
There are many defintions of liberal and conservative. Before arguing a position BOTH PARTIES must agree to the SAME defintions.
E.g. When I was in college, William F. Buckley (the headmaster of American conservatism) came to campus to debate conservatism v. liberalism (I forget whom he debated). The defintions that they agreed upon were roughly as follows:
Conservatism: the belief that countries benefit more from smaller less active govt.
Liberalism: the belief that countries benefit more from larger more active govt.
***These are the defintions I subscribe to***
To call someone 'conservative' or 'liberal' is an ECONOMIC way of communicating what their BASIC set of political belief. Obviously some people's politcal beliefs can be quite complicated but it can take HOURS of careful questioning to discover all their politcal beliefs. Fuh-get-about-it. Give me the big picture. Call yourself 'conservative', 'liberal', or perhaps an hybrid of both.
Some people try to argue the defintion of political conservatism is advocating the status quo.
I think this is silly because a person can become conservative one day and liberal the next depending on what laws are passed. If the govt passes a law for higher taxes and I want lower taxes, I now become a 'liberal' because I want to change the status quo. Good defintions never change.
"Economic freedom naturally leads to more social freedoms despite laws which are passed to restrict social freedoms."
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It is a cliche' but money is power. If people keep more of their money via lower taxes then the people have more power. If the govt keeps more money thru higher taxes, then the govt has more power. The less power the govt has, the less they can control people's lives.
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