[jt1]

Perhaps you found the definitions too non-definite because I tried to show how some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats and vice versa. That may seem counter intuitive when our media insists on labeling Democrats as the liberal party and Republicans as the conservative one. I find that categorization to completely mislead the public. You can't find out where you are on the political spectrum if the spectrum isn't properly defined. And you can't think clearly about the issues without understanding the political spectrum.

FWIW, I studied one of your links. I'm already well aware of how the parties operate. Money and imperfect ideological alliances bind the parties together. Democrats can't win without labor and the enviromentalist yet labor could care less about the enviroment and vice versa. Most political gays are Democrats, but many in the urban activist wing of the Democratic party think homosexuality is a sin. But they have to live together politically, because, neither of them are represented at all by the Republicans. The Republican party is much the same way. Their tent is smaller but you have Jack Kemp on one wing who probably completely disagrees with everything Cheney stands for. Yet they are both Republican because the Democrats have no room for Kemp.

FWIW, your link does provide a usable political spectrum. But I think there should be a place for enviromental concerns. Even free market gurus like Kemp recognize that the free market cannot possibly regulate the environment: there is no economic incentive to do so. (Quota trading tries to remedy this but right next to my house there is open land, more arid than the month of August, that due to quota trading is technically a wetland) As I mentioned in my latter post, environmental issues seem to have their own sphere outside of liberal and conservatism. For example many environmentalist condemn the use of DDT by third world countries. DDT kills vegetation but also kills malaria insects. Malaria is probably the 2nd biggest reason why Africa and SouthEast Asia are so impoverished.

My definitions may seem haphazard, but they are not. The political spectrum is complicated and the American political landscape even more so. I showed how social liberals can disagree with each other on issues like guns and abortion. If social liberals sometimes disagree with each other then you can see how social liberals will quite often disagree with 'economic mobility' liberals. Then add labor and enviromentalist to the mix and you see how the saying, the democratic senator from so and so really means nothing at all.

As a free market advocate, I don't believe that the media has a obligation to educate the public, but I do believe that the public would appreciate a media source that didn't label a politician as being conservative or liberal, democrat or republican. There are different types of liberals/conservative and different types of Republicans/democrats. I think the the public would appreciate a media source that concisely labeled those differences.