What I do not understand about the conservative ideology

[BadBoyBenny]

I don't really think this is the case on this forums. There are a lot of posters on the conservative side who would take a liberal stand on social issues. Look at threads on medical marijuana, civil liberties, etc. There are some who tow the party line, but not the majority.

I also think the same is true of the liberals. Many of them are more open to free markets than the standard definition or the party line would make them.

Back to your poker analogy we typically label other players LAG, Maniac, Rock, etc. But often think that we don't fit a label, we are usually TAG, but will adjust our games when the situation calls for it. I think many of the posters on this forum, (or at least the posters that I still read) have a somewhat similar approach to political discussion.

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
I think many of the posters on this forum, (or at least the posters that I still read) have a somewhat similar approach to political discussion.

[/ QUOTE ]

.........I'd like to believe that to be true, but judging by many of posts that I've read here in the politics forum, I don't see too many examples of it.

[HighStakesPro]

Abortion is slightly different than the other issues because it is less of an argument between individual libert and government authority as it is between whose individual liberty is more important, the mother's or the fetus's. Some of the issues like legalization of marijuana and underage gambling/drinking aren't as hotly contested because they don't involve life or death cases, except in the case of medical marijuana. Therefore, politicians don't have anything to gain by taking contrarian stances on these issues because if anything it will hurt their chances of getting re-elected. It is the same with the death penalty: going on record as opposing it is political suicide, so dissenters keep their mouths shut. I am sure that in particular the issue of the legal gambling age has been discussed on here but since I am relatively new I will open up a new thread to discuss it.

I'm glad I started this thread, gained some valuable insight from others who both agree and disagree with my point of view. However, as I feared, someone like JackWhite would come in and attack everyone who he disagrees with and start labeling people and parties as liberal and conservative, as though it was two sides waging war against each other, and furthermore framing the discussion as a clash between Democrats and Republicans.

These are just political parties comprised of people with very roughly similar ideologies, but it seems like he makes an effort to perpetuate the idea that Democrats are liberal and have one set of beliefs and Republicans are conservative and have an opposite set of beliefs; I was specifically trying to avoid the debate between one party and another, because all the parties are are groups of politicians who use clever rhetoric to syphon off tiny bits of the people straddling the political fence and recruit them to their ranks; they do not represent a pure ideology, only what will further their own agendas. I explained my position as to how government should be involved in people's lives as clearly as I could in a previous post: government's purpose should be to improve the populace's general quality of life, not tell them how they should live their lives. Collecting the optimal amount of taxes provides funds which can be spent on productive ventures to improve society without having too significant an impact on people's finances so that they cannot fully enjoy these improvements. If I want to committ suicide, I should not be barred from doing so by the government because some elected lawmakers have arbitrarily decided that it's immoral. That is for me to decide, not them. I hope these examples sufficiently illustrate my point of view on the ideal role of government.

[Peter666]

What he said. To elaborate, the reason some "ultra conservative pro-lifers" bomb abortion clinics is based on the idea of innocence. No one has the right to kill an innocent human being. But a human being that is guilty of a crime or is a danger to society can justifiably be killed for the greater good. Abortionists are not considered innocent by "conservative pro-lifers" because they kill innocent human beings. Thus, it is logical for them to conclude that capital punishment is ok, because they look at it from a perspective of innocence and justice.

I don't know why this simple concept is not understood or ever explained in the media.

[HighStakesPro]

I understand the concept of punishing the guilty, but why do they take it into their own hands, and with such vengeful means? Why don't they advance their position on abortion through lawful means? Don't they accept that law enforcement is the job of the police, and lawmaking the job of congress? Bombing an abortion clinic may punish the people who in their eyes are guilty, but it certainly does not protect the innocent, as the unborrn fetuses are aborted either way; in fact, it KILLS innocent people like secretaries, technicians, and administrators. It's comparable to the Iraqi insurgency murdering an Iraqi who happened to collect the trash on a US military base. The logic is so totally flawed that it seems inconceivable for sane human beings to adhere to it. These people demand that the government exert authority over the entire county and disallow abortions completely, regardless of the personal opinions of anyone, yet because of their own personal opinions they refuse to defer to the government's authority in law enforcement and even its constitutional power to legislate what is right and wrong. This is completely hypocritical.

[Felix_Nietsche]

.....facts are the liberals aren't that great about personal freedom either. But don't believe me. Just look at the recent supreme court rulings from the liberal judges. However if you want to maximize your freedom then supporting conservatives is the way to go.

So why do they often oppose the side that would seem to support "limited government" on other issues, like legalization of marijuana, lower legal age for drinking/gambling, assisted/attempted suicide, censorship, abortion, gay marriage, and sodomy, among othes?
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1. Marijuana - What have liberals done to legalize MJ? In the recent California Medical Marijuana case all the judges that dissented were conservative. All the liberal judges supported the federal ban on medical marijuana. Perhaps you should be criticizing liberals instead.
2. Censorship - Care to provide any examples. There is a lot of hot air from liberals claiming censorship but I am not aware of any.
3. Suicide-I don't think it is the govt business. In the catholic faith they are taught this is a sin. I would argue it is mostly catholic politicians (liberal and conservative) that try to legislate restrictions on suicice.
4. Gay marriage - The last I heard is gays are free to marry people of the opposite sex. Just like anyone else. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
5. Sodomy laws - These are laws which have been on the books for up to 200 years and they are almost never enforced. Occasionally some cop uses this archaic law to punish a homosexual. I'd focus my attention on the cop and the DA that prosecutes arather than conservative lawmakers.

[Peter666]

The heart of this matter, as you brought up in this thread, is the question of Church vs. State. Those who are true adherents of any of the world's major religions cannot have the idea of Seperation of Church vs. State reconciled, as it would contradict their beliefs. From the Christian perspective, the Church is always above the State as the Church leads to one's eternal ends (heaven etc.) while the State is merely a temporary measure helping to organize one's temporal affairs. When the temporal gets in the way of the spiritual, the spiritual position must be adhered to first. A Christian who says they believe in the seperation of Church and State is contradicting themselves.

The idea of true liberalism, which basically means let everybody do what they want so long as it does not hurt anyone else, cannot ever work practically in the governance of a state, so long as there are different philosophical and religious views of people within that state. One group will contradict another group leading to a power struggle.

There is no such thing as a practical pure liberalism (just like there is no such thing as a pure communism). What we really have in our society is an authoritarian rule of a predominant belief structure imposed on us.

When the founding fathers of America came together, they really formed a pseudo Christian/Masonic state which the majority of the people then adhered to, because that is how they lived their lives practically. These days, with the collapse of Christian influence on culture and the rise of socialism, America has become a political battleground of what we call "conservative" (the older Christian/Masonic) vs "liberal" (the newer socialist/liberal) types of views.

A democracy is not an effective way to please all the different groups. If we were really smart, we would divide America into sections, and say: Christians here, Catholics here, Liberals here, Socialists here, etc, and stop the arguing. Let these groups make their own laws of the territory.

[Peter666]

I accidentally posted my comments to this post further down below.

[natedogg]

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government's purpose should be to improve the populace's general quality of life, not tell them how they should live their lives.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your position has two major problems.

1. Who defines what it means to "improve the general populace's quality of life". That purpose sounds noble and laudable but when you are confronted with what that actually means, in terms of everyday governance, there is no simple answer, and plenty of room for disagreement. I have no doubts that I would disagree with you about many programs and regulations that you currently believe are there to meet that goal.

2. How exactly do you give govt the power to "improve the quality of life" but not give them the power to tell us "how we should live our lives". There is a thin line there between paternalistic protection and authoritarian coercion, and it makes for a bad governing principle.

Your view of govt depends entirely on the belief that only uncorruptable men of goodwill shall ever hold positions of power in the govt. This is naive at best.

natedogg

[HighStakesPro]

I am opining about specific policy issues and how they are addressed by the liberal and conservative ideology. I am NOT defending or questioning the actions of any specific politicians or judges who are presumed to represent liberalism or conservatism. In particular I'm trying to AVOID a "liberals vs conservatives" argument and focus on the more relavent question of liberalism vs conservatism.

1. The reason that some issues like legalizing marijuana and the legal drinking/gambling age are not discussed at length in political circles or in congress is because they simply don't affect a great number of people, so politicians have virtually nothing to gain by taking a hardline stance on them or passing legislation to change the current laws.

Sorry, there is more to add to this post but I am dead tired right now. Later I will respond to the person who quoted my stated belief about the purpose of government.