Liberals and democrats are different, yaknow. The overall political spectrum is very different from the US one, the US one spanning moderate-conservative to far-right, the overall one obviously being from far-left to far-right.
Also, by the liberals not wanting to be controlled, it references mostly social issues, where the common liberal attitude is more hands-off than the conservative one. And also because the farther left you go, the more democratic the government is - Communism, for example, being complete anarchic democracy, etc.
Liberal and Conservative seems to deal more with economic issues while Democrat and Republican tend to deal more with Social issues. Or maybe it's the other way around...Either way like alt said the American political spectrum is from moderated to far right meaning that it's hard to compare our parties to a worldwide spectrum.
Liberals are in favor for using bigger federal government to solve the problems for people. Also they are in favor of government regulation when it comes to to buying and selling of stocks on Wall St. However, the extremist liberal ideals such as Marxism (or Communism) are in favor of basically no government whatsoever. At least, that is how it is supposed to play out, the good of human kind triumphing and everything is shared equally. However like Drace points out, North Korea, Cuba, the USSR and etc do not follow through with this. Government gets greedy, and when they distribute the wealth they decide "oh... he doesn't need that much, I could keep a little extra...." and eventually greed and corruption takes over, which is why Communism doesn't work in practice
Conservatives favor smaller federal government, and let individual state governments deal with the problems of people in their state. They are usually in favor of keeping the tradition and/or status quo. No need for change, keep things the way they are. "Traditional" values. Also, they are strong advocates of less government regulation when it comes to the casino gambling center that is Wall St. Kinda contradicting really... they preach about how great democracy is, and say they love it... yet inevitably are also in favor of dictatorship. How? By giving power to the top 1 percent that is the Goldman Sachs, AIG CEOs and etc. Anyway... Extremist Right would be Fascism aka Nazism. To be so traditional, and actually go backwards in terms of equality thinking, women's rights and etc.
Liberals are Left, Left wants to increase government, liberals are those in favor of not being controlled?
The primary aim of a liberal is freedom, within the constraints of a nightwatchman state, at least in a classical sense. Modern liberalism has a positive view of freedom, where it is the duty of government to help citizens attain self realisation through interventionist measures.
Repub/Conserv Right, Right wants to decrease government, Repub/Conserv are in favor of being controlled?
Neo cons are essentially economically classicaly liberal, wanting little to no government intervention with the free market, as they have absolute faith in its allocation of resources. Socially though, neo cons are interventionist, expounding on the virtues of traditional values etc. In America this manifests itself in the form of Christian values ie., anti abortion laws, proposition 8 etc.
Liberal and Conservative seems to deal more with economic issues while Democrat and Republican tend to deal more with Social issues.
Lib and con deals fine with both economic and social issues. It's just that the dems are psuedo conservatives, and the reps are neo conservative. The ideological differences are very narrow.
However like Drace points out, North Korea, Cuba, the USSR and etc do not follow through with this. Government gets greedy, and when they distribute the wealth they decide "oh... he doesn't need that much, I could keep a little extra...." and eventually greed and corruption takes over, which is why Communism doesn't work in practice
Communism is about the worker ownership over the means of production - something that was never put into practice in the USSR or in China. These "communist" states do not represent communism at all. They were simply dictatorships in which property was owned by the State.
All I was pointing out is that the term "leftist" has traditionally composed of anarchists, communists, and socialists. So calling Democrats and liberals leftists is incorrect.
Conservatives favor smaller federal government, and let individual state governments deal with the problems of people in their state. They are usually in favor of keeping the tradition and/or status quo.
The latter statement describes them better. In this case, conservatives want to go back to the good days of the Constitution and uphold that 200 year old document as a relic of their "great America" or whatever.
Okay i agree with the statements that liberals usually if not always end up in a communist or socialist government. But Republicans and conservatives don't go into dictatorships i mean when ever republicans try to make government smaller the other side comes in and takes over. So there have been no small governments ( not somalia) because a government never makes itself smaller only bigger.
Okay i agree with the statements that liberals usually if not always end up in a communist or socialist government. But Republicans and conservatives don't go into dictatorships i mean when ever republicans try to make government smaller the other side comes in and takes over.
Considering the only 'communist' dictatorships to ever arise were born out of extremely right wing and conservative administrations eg russia, china, vietnam, north korea etc., its pretty ironic you lambast liberalism to such an extent.
I see so many misconceptions and errors in this topic. Guys, there is a sticky within this category that explains that we need to give credible sources for all of our "facts."
Please do so. Too many people have already said too many contradicting things.
