From: mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Michael Polen)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: The Difference Between Conservatives and Libe
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:44:26 GMT
Reply-To: mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Michael Polen)
Organization: Mips Technologies, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: suntory.mti.sgi.com

EMIL CHUCK) writes:
|> Michael Polen) writes:
|> +Actually, I don't understand why we are all arguing over something
|> +like this.  Webster has alread got a working definition that we can
|> +all use as our basis of communication.  Isn't that what dictionaries
|> +are for?
|> +
|> +From Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (in alphabetical order):
|> +conservatism
|> +	a: disposition in politics to preserve what is established
|> +	b: a political philosophy based on tradition and social
|> +	 stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring
|> +	 gradual development to abrupt change
|> +	c: the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation
|> +	 to change.
|> +
|> +liberalism
|> +	a: a movement in modern Protestantism ...
|> +	b: a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from
|> +	 restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-
|> +	 regulating market, and the gold standard
|> +	c: a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the
|> +	 essential goodnes of man, and the autonomy of the individual
|> +	 and standing for the protection of political and civil
|> +	 liberties.
|> +
|> +No wonder the Republicans and other conservatives are looking to redefine
|> +these words.  The real definitions say that the difference is between
|> +"forward looking" and "give me that old time religion, it's
|> +good enough for me."
|> 
|> Squeeze me? Baking powder?
|> "The essential goodness of man"??? Aren't all rich people somehow
|> inherently evil that they deserve to be taxed to make things "fair" for
|> everyone? Aren't Republicans "nazis"? How about business and the
|> environmentalists?
|> 
|> "The autonomy of the individual"??? except for unemployment benefits,
|> health care reform, business regulation, etc. It seems to me the current
|> liberal hierarchy advocates the dependence of the individual upon
|> government.
|> 
|> "Standing for the protection of political and civil liberties." At the
|> expense of the majority's rights. More like standing for the protection
|> of quotas and protection from international competition and attacking
|> the problems of racism by legislation rather than by encouraging a
|> change in heart.

Surprisingly, they don't teach long term memory at DUKE.  It was the
Republicans that called Clinton/Gore liberals, not Clinton/Gore.  If
Bush/Quayle don't like the implications, as you certainly don't, maybe
they should start calling themselves liberals and see if that helps. 
In the meantime, the rest of us have a useful definition of the terms.

The rest of us also are smart enough to figure out that nobody is
all liberal or all conservative.  When you assign lables to groups,
you are suspending your own credulity.
-- 
These opinions are usually my own, sometimes my dog's,
occasionaly my (grown) children's, never my employer's.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.misc