Liberal or Conservative?

Is there no escape from this? Even in SL?

Moderate

and heya Crow!

Actually there is a strong case for Liberals tendancy to being right-brained, and Conservatives tendancy to be left-brained.

http://neuropolitics.org/Conservative-Left-Brain-Liberal-Right-Brain.htm

Same for me.

Ditto

Well said.

Same goes for me.

What's Liberal and what's Conservative? I don't live in or near America, and I doubt you would know anything about the political parties of my country.

Liberal <---

And I really dislike conservatives. Generalizing here, but they usually are narrow-minded, set on their beliefs instilled in them as a child, cannot comprehend logical discussion and facts, and believe they are right about everything they no nothing about.

Let the flames begin!

I honestly doubt it's really worth it...

Independent here. Extremely liberal in some areas, very conservative in others.

Eh, it's probably not worth it... I won't fight back too much....

I just cannot understand why people would be opposed to thought expansion or differences of opinion about life and the way people choose to live.

Libertarian by raw definition but as I get older I'm refining my view every day.

I don't think the question is about which political party you belong to. I think it's more about whether your personal views would be considered conservative or liberal.

So you could give your answer based on the politics of the country you are in really.

The majority of my personal views would be right of center on the political scale.

However, there are many things happening on both sides of the political spectrum that I can't stand. Our whole system is no longer about how to best lead our country, but it's becoming nothing more than a system of legalized bribery.

And Doubletown: I'll believe a logical argument when I hear one. Most of what I hear lately is either patently false or blatently skewed. The amount of complete falgercarb I've been hearing lately about the illegal immigration debate is a good example.

Generally speaking, people on both sides of the fence don't actually want listen to logical debate. They want to shout out their opinions because it makes them FEEL good to be right, and it makes them ANGRY when someone doesn't agree with them.

The political process on BOTH sides is more about emotion and illogical opinions than it is about rational debate and decision making. There was actually a recent University study that used an MRI to study how people responded in political discussions. Their EMOTION centers lit up. As we all know, strong emotions generally don't respond to logic. So this means that you will never, ever convince someone of your political or moral viewpoint, because their opinions aren't based on logic: they're based on feelings.

yep, yep, yep.

if I was going to apply any label, it would be (l)ibertarian. Small ell and I follow my own drummer there, too.

My uncle said as much a couple years ago to me, and I think he hadn't read the study - just years and years of being a top financial journalist gave him the experience of that. Yes, money and politics have a tendancy to run hand in hand. (no, I'm not saying his name, I like my privacy)

He then said I was rare, because I reason my opinions out with logic. Logic lead me to the (l)ibertarian position economically, actually. Well, I would better describe it as Hayekian - I am a massive Friedrich Hayek fan. Some "liberals" (I dispute this term actually for American "liberals", they would be better like the Europeans applying the term - social democrat - its a better description of their views as it causes less confusion with people who hold classical liberal views, which are pretty much diametric to theirs economically and to a large degree socially as well) might classify me as a "conservative" because of that, but I'm not. I just side with conservative slightly more than I do with socialist views, but my core philosophy is neither one and is likely to cause the hackle hairs of a devotee of either side to stand on end at the end of a debate. My social views are close to Hayek's too, but there's a huge degree of classical philosophy that shapes my worldview there (Epicurean, to be precise, a good page on it is here - http://www.epicurus.info/etexts.html ) So maybe I am "conservative" in the literal use of the term, given that philosophy is dating from the Hellenistic age.

I avoid these debates in general, but I wanted to throw in a coin saying, not everyone is black and white "liberal" or "conservative" and the labels don't really apply to everyone.

Crow, I'd guess it tends toward a more "anything goes" attitude -- some people may view that as either liberal OR conservative (or, more specifically, libertarian).

I think there are a lot of individualists here -- not just in the forums but also in world -- and there are a lot of people who don't care either way.

SL is not a place for the easily offended that's for sure. LL takes a definite "tolerance" stance -- they're very definitely NOT guided by "Christian morals" which often include bigotry against portions of the population (i.e., gay folks).

Crow, I'd guess it tends toward a more "anything goes" attitude -- some people may view that as either liberal OR conservative (or, more specifically, libertarian).

I think there are a lot of individualists here -- not just in the forums but also in world -- and there are a lot of people who don't care either way.

SL is not a place for the easily offended that's for sure. LL takes a definite "tolerance" stance -- they're very definitely NOT guided by "Christian morals" which often include bigotry against portions of the population (i.e., gay folks).

You beat me to it.
I have been saying this for years
When asked to limit my position to these particular term/labels.

However the terms themselves definately change in meaning with use over time.

exactly, it changes for whereever you live. I live in Germany (not German however - American), and if you say "liberal views" here, they would approximately be like classical liberal views, which in America is more like a moderate conservative position, or libertarian. And European conservatives are again different from American conservatives. All conservative means is an unwillingness to change - and as the core values in America are based on classical liberal values, that's a core difference from Europe which counts a monarchist/statist stance as not far off in the past.

It's not the same everywhere folks.

I want to comment on your comment, since I see the B word thrown around a lot.

Bigotry is an unwarranted hatred of a social or ethnic group. The key word is "unwarranted".

Based on the interpretation of their holy book, the Christian viewpoint that the Gay lifestyle as wrong is not bigotry. It is simply a manifestation of their belief structure. Of course, it's not just Christians who believe being Gay is wrong. There are taboos against gay relations in several world religions, and in most of Africa, if what I've read is correct.

I'm NOT here to debate whether being gay is wrong. I'm not saying here that it's wrong to be gay. I'm just tired of hearing the word "bigot" applied every time a Christian has an opinion about moral issues.

There are Christians, and there are bigots. The two sometimes coincide. But please stop using the two as if they were synonymous. There's a lot more to Christian morality than one's sex life. In fact, I sometimes think that the gay activists make more of it than the churches do.

Of course, maybe I'm weird, since I've gone to church since I was born, and I can't recall a single sermon about the evils of gay people.

This is exactly how I feel as well.

Devout Anarchist and Militant here

Bulldog

Presumably this is a thread just for Americans.