From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 20:48:35 MDT
Damien writes
> > > Conservatives don't like different things, liberals do -- by definition.
> > > So a good media is going to be a liberal media.
> >
> > Above, I thought that this was simply a bad joke. But it appears that the
> > writer is serious. Of all the hare-brained ways to characterize liberals
> > and conservatives, this takes the cake.
>
> I actually I grew up with this ambiguity. The terms can be used to label
> particular positions on the spectrum, or the more general attitudes "open to
> change" and resistant to change. WordNet gives
>
> liberal
> adj 1: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad
> political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a
> liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's
> opinions" [syn: {broad}, {tolerant}]
>
> conservative
> adj 1: resistant to change [ant: {liberal}]
Oh, yes, of course. But these are entirely separate meanings
and usages of the words. To try to link the concepts makes
about as much sense as trying to suggest that Democrats are
more in favor of democracies while Republicans prefer republics.
The liberals are plenty resistant to change when they've
been running things for enough decades ;-) and the
conservatives are *eager* for change in that very same case.
While it's very true that many conservatives are not "broad-
minded" on social issues, (American) liberals tend to be
narrow on economic issues, wishing to deny quite a few
freedoms.
> Also
> >From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
>
> Conservative \Con*serv"a*tive\, n.
> 1. One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury,
> innovation,
Yes. I was as confused (I claim) as your friend is when I
was about 14 and thought that conservation efforts must be
good because it was semantically linked to "conservative".
Of course, I was dead wrong---conservation efforts usually
go against business and corporate interests, which do tend
to be conservative.
> And see Communists in the Soviet Union being "conservative",
> vs. "liberal" free market reformers.
Yes; on the political *spectrum*, the free market reformers
were the more conservative. But as resists change, of course,
the Communists were more conservative. (At that point in
history.)
> Now, whether she's right about the media being considered liberal because they
> carry viewpoints conservatives don't like, vs. being considered liberal
> because they don't carry conservative views, is another question.
And here you must mean "mainstream media", because both cable
news and radio carry viewpoints conservatives like. I consider
the mainstream media to be liberal, and unforgivably so, because
of the bias of what they pass off as objective reporting. They
do not tend---unlike Fox News---to put on shows blatantly partisan.
> I will note again that lefties don't think mass media is leftie.
Many must have their eyes shut---much in the way gts is saying
that viewers and promoters of Fox News think it to be balanced.
Go figure.
Lee
P.S. Thanks for the definitions. It certainly doesn't hurt to
refresh what the words mean separate from their current concrete
political meanings.
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