From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 23:23:04 MDT
Harvey writes
> > 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
> > [conservatives don't like different things,
> > liberals do], this takes the cake.
>
> What's the problem? Haven't you people ever
> looked these terms up in the dictionary before?
> Sheesh!
Well, no :-) But I've always known what here
in the U.S. since at least 1960 lower-case
"conservative" and "liberal" meant politically.
But the standard, non-political usage of the
terms is, as Damien supplied
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}]
And we know how they came to be applied to the U.S.
left and right respectively. The whole direction
of social change from 1776 through fairly modern
times had been leftward (and left and right, as
you also know, obtained from the seating arrangements
in the House of Commons). As far back as the
revolutionary war, "Tory" meant someone who supported
the king. That indeed was a *conservative* position,
in the literal sense.
Today, how could (for example) favoring reparations,
or advocating a minimum wage, possibly be "liberal",
and freedom to own guns or advocating the repeal of
most taxation, possibly be "non-liberal" (in the
dictionary sense)?
> And when you've finally convinced yourself that you
> really understand what these English words mean,
> decide if you are at heart a "conservative" or a
> "liberal".
There is no question but that all extropians and many
others are "liberal" by the dictionary definition,
when the nonpolitical meaning is meant. Yet also,
there is no question that on many political issues,
a great many extropians and others greatly in favor
of novel ideas are politically "conservative".
I'm in favor of a lot of new and highly imaginative
projects, concerns, and ideas, such as cryonics, space
colonization, universe engulfing, AI development and
so on. But today, a political liberal is defined
primarily as leaning towards socialism, towards
tolerance in social relations, a meeker stance in
in international affairs, regulation of the free
market, and relative lenience towards prison inmates.
Except for tolerance in social relationships (which
it so happens I also favor), none of the rest of these
have anything to do with the dictionary definition of
"liberal".
Lee
P.S. Nice shot there about Democrats getting elected
and Republicans being appointed ;-) I suppose that
if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't stepped in---and the
Florida Supreme Court had awarded the election to
Gore---we on the right would be making the same kind
of wisecracks about Democrats.
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