Who am I?
When I was young I considered myself a conservative. I spent a lot of time in New Hampshire and I really got behind their "live free or die" mentality. Also, every single person in my family is conservative. It just made sense.
Later on in life, after I had spoken with more people about politics and various social issues I realized many of my views were considered "liberal". I didn't care much either way because there's not really any reason to classify people into two ideological camps. There's more to the world than just liberal and conservative - MUCH more to the world than Republican and Democrat. I started referring to myself as a liberal, however, to appease those who are all about pigeonholing.
My wife is a "proud liberal" in that she doesn't even like the word conservative. She was born and raised in Boston - the unofficial capitol of liberalism. Our views are mostly the same. Does that make me a liberal? Honestly, I'm not sure.
Let's examine a hot-button issue, shall we? ABORTION. Typically, if you're a conservative you have to be pro life for some reason. I'm not sure why that is. In fact, I submit that the true conservative stance should be pro choice. Why should the government be involved at all in this decision? Keep the government out of my womb! This includes keeping the government from outlawing the procedure, of course.
Another hot-button issue: DEATH PENALTY. Everyone knows conservatives are all for the death penalty. The more killing of criminals that goes on the better, a conservative might say. I find it somewhat hypocritical that someone could be adamantly pro life yet pro death penalty at the same time. Personally, I'm for killing at both ends, but only when it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, and in the case of capital punishment, when there is absolute proof (this is becoming easier with DNA evidence and other technological advances). Does this make me a conservative or a liberal?
How about fiscal views? I can tell you I support welfare. Does that make me a liberal? I do think, however, that ALL such "government hand outs" should be highly scrutinized and made to be as efficient and effective as possible. I'm all for that. You see, I'm completely against our government wasting money - which it does in alarming amounts, but I'm all for government spending money on things that matter. Libraries, education, police & fire, closely monitored help for the less fortunate, campaign finance reform, all these things are meaningful to me and worth spending our hard earned tax money on. A useless war that costs billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of innocent lives is a colossal waste to me. Corporate welfare should be eliminated. And, yes, we should be taxed as little as possible. The government's number one priority, as I see it, should be to make these beneficial social programs as lean and mean, but effective as possible, not throw money away on themselves and other needless crap, and stick to a friggin' budget! We should NOT keep deficit spending. We should NOT incur more and more debt. We should have fiscal restraint where it matters. Does this make me a liberal or a conservative?
In short, I'd consider myself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative - pretty much a libertarian, except not quite as paranoid. Our beloved president, as I'm sure most will agree, can be considered a social conservative and a fiscal liberal. The administration is the absolute antithesis of what I believe in. That is why I can never support them.
posted by Smorgasbord @ 3:47 PM
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