Conserberal

Are you a liberal or a conservative? If you have any brains at all, your answer should be "Yes."

I've been working for some time to get to the bottom of this question and I've had nothing but trouble. First off, while people are glad to tell me that they're one or the other, not a single person has been willing or able to tell me what it means. One woman I spoke with was convinced she was a conservative because she didn't believe in abortion. She did, however, favor government-run health care and higher taxes on the wealthy. Two hours later, a man who claimed to be a liberal proclaimed the merits of a welfare state, but defended the death penalty.

Some Republicans say that George Bush abandoned conservative principles by running up immense deficits. Democrats retort that Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt in eight years and therefore shouldn't be thought to be a conservative, either.

So what's a conservative? What's a liberal?

• boguseconomist's diary :: ::

Traditionally, conservatives have been advocates of limited government, balanced budgets with low taxes and more individual responsibility. Liberals have backed firmer business regulation, government assistance for the poor, universal health care and higher taxes on the well-off. Voters switched back and forth from one view to another.

I was born during the Hoover Administration (conservative) and raised during the Roosevelt Administration (liberal).

The definitions of both terms changed a lot after World War II. With the rise of huge corporations, conservatives gravitated to the side of the owners while liberals found themselves cheering the unions. At the same time, the racial divide in the United States caused people on the left to identify with the civil rights struggle while those on the right defended the status quo. It was around this time that people should have started to ask, "What do you call somebody who doesn't want black people to sit next to him in the movie house, but who belongs to a union?" Is that person a liberal or a conservative?

The more factors that got stirred into the American scene, the more confused the labeling got. Roe v. Wade was the biggest complicating factor and Watergate didn't help. As there became more reasons to say you were one or the other, more people began to use "liberal" and "conservative" to sell products, ideas and candidates. Pollsters jumped on the bandwagon. If you were Republican, you were conservative; if you were Democratic, you were liberal, etc.

Pretty soon, sub-labels appeared. Maybe you were a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat. Some even started to use "Republicrat," although I never heard anyone say "Demoplican." One thing nobody did, however, was explain what any of these terms meant. That's why the Bogus Economist has coined the word "conserberal."

A conserberal believes that all people deserve to be left alone if what they're doing doesn't hurt anybody else. In the case of pregnancy, the operating word is "anybody." Whether life begins at conception or at the beginning of the third trimester or at birth is a medical question that should be decided by medical people. Anything else is a matter of religion. Religion should not make laws.

Conserberals think all people who enjoy living in the United States deserve to support it with an equal percentage of what they have to lose, i.e. their net worth. No deductions.

Businesses should be free to do anything legal as long as consumers are fully informed about what they're buying and the businesses accept responsibility for their products. Conserberals do not believe in "corporate personhood." If a CEO is drawing the pay, that's the person who should be cracking the rocks.

Conserberals feel that nobody should make a profit out of war. When the nation is at risk, everyone has the duty to defend it. This means universal military service. They also feel the National Rifle Association should stick to rifles.

If somebody is accused of committing a crime, the amount of money he/she has should have nothing to do with the quality of justice he/she receives. Conserberals also believe in public financing of elections. America should not be for sale.

There's a lot more, but you get the idea. We have enough labels that don't mean anything. That's why they deserve definition. It might take a lot more time to really find out what somebody believes, but then we'd be able to discuss things intelligently. And isn't that really another name for democracy?