If someone calls you a liberal, how do you feel about it?

and anyone who has a problem with it can pound sand. :grr:

"I'm a bleeding heart liberal who would be happy to share the experience of bleeding. In the interest of comity, of course."

;-)

But I get your point. ;)

that I am a liberal.. and a green.. and a socialist. :D

divorce, etc..

yet the rightwingers say "conservative values" as if that stands for all that's good and right. lol.

"Conservative values? You mean like they have over in Zinc?" Zinc is a hamlet where the KKK people live.

First, there is no such thing as illicit sex, just chase that puritanical brainwashing right out. It was the ruling class (conservatives) that invented divorce, and drugs are generally a good thing.

So what is your point?

A thirty year old having sex with a 13 year old is What? How did conservative invent divorce. Meth and Heroin are good things?

I suppose it depends on the 13 and 30 year olds. I knew 13 year olds, when I was closer to that age, that were totally ready for sex and I know 30 year olds that still aren't. The assignment of an arbitrary age when sex is OK grows directly from the notion that controlling a population through mysticism is correct, even desirable. It has no basis in reality.

Divorce was invented by the ruling class as a means to dissolve or steal the property that the initial contract joined or assigned, and the ruling class are the very definition of conservative.

Heroine was, and probably still is, of therapeutic value and if we had not been conned into attempting to prohibit drugs (something that has never worked and has perverted this nation), meth would probably never have caught on. Even if it did, without the illegality, it would be plentiful and cheap and a self-correcting problem.

my right wing neighbor calls me his "Favorite skinny liberal" "You think i'm skinny?" man i love that guy, he thinks i'm skinny.

smile and say, "Yeah, just like Jesus!"

:shrug:

consider that to be a real word anyway.

and dare anyone to tell me liberalism is "bad".

The further left you slide, the more "liberal" denotes a lot of kinda DLCish policies and "colorblind" attitudes that uphold institutional racism, sexism, and economic imperialism.

I think of the people that really embrace Clinton and/or Obama as liberals, and I'm more in the Kucinich/Gravel/McKinney/Sheehan quadrant.

Clinton and Obama are more liberal than Kucinich et al.? :shrug:

Copying and pasting from wikipedia here: :)

"Liberalism shares many basic goals and methods with social democracy, but in some places diverges. The fundamental difference between liberalism and social democracy is disagreement over the role of the state in the economy. Social democracy can be understood to combine features from both social liberalism and democratic socialism. Democratic socialism seeks to achieve some minimum equality of outcome. Democratic socialists support a large public sector and the nationalization of utilities such as gas and electricity in order to avoid private monopolies, achieve social justice, and raise the standard of living.


By contrast, liberalism, in its distrust of monopolies (both public and private), prefers much less state intervention, choosing for example subsidies and regulation rather than outright nationalization. Liberalism also emphasizes equality of opportunity, and not equality of outcome, citing the desire for a meritocracy. American liberalism, in contrast to liberalism in most countries, never took a major focus on socialism nor ever demanded the same social welfare state programs as its European counterparts."

---------------------------------------------

Liberals are, at heart, capitalists, and believe in using money and withholding money to control people and governments. (Clinton and the 1 1/2 million dead Iraqis as a result of the economic sanctions, for example. He was a good "liberal" president.)

Guess I kind of misunderstood "liberalism" in the US.

..Recently i've begun to like the term "leftist" ;)

described in the second paragraph was what I considered to be libertarianism.

are less enamored of government regulations than liberals.

Libertarians = quick path for money to flow from the poor to the rich. "We'll pretend everyone has an equal shot at being a rich CEO, and that that's what's best for the world."

Liberals = slower but still steady path for money to flow from the poor to the rich (with oversight). "It's okay if the corporations own everything, because - look! I monitored their air quality!"

Socialism = "Hey! How come the corporations get to own all our natural resources?"

in general also stopped to make me think as well. :)

When people call me a liberal, I feel that they don't quite understand the term and its connotations.

Some people view the word as a curse, and when they say it, I shrink.

Others, like my favorite talk show hosts or their callers, it does not distress me in the least.

There is nothing remotely conservative about starting an illegal and costly invasion and occupation based on bogus intelligence from a known extortionist and a dude named "Curveball," and looting and wasting our surplus in the process.

These people are extremists and these labels are antiquated.

In this land once lauded as "the land of the lively discussion," there are very simply far more than two paltry and limited points of view.

The Republicans made "Liberal" one of their dirty little buzz words.

:-)

:P

Splendiferous!

especially in this piece of shit state

I never thought of it as a dirty word and wear the title proudly.

and if they have a problem with it I have noooo problem what so ever with going 12 rounds at the drop of a hat. You would be amazed how many people change their tone.

My rabid RW brother-in-law calls me a liberal all the time. His pea-sized brain knows that Rush calls people he doesn't like "liberal" so I must be one too since I am a union member, anti-war activist and defender of the Bill of Rights.

I'm not a liberal. Never have been. I recall Phil Ochs' song and still find it quite appropriate. I'm a socialist. I want to drastically redistribute the wealth of this country from the pigs at the top to the 70-80% of us at the bottom who actually earn it.

I usually assume they want me to be a part of their wild BSDM orgy before going to church to flagellate themselves about it.

and that makes me feel :cry:

"thanks for the compliment!".

...at least I have a heart".

I stole it from a bumber sticker :D

Think about it, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy R., Franklin R., John Kennedy...

-Hoot

is far too stupid to deserve the amount of respect required for me to give a shit about their opinion.

I do not describe myself as being "liberal".

If someone called me a liberal, I'd wonder how they got the Idea I favored such namby-pamby pro-corporate band-aid policies.

And a hard core environmentalist too.

That's me.

being called a bigot.....

you've got to either be helping people live better lives or pissing somebody off.

Edit for structure.

Sometimes my next door neighbor and I have duelling yard signs :7

Hekate

:puke:

In the states, I wouldn't care....

the Liberals are the right wingers so I'd be more confused than anything else if another Australian called me that because there is nothing about me that would suggest I lean that way.

It annoys be to be called that by Americans because I think it's indicative of how constricted political discourse has become. Anything to the left of Bush is called liberal when there's a whole chunk of the spectrum being ignored there. If I have to characterize my political views (which I try to avoid because I'm not sure if something so organic and broad in scope can be covered by single word, particularly when so few people really understand the theory behind most 'isms') I say labor/anarchist which shares very very little with the world view of most who'd deem themselves liberal in America.

Dems leaning more and more to the right it does seem more confusing as to what liberal means these days.

The word obviously means something to them, and it means something to me, but it makes me curious about what the similarities and differences are between what I mean by liberal and what they mean by liberal.

It bothers them to no end. :D

but I sure am embarassed by the actions and words of some that call themselves liberal.

My lifestyle, actually might be called conservative. I wear nondescript
clothes, have the same wife (my first) I have had for 26 years, two children
who get good grades in college, don't do drugs (including alcohol and
tobacco), am debt-free, and work full-time at the same job I was recruited
for out of college (moved up to station chief for Europe, but same outfit).

But the part the radical right doesn't understand is why I am still a "libbrul"
with all of those supposed conservative credentials. The trouble for them is,
I'm conservative as in I believe in the America envisioned by Thomas Jefferson,
and he was a flaming radical in his day. For me, religion has NO place in
government anywhere, and the government has NO place peering into our private
lives, and this includes a woman's right of choice. Interference with freedom
of the press is still taboo for me, and I extend this beyond the government to
large financial interests allied with the government. And, worst of all for the
radical right to understand, I believe the government has a right to ask the
population as a whole to support those among them who are unable to fend for
themselves in the form of taxes. I do believe that those taxes should be used
in a manner so as to benefit the population as a whole (health care, education,
housing, law enforcement, transportation, etc.) and not for the benefit of a few
business interests of the governing party (that is a purely Republican point of
view), but I don't oppose the concept. I think it is unwise to tax anyone's
income to more than 40% of it, as it will lead to tax fraud and flight of capital,
but I also do not think that people earning $1 million or more per year need
loopholes that allow them to pay an effective rate of 10% while those of us who
have no such loopholes pay the full tariff. I also consider it a capital crime to
interfere in any way or form with anyone's right to vote, and advocate, no, DEMAND
the incarceration of anyone manipulating the results of any federal or state
election.

Finally, I also oppose the right wing's cherished death penalty, as I do not believe that State has the right of ritualized execution. I might make an exception in the case of those members of the Bush administration who caused
the invasion of Iraq, as I consider it one of the greatest crimes against
humanity in recent years, but I'd leave it up to the World Court.