Quote Originally Posted by Singlestack View Post
Thanks Ronin - thats what I was looking for! I just received back from my son's (who is very much a capital L Libertarian, as Mike Rosen would describe him) friend some of what his liberal friends consider to be conservative ideals:

- Anti-minority
- Basically racist, and dedicated to defending only what white guys like
- Pro big companies and opposed to small business and the government
- Favor business growth and pollution over the environment (support for Big Oil is evidence)
- Hate poor people and are usually mean to them
- Only care about the US and not the rest of the world
- Try to demean women and even want to keep them from voting (you can't make this stuff up)
- Always try to force Christianity on others and convert them

Here are some of the Liberal ideals they came up with:
- Care about all people (kinder, more caring)
- More money for public education
- Distrust the military and people who have been in the military. Military people want to start wars
- Open minded
- Favor unions as a way to protect companies from exploiting workers. All workers should be unionized
- Conservatives who can't be taught proper thinking should be excluded from leadership roles and the government
- All viewpoints are valid and must be considered (part of open minded thinking)
- Helping minorities and the rest of the world is more important than debt/deficit
- By spending more, we can eliminate worldwide poverty

I was pretty disappointed in these results - more emotional really and not a lot of substance. However, not really surprised. Kids that age tend not to know a lot about this sort of thing, and are more swayed by easy to say emotional arguments - no explanations provided most of the time.
I agree with the Christianity issue. Not all conservatives are hard core bible thumpers but The Christian hard core conservative right has become the loudest voice representing the conservative movement in this country. The Conservative movement will continue to lose traction in this country so long as the conservative movement continues to try and legislate what it deems to be socially appropriate behavior and does so on the sheer basis that its the way God intended for things to be.