What are conservative and liberal ideals?

[Singlestack]

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.

[Ronin13]

- Anti-minority
- Basically racist, and dedicated to defending only what white guys like

You should be disappointed. They've been spoon fed this bullshit for years! Little do these kids know, all this racism in America (from the 1850's to the 1980's) wouldn't have been nearly as bad if it wasn't for [mostly] liberal democrats. 1860's- Lincoln (R- Conservative) made slavery illegal. KKK- Liberal Democratic organization. Opposition to anti-segregation laws- Liberal Democrats. I'm not sure how things got turned around (supposedly) but what they view as conservative racism is actually pushing for individual responsibility. Is it conservatism's fault that a lot of those in poverty are minorities? Is it conservatism's fault that those minorities happen to be held down in a democratically introduced and sustained system that gives them just enough to get by, but have no hope of upward mobility? If poor folks (of ANY color) were to step up to the plate and work on improving their own lives, on their own, without relying so heavily on government assistance, then we might see the end of poverty as we currently know it, in a few generations... Maybe.