The Philosophy Of Liberalism Vs. Conservatism

1. The liberal-conservative, left-right dichotomy is false; i.e. it does not exist. If we are to take the two American parties, or the major British parties as examples of the ideological divide, there is no divide at all. Liberals push through statist legislation concerning economics and property, while the conservatives make a show of opposing it; the people vote them out and vote conservatives in; the conservatives repeal nothing. Conservatives then push through statist legislation concerning civil liberties, while the liberals make a show of opposing it; the people vote them out and vote in liberals; the liberals repeal nothing. And round and round we go. Can't you see it's a game? A deliberate distraction? A tactic for the same agenda? To oppose statism in economics but support it in the realm of civil liberties, or vice versa, is hypocritical. The only two real ideological divisions, within which all coherent political philosophies lie, are individualism and collectivism. Keep in mind though that not everyone is ideological. The people at the top aren't, and so have no qualms about using the feaux right-left game pragmatically to achieve their own ends.

2. Demanding that constitional rights and government be maintained is not equivilent to demanding the maintenance of the status quo. If you are a libertarian, only a tiny part of society and life consists of government. Ergo, the status quo of society can change remarkably, unrecognizably, while that tiny government fraction remains etched in stone. The idea that libertarians are luddites or something is absurd. Moreover, if a change is desired in that fraction, there are legal ways of affecting it: i.e. ammending the constitution. The only reason that government doesn't take this route, but instead subverts the consititution by stealth, is that, if debated openly and at length as must occur during the ammendment process, the people would discover that almost all of this 'progress' is against their interests. So yes, the right of free speech e.g. must be newly applied as technology advances. But there is a far cry between application of the first ammendment to the internet and an interpretation of the first ammendment such that that individual right must be weighed against a collective right. An especially egregious example of this general legal concept now of weighing individual rights against the suppposed interests of the collective is the new use to which the emminent domain power is being put; seizing private property so that another private entity, e.g. a shopping mall, can use the land. The weighing of individual against collective interests has already been done; the balance is reflected in the rights and responsibilities of citizens and government in the constitution. There can be no further weighing as we go along if individual rights are going to mean anything. Can't you see that if government is given the power to interpret the rights of the individual, the individual has lost those rights already; they've become privilages.

Perhaps your difficulty arises from this strange American tendency to weigh real liberalism as though you were examining a specimen in a Petrie dish.

Liberalism is a concept somewhat alien to your country.

Perhaps your difficulty arises from this strange American tendency to weigh real liberalism as though you were examining a specimen in a Petrie dish.

Liberalism is a concept somewhat alien to your country. That's why you attribute to it qualities and defects that seem very puzzling to those where liberalism is established.

It's sort of like a bicyclist attempting to critique surfing. You have to live it to understand and appreciate it. Living it frees one of the fears we see so virulent in Americans.

Among Western nations, I can think of none less suited to passing judgment on liberalism than the United States.

Liberal does mean free (from libertas), but conservative does not mean 'not too free.' It means just what it says. Conservatives literally were those who wanted to maintain the status quo, to conserve. Today, American parties assosciated with these names have nothing to do with either idea. They are both opposed to freedom and they both want radical change.

Are the parties really associated with any ideologies? I think that's more a result of intense lobbying.