That was part of my point - 'liberal' has a very clear definition in the study
of politics and political philosophy. But the idea of liberalism seems to have
become very confused in the US in recent years - less so in the UK and here I
think. There is a minor confusion in Australia in that the conservative party
is called the Liberal Party, because it was at least partly set up under
liberal principals (individualist as opposed to socialist) but it contains the
right wing of the parliament and is the de facto Tory party. Hence we sometime
distinguish between small 'liberal' and large 'L' liberal!
We are all inconsistent in our views, that's normal. That's why we have a
couple of 'umbrella' parties which each have a multitude of factions. We then
have the foolishness to complain that they're inconsistent, devious and
untrustworthy because they're all horse trading like crazy when in fact they
are reflecting our own inconsistencies.
Politicians do what they need to get elected otherwise there is no point. If
you go for a job interview, you do what you need to do to get the job. If they
have to 'pander to the lowest common denominator' (which in the the US I
thought did't even bother to vote) then that's a criticism of the electorate
rather than the candidate.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.soultheft.com
Author/Publisher:
The SLR Compendium:
revised edition -
http://blur.by/19Hb8or
The TLR Compendium
http://blur.by/1eDpqN7
On 11/03/2014, at 2:33 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
> It's important to understand the variation in definition of terms from
> one country to the next. One country's "Liberal" is another country's
> "Conservative". "Progressive" has many meanings, all depending on what
> the cultural and social issues are in any given country at any given
> time. For example, I am a true progressive in some very key
> areas--staunch conservative in a few others. I'm not going to drink
> the cool-aid of either major political party as I see them both as
> pandering to the lowest-common denominator and aiming for the best
> "sound bite" not the best "policy".
--
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