Defending the Truth

How do you perceive political questions?

Do you identify yourself with a traditional label (liberal, conservative, libertarian etc)?

Or do you identify yourself somewhere on a left-right spectrum?

With your political identity, do you find that you agree with every idea and solution that comes from your identity? Are you willing to consider ideas from other areas without letting stereotypical propaganda get in the way?

Do you identify the liberal-conservative division in the United States with the two party competition between Republicans and Democrats?

Do you disagree with ideas, not because of their content and purpose, but because of the politcal label of the person who said it or wrote it?

Do you defend bad ideas and/or bad people because of thier political identity?

Is the solution or idea put forward by your politcal identity always the right decision?

These are some questions that I have stemming from a legnthy post that I made yesterday in End of Surburbia, Media::Films. I am very interested to see what people responses are to these questions.

I would consider myself a moderate Republican.

I do not agree with every idea and solution that comes from my identity. Have I ever, yes. I was very close-minded when I first developed this web site. Thanks to all of you, I have been released from my shell and I now have a more open-minded view on issues.

Unfortunately I do tend to make the mistake of identifying the liberal-conservative division in the US with the two parties Republican and Democrat.

Do I disagree with ideas because of someones political label who said it or wrote it? No. And I can see where you're going with this. It seems that in the media these days, we see lots of that going on! Anything proposed by the left is just wrong in the right's view, and the other way around.

I do not defend bad ideas and/or bad people because of thier political identity?

Is the solution or idea put forward by your politcal identity always the right decision?

It's not always the right decision, but because I consider myself a moderate Republican, I tend to agree with a lot of decisions the party goes along with.


Very interesting thread! I would like to see other people's opinions.

How about your answers aMFliberal?

I'm a pretty conservative liberal and I am an independent. I am a liberal in thought and belief, but my personal choices are rather conservative. I do however believe that we should be given those choices rather than have them made for us.
I like a lot of the theories presented by the Green party, but I do think they need to develop a detailed feasible plan of action in solving the environmental issues affecting this country and the world, which would fit in with the ideals of the republican democracy that is the United States of America.
We can all benefit from living a little greener.

There is not one right answer, if a right answer even exists. Solutions will always be debatable and it ultimately rests on compromise between political power. A political question often involves so many factors to the point where a solution is necessarily going to negatively affect one or more of those factors. What a person decides to support is ultimately which factors they feel need to be affected postively and which factors will have to suffer the unfortunate.


When I first got into politics, I believed everything I heard and it was just after the 2000 election. So you can understand where I fell. The more I learned, I realized that was not what I believed at all and I was hasty to apply "liberal" to myself. Now, I can't really say. To be honest, I don't really know and I don't think it matters.

I don't know. I suppose I do. I think good ideas come from all sides, but does that make me a moderate? I still don't think I've been studying politics long enough to figure it out.

Whatever my identity is, real or assumed, I am sure that I would not agree with every idea and solution that comes from it. I am of the opinion that considering all ideas will ultimately result in the culmination of one idea that everyone can agree on, which I think is best for all, so my answer is no to the second question.

No, I believe the divisiveness between liberals-conservatives and Democrats-Republicans is hurting the flow of good ideas.

I have been guilty of this many times but this year at school I was exposed for the first time, outside of my father, to what I regretably call "intelligent conservatism". I mean this only in the sense that my understanding of conservatism was too highly based off of anti-Bush statements and anti-Republicanism. I believed the propaganda about conservatives. Realizing there are able and apt intellectuals on all sides of the political spectrum made me realize that there are worthwhile and pertinent ideas and solutions coming from all sides. They need to be considered fairly instead of written off with propagandous cries.

No, but I personally feel that many are guilty of this - whether they know it or not. I feel that the greatest cause for this sort of thing happening is the divisiveness or polarization that has forced people to stand unquestionably by their political identities and refuse to believe that any other political identity has a better solution.

I guess I basically already asked the same question, but once again, whatever my identity is, real or assumed, the answer is no.

Unlike aMFLiberal, I think there is always one correct answer, though reasoning out that correct answer can be more difficult for some questions than others.

I call myself a liberal-libertarian.

The ideas that come from liberals and libertarians are often wrong, and I avoid allowing someone else's beliefs to influence my own. Each idea can only be understood as an on its own, not as part of some ideology.

Yes.

No. Most of the time I do not even know who said or wrote an idea.

No, however sometimes an individual holds a few bad ideas, but I still agree with that person most of the time. In this case, I will defend that person despite that person having a few bad ideas.

No.

I hope I was not too brief.

I call myself a psychobilly conservative or hellbilly conservtive. I can't explain my views in one message. I love America.

You don't have to. Just answer the individual questions as they are. You've only answered one so far. I'm not asking you to explain all of your views, just the questions as they are posed. It might be easiest to do it the way Jaxian and myself did.

Can you answer the questions alias? Will you?

1. Conservative.

2. I consider all views.

3. Yes.

4. I disagree with ideas if a liberal has it. Liberals disgust me. I like some democrats, the ones who put America first instead of politics like Lieberman and Zell Miller. No wonder the liberals are trying to get rid of Lieberman.

5. No. Those on my side are wrong a lot. They spend way too much money lately and are not doing enough about the border and not killing enough terrorists.

6.