Feb 082010
Classical liberalism consisted of:
-end of censorship
-freedom of religion
-freedom from arbitrary laws and from judges who just do what the government tells of them.
Classical liberals believed in human rights for everyone and that the public should decide to limit any person’s freedom, they also accepted well established distinctions between the classes. Lastly, they never believed everyone should be equal economically, great differences in wealth and income was perfectably acceptable.
Modern liberals:
-Want to push gay marriage and abortion on people even when the people vote against it calling it unfair.
-spread the wealth from the rich to the poor
-for big government
Classical liberals would more likely today be regarded as libertarians. However, most libertarians tend to regard themselves as Republicans and ally themselves with the social/religious conservatives in the Republican Party because they are not a large enough group to win elections on their own. This is largely a matter of being realistic about the political odds of third party candidates.
Modern conservatism is the same as modern liberalism, as both are technically neocons. They both support interventionism (military or humanitarian using military), worldwide policing, more laws limiting freedom and liberty, more debt, and bigger government.
While both parties disagree on a few pop culture issues, they are essentially the same. They both support the most destructive, and the most expensive aspects of government.
Classical Liberalism now only remains in the libertarian party, and with some conservatives like Ron Paul.
- Calling gay marriage and abortion unfair?
Unfair to whom? In what context? The denial of same sex couples rights to have the same federal benefits is unfair to you how? Why is what they want to do with their life your business? How is their marriage harming you or your family?
Putting federal regulations over a woman’s body is unfair. I agree that is unfair women.
-Taking the wealth from the middle and giving it to the top hasn’t worked out. Look around, go to the mall you will be in for a shock.
-The Department or Homeland Security wasn’t created by Liberals.
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Republicans say small government and yet it grows under every Republican Administration for the past 60 years. It did shrink under Clinton and Carter.
Some economic policies perhaps but certainly not the social examples you give.
Nobody wants to push gay marriage and abortion onto anyone. What a ludcirous statement. Give me a single example of anyone ever being forced by our government to have an abortion or marry someone of the same sex. We want merely to allow those who do want them to be able to. Arguing that we should not allow individual’s rights because a majority disapproves is the exact opposite of classical liberalism.
I think your definition of “classical liberalism” is academic.
I believe your “definition” of modern liberals is not actually a definition, but more likely a dinner table rant from some older relative of yours.
They would definitely not translate. If modern liberals were anything like classic liberals, I would totally support them. However since they’re not, I choose to define myself as the party that really has these values, the Libertarians.
No. The classic Liberals are akin to Libertarians. Conservatives are anti-abortion, while Libertarians are pro-abortion.
Not if you are talking about social conservatives. The problem with your question though is that it does not address the differences in the conservative movement today… a social conservative can be very different from a fiscal conservative.
I don’t see a lot of social conservatives really believing in human rights for everyone… afterall, the prisoners in Guatanamo Bay are not treated as prisoners elsewhere and they are very critical of anyone asking for the prisoners to be tried and/or interred within the Geneva Convention’s code. And yet if they had a brother or relative convicted of a crime and they are imprisoned they would not want their relative to be mistreated or handled illegally.
The same could be said about liberals. There are many different types of liberal… not all liberals (actually most liberals) do not want to “spread wealth from the rich to the poor” by limiting the wealthy…. I can’t find one liberal who has said this in the last 20 years in this country. And “big government”… no one advocates “big government” although George W. Bush actually increased the size of our government and he has increased spending and I would not call him a liberal.
No offense, but your question is too simple.