Liberalism

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:47 am

I noticed on a thread in the Anime section there were quite a few liberal minded people out there. I always like to find liberal Christians, it's not really all that common. Most people feel that since being liberal means pro-choice that I am not Christian. On the contrary, I am pro-life but I disagree with the rest of the conservative viewpoints. So who you pulling for in the next election? Why are you republican/democrat/green/etc?

Just throwing out some random political questions really. I love politics, love to talk about it.

Postby **Straylight** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 12:13 pm

I am liberal but I like to think that I don't step over the point at which Biblical doctrine is comprimised. This threshold is largely determined by how the majority of Christians around me interpret the Bible - eg. I think gay churches are wrong, I think abortion is wrong, and I think sex before marriage is wrong.

Anyway, a little warning is in order.. keep the conversation friendly or this thread will be locked

Postby **Danyasaur** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 12:59 pm

I really don't care if people are Republic or Libral or Democratic, care about them all. it's the person, not the politics.

Postby **Yoda47** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 1:14 pm

I'd say I'm conservitve in most areas. I wouldn't say I'm a republican, but I tend to agree with them most of the time.

I'd say liberal or conservitive doesn't matter so much, as long as one uses the Bible as the ultimate guide for determining what's right and wrong.

Politics seems to be a choice between the lesser of two evils, whichever side you're on.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 1:20 pm

As djnoz said... watch out with this topic. A debate will get closed instantly, by whatever moderators happen to be on at the moment.

Personally, I find myself in neither category. Also, I'd like to point out that there's both liberal philosophy and liberal political philosophy. You be different in both. For example, if a person were to try to classify me into a specific category (and they will) they'd probably say I'm more liberal politically and conservative religiously.

Oddly enough, I just wrote a lengthy editorial about this for the biggest Mennonite newspaper. As Christians, we can't subscribe to any specific political philosophy (lesser of two evils, as has been said), it's a matter of what we can accomplish God's will through.

Postby **glitch1501** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 1:23 pm

im pretty much in agreement with yoda on this one, although i would say im republican...

Postby **Technomancer** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 2:41 pm

I'd probably say that I'm more "liberal" than most people here, although that's a term that I'd rather eschew since it tends to lack a meaningful definition.

Politically, I tend to vote Liberal (at least federally), and voted for Jean Chretien in the last two elections. Although I also like much of what the NDP (New Democratic Party) have to say (and voted for them in the last provincial election). As for the next federal election, I don't really trust Paul Martin, but I'll wait and see.

Ultimately, I think that the government should concern itself with issues of social justice, which means supporting socialized medicine, accessible education, equitable labour standards, and sustainable development. At the same time, there needs to be solid cooperation with industry on a host other economic issues. I'll stop here, or I may go on far too much (I minored in Science, Technology and Public Policy so I'm another political junkie, at least for the Canadian variety).

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 3:03 pm

I agree with Techno, I'm a very very liberal minded person. I hopefully won't start too much of a debate. I just wanted to get a feel for the people here and their political take on life. If I want to argue I'll just talk to my super conservative roommate.

Postby **Mithrandir** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 3:33 pm

Hmm. I don't really know. I grew up in a VERY conservative town, and moved to one of the most liberal. I've basically had to embrace the concept of systematic theology somewhere during the migration, and now I just don't care! I believe lots of things that bug my conservative father, and lots of things that bug my 'liberal' coworkers. I think it boild down to:
1. If God tells me to do something, I have no choice in the matter.
2. The bible is pretty clear about some things, and vague about others. I'm of the opinion that this is not an oversight on God's part.
3. God gave me a brain - another thing I do not believe to be an oversite.

Postby **true_noir_chloe** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 9:57 pm

>>I'd say liberal or conservitive doesn't matter so much, as long as one uses the Bible as the ultimate guide for determining what's right and wrong.

I totally agree Yoda.

And, I also think OldPhil is waxing wisely once more. I'm in complete agreement with his #3.

I just keep backspacing everything I'm going to say (too controversial), so I'll just leave it at that. However, I could never be considered ultra-conservative or ultra-liberal. I'm pretty middle of the road; but, that depends on the road.

Postby **Locke** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:14 pm

i have no idea green black red democrat rebilican

dont matter

as long as they are pro life

thats it...

Postby **Haibane Shadsie** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:48 pm

I like disscussing politics/political philosophy. Personally, I'm just kind of in the middle. I have a lot of conservative views, but I fear the "religious right". As a voter, I'm a registered Independent. I'm very pro-life. I consider myself anti-death penalty and *most of the time* anti-war. I love freedom of speech and the idea that everyone can express their views, but I hate the double standard that seems to be given to certain groups (such as Christians) in free speech matters. I'm very much for social health programs for the poor and the old and the working poor (I am what would be considered working poor, and my parents are senior citizens), and I'm generally very pro-union. I have many diffrent views on diffrent subjects and am just.... Independent, I guess... unclassifiable. By some standards I'm liberal, by others I'm conservative.

Postby **EireWolf** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:39 pm

[quote="true_noir_chloe"]I could never be considered ultra-conservative or ultra-liberal. I'm pretty middle of the road]

:lol:

That's a good way of putting it... Yep, that kinda' describes me too.

I hate politics though. So, I guess I'm in the middle of the un-political road. :grin:

Postby **Bobtheduck** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 2:27 am

laissez-faire? Isn't that the "anything goes, let's just all relax and never put pressure on anyone" lifestyle? I dont' agree with that at all...

Noz said he was liberal but was Pro-life, anti-homosexuality in the church, and believes in the biblical standard of marriage... It may be different in the UK and in Canada, but in the US, when people call themselves "Democrats" they are almost always pro-choice and for a democrat looking for a presidential office to choose otherwise will mean a definite blackballing... They'll never get the nomination... There are probably pro-life democrat senators or representatives but it certainly can't go any higher than that.

I am sort of middle of the road, but strongly leaning towards conservative... I don't know enough about economical affairs for that to matter to me, and I think there are more important issues. The pro-life issue, for one. Also, I would like to avoid having my views on Homosexuality becoming a punishable offense, which I see happening in the future (well, to preach them anyhow) so I try to vote for people who believe in marriage between a man and a woman and that's it... Lately, though, both republicans and democrats have been starting to go on that issue, and CA has a republican governer that is both Pro-choice (but against partial birth abortion, thankfully) and pro-gay. He can't affect the issue of abortion (except maybe a state ban on the most gruesome of the abortion procedures) but he certainly can affect the other issue... If I would have voted (didn't have my ID at the time of the vote, I had lost it), it wouldn't have been for Arnold, but I would rather have him in than Davis... At least I think...

There are a lot of issues I'm more liberal on, though... They are somewhat minor compared to the issues I'm conservative on, which are the beforementioned as well as my stance on war and also on childrasing. So, I suppose I'm mostly on the conservative side, but I don't believe in following a groupd just because they've been the group that has had some things you beleived in... I don't always vote Republican... I always vote pro-life.

One party I'd NEVER vote for, because the beliefs of the party are more attatched to it than the other parties, is the Green Party... I believe in stewardship, but extreme environmentalists really irk me... Putting any animal or plant above or equal to humans is not right... Of course, I think that our biggest worry won't be from the dehumanizing of humans, but of the deification (not literally, ofcourse) of mankind... That's what we've gotta worry about...

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:59 am

I don't want to step on toes but I'm just going to share. I think you can't vote for a person on one or two issues. The idea of voting merely for the canidate that is pro-life doesn't really make sense to me. There is so much more to the canidate. I vote democratic, even if they are pro-life. I won't get into my views on homosexuality here. They differ highly from the views expressed by CAA, I don't want to make this nasty. I think you need to look overall. So I agree with everything the canidate says except for the pro-life issue. I vote for that canidate. Just my opinion anyway, not trying to be rude about it.

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:03 am

Cephas please don't lump liberals together like that. I dunno I just feel slightly offended by your post. I guess if you're going to discuss your political views maybe do it without being so outwardly negative.

Postby **Technomancer** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:21 am

Cephas wrote:And despite some of their 'moralistic' views, they don't really give a hoot about the way some people are brutally treated in other countries. They merely write it off as it being "part of their culture" and that outside intervention is "immoral." This may sound harsh, but their sappy moralism is what I call nihilism in my book.

I know a lot of people who work for "left-wing" causes, and this is simply wrong. Improving rights of free speech, the rights of women, social justice, etc are all important issues to them, at home and abroad.

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:39 am

Thanks Techno, I couldn't really get my feelings into words there.

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 8:03 am

I've considered voting Green. I like Nader in the last election.

Postby **Towi Wakka** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 8:40 am

I definitly get what you are saying. Be careful about posting like this though because a topic very similar to this that I made was considered too controversial and closed. I guess you could call me a moderate because I am pro-life but I like some aspects of both Republican and Democratic.

Postby **Twilly Spree** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:11 pm

I don't think we're being to controversial yet, we're all being good boys and girls.

Postby **Bobtheduck** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 9:32 pm

The pro-life issue is the first issue with me... Supporting the murder of unborn babies is something I could never do. That's why I will never vote for a pro-choice candidate... In addition to that, when they beat around the bush on the issue of that being a human being being killed when I doubt very many of them can truely be ignorant on the issue, that shows me they are that much more dishonest. That's 2 black marks... Of course, I have never recognized a successfull honest politician, but hearing their talk on the abortion issue does show me more dishonesty than would have been exposed otherwise.

Voting against a pro-choice candidate is of utmost importance to me.

EDIT: Sorry, speed thinking result in grammer and speileing erorrs.

Postby **Locke** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 10:09 pm

Power To The Left!!

^^::

Postby **Haibane Shadsie** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 10:55 pm

In the last state election, I voted for the Democratic candidate for governer. She won. I voted this way because of her stances on economics and education, and she was very pro-union. The Republican candidate seemed to not care about funding for education and rather anti-union/help for the old and the poor. These issues are dear to me because of my senior-citizen parents, the fact that I'm poor right now, and need things like state health (to afford my medication), and I have school-age nieces and nephews.

I didn't find out until after the election that she was pro-choice and possibly a lesbian. I felt kind of weird that I voted for her afterwards, but, at the time of the election, those were not huge issues. I figured (after damage done), that the pro-life/pro-choice thing probably didn't matter with this election (as much as the state economic issues), simply because... I don't think abortion is going to be made illegal in the near future. I don't think that if I knew for sure her stance on that particular issue ahead of time and voted for a pro-life candidate that it would have made any diffrence as far as that issue goes in our state or in the nation.

I think there is a lot of work to be done in chaning social attitudes toward it before it can be deemed "murder" in the legal sense again. This is sad, but true. I think that those of us who are vocal on these issues need to focus on things like the late term abortions, which are *obviously* the killings of babies, than on things like the "abortion pill" and early term stuff, where the definition of "human" is really ambigious. Personally, I don't believe that the abortion pill is right, but I think it's harder to convince the majority of people that an embryo is "human".

I have a friend I met on the Fanfiction Network... not a Christian... try to avoid debating this issue with her too much. She's pro-choice simply beause she thinks "there are too many humans in the world". With her, I don't think it's an issue that a fetus is human... she thinks there needs to be less humans, so, it's kind of a "so what if it's human?" thing with her... and I think this is sadly true with many other people in our society. I think there are ways besides abortion to reduce the number of humans in the world.. like.. with me.. simply not doing the thing which leads to reproduction... but I think I'm getting off topic.

Postby **Straylight** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 11:39 pm

I don't think there's too many humans in the world -- we've got plenty of space.

As far as voting goes, I like your approach[Shadsie].. prioritising political issues. In the UK there are three main parties - Labour (socialist/left wing) Conservative, and Liberal Democrat (sort of in the middle, nobody's really sure what they stand for, but they can come up with some interesting policies to get votes)

The Liberal Democrats in effort to get votes have produced a lot of very attractive promises to young UK voters, such as the abolition of tuition fees and a shift in drug law to legalise cannabis (similar to the system that they have in the Netherlands). They were also very anti-war during the whole Iraq thing.

The drug policy is the main thing that makes me feel very uneasy. I think that UK drug law is destined to become that of the Netherlands along with the rest of Europe, even under Labour or Conservative law. The Lib Dems are just trying to get popularity among the young by outlining radical drugs policy reforms that would completely legalise cannabis. What nobody really bothers to look at is that these laws would also effectively decriminalise harder drugs, which I think is insane.

Despite this though, I support the abolition of tuition fees because I'm a student and that has a direct effect on me. Both Labour and Conservative parties have no hope of abolishing tuition fees, and this is my number 1 political issue. As a result I would vote Lib Dem

There's a poor-quality glimpse into UK politics anyway. (I don't really do an awful lot of politics)

First, Ban all the Trolls. . . · Postby **MillyFan** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 2:28 am

LOL, I'm staying out of this one. Don't want to get :banned:

again.

Postby **uc pseudonym** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:15 am

Red Ninja wrote:I don't think we're being to controversial yet, we're all being good boys and girls.

It's more an issue of CAA not wanting to support political debates at all. This doesn't seem to be asking to be closed yet, though.

Meanwhile, a note for you Americans (especially those of you voting in the next election): the President is really quite weak in domestic affairs. Congress can pretty much run over him in the majority of cases. The President's true power lies in foreign policy. That's mostly what I vote on (though I'll admit I'm swayed by domestic policy).

Postby **Rashiir** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:12 am

I took one of those tests and I ended up with a 3 out of 10 on the liberal side...I'm strongly liberal in some ways and strongly republican in others...I suppose neither really fits me well...

As far as power in domestic affairs goes...I would really like to be a supreme court justice someday...

Postby **Technomancer** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:00 am

The political compass test isn't too bad, since it measures two different attitudes:
http://www.politicalcompass.org

Postby **The Grammarian** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:29 am

Red Ninja wrote:I noticed on a thread in the Anime section there were quite a few liberal minded people out there. I always like to find liberal Christians, it's not really all that common. Most people feel that since being liberal means pro-choice that I am not Christian. On the contrary, I am pro-life but I disagree with the rest of the conservative viewpoints. So who you pulling for in the next election? Why are you republican/democrat/green/etc?

Just throwing out some random political questions really. I love politics, love to talk about it.

Oh boy! My second favorite subject: politics. (My first being systematic theology.) I consider myself extremely conservative, and though I'm technically registered Independent, I have yet to find a Democrat that I felt was conservative enough for me to vote for them.

I'm hoping this isn't against any rules, but for those interested more in political debate and conservatism in general, http://www.freerepublic.com is a good place to start. A word about etiquette, though, it's frowned upon to register and start debating immediately. Take a few days and "lurk," just reading the various articles, first. At least if you're going to post anything liberal-leaning--they have a big problem with liberals trolling the site by registering, posting offensive articles, then vanishing. This rule tends to be overlooked, however, in the Religion forum on the site.

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