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In these forums you will find the extremes of both sides of the issue, it is what this type of venue lends itself to.

I have found that the extremes hate, it is that simple. The Extreme Conservatives hate the liberal point of view. The Extreme Liberals hate the conservative point of view.

But there is a middle ground.

Here is what being a liberal and a conservative are in a general sense. (trying to be as non combative as possible.)

Liberals beleive that every one needs help and that the government shoudl be the one to help them. This generally means raising taxes to fund programs that help the underpriveledged.

Conservatives think that yes people need help but that they should be the ones to choose how and what kind of help they get either through private charities or through religous organizations.

the Liberal point of view is taken that the corporation is evil and greedy.

The Conservative poitn of view is that Government is evil, and incompentent.

Liberals think the best way to raise funds is to increase taxes.

Republicans think that by lowering taxes you encourage the corporations to create more jobs, more jobs mean more people to be taxed, thus more funds.

There is some truth to both points of view. I tend to be more conservative, so that may show through in my answer. However, I can understand and see the point of view of the liberals and try to find a balance.

This is very difficult in this world of extremes, and that is what I am seeing in all of the presidential candidates, everyone at the extremes and no one in the middle to unite the country again.

Only time will tell who will be right.

First let me congratulate you on your achievements. Well done. What made this country great was all the people(not the government) working to make their lives better. More often than not the harder you worked and the more chances you took the more successful you were. And adding all these successes together improved the American way of life. Then in the 60's Lyndon Johnson began his "Great Society" program which included welfare and just plain handouts at taxpayers expense. Bobby Kennedy felt that welfare was a grave mistake because it would lead to a permanent underclass of people. He was correct.

So basically the difference in philosophies are simple. Conservatives believe that is the public that makes the government great and the liberals think the government makes the people great.

Congratulations on graduating. I'm a Conservative and nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing someone better themselves. It's wonderful to have a goal and work at it until you accomplish that goal. The problem I have with a lot of Liberals is that they have no goals in life other than for the Government to give something to them. Another problem I have with Liberals is, I feel like they are destroying the American Family and Family Values. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I'm a moderate so I couldn't tell you exactly.

In my opinion however, making everything plentiful and free would result in "human stagnation" and eventual destruction. Competition challenges us to become better people. Without competition, Soviet Russia for example, we stagnate and fail to produce.

Wanting to remove competition and challenges is something liberals tend to want to do and sociologically it would be a disaster.

You are actually farther ahead than most on these boards. You realize the limits of your knowledge and understanding and that makes you wise beyond your years.

My Uncle used to say that the only thing more dangerous than a man who does not know his limitations was the one who did not have any.

We can overcome limitations that we know we have.

We cannot overcome the limitations we are unaware of and eventually we are severely limited by them.

PS: Chi Guy is a perfect example of why I am a Moderate. Chi Guy is a Liberal and questions you are who you say you are. Some Conservatives do the same thing.

I just accept people for who they are. Some people have educated opinions and some people don't. The less educated the opinion, on either side, the less I appreciate it. When the opinion is pure propaganda based I have no respect for it. In my opinion, Conservatives often have less educated opinions and Liberals have more propaganda based opinions.

In my experience moderates tend to have open minded, educated opinions.

To answer the first part of your question, "if everything was plentiful and free", you seem to imply your classist hatred of capitalism (and of course the rich) vs. communism is what you want. Everything cannot be plentiful and free, everything is scarce. We live in a world of scarce resources. Capitalism is merely the mode for efficient use of these scarce resources that have alternative uses. Capitalism is perhaps the single greatest philosophy in mans history. You not the govt determine how high you can go, invariably many will not use it and be left behind. Its no surprise that uneducated and lowly educated people tend to side with liberals. liberals dont think about long term consequences of short term actions. Look at welfare, it was initially designed as short term emergency assistance to families in financial need, instead liberals have opened it to the point where all you need to demonstrate is that you are poor and lazy and a govt paycheck will arrive the first of every month in your mailbox. I could write millions of pages on why liberal "solutions" are complete and utter failures.

You dont seem like you have an actual college degree, if you do...wow get a refund.

Because conservatives have to paint liberal ideology as extreme in order to make any kind of argument against the liberal beliefs that made the U.S. the great nation that it is. Conservatives need to equate anyone to the left of Reagan as socialists or communists, because taking a more moderate and realistic view of liberal beliefs would mean facing up to the lack of logic and reason in their own beliefs.

If you are so slow, how did you graduate college? The fact that you don't understand politics or taxes tells me you are a conservative trying to mock liberals. Liberals base their beliefs on knowledge, you should know that if you are truly a liberal.

Politics are vicious, girl. This topic and religion are the two greatest causes of wars in our history. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the fact that you admitted that you have a low GPA and don't understand politics. Most people on the internet have a tendency of exagerating their life accomplishments. I also respect the fact that you are taking the time and effort to utilize this forum to learn more.

In general, conservatives are alot meaner then I am. If you don't agree with them, they resort to name calling and declare you "unamerican". This is because most of them are older white people who grew up in a society where they had total control over everything (e.g. segregation). Since they are clearly less powerful now then they were in the '50's, they use harsh language and name calling to give them a false sense of power that they had in the past.

Liberals are far from always right (I consider myself a moderate). I disagree with them on many issues, especially the 9/11 conspiracy theorists and the ones that support partial birth abortion. However, they are usually younger and more racially diverse.

So the alternative is to vote for a guy who invented Romneycare yet hates Obamacare (that are an identical difficulty). a guy that became into professional-decision yet is now professional-existence. a guy that turn-flopped on each and every important difficulty: from gay marriage, to weapons, to international warming?

So, you're actually admitting that you're a dumba ss? That's weird!

Conservatives know from reality that communism, which is what you described in your question, doesn't work and usually causes more harm than good. We dislike liberal political views because they are often shrouded in a "happiness bubble," wherein everyone is friendly and nice and all the world's troubles can be solved by a big bear hug. No communist reference intended.

Well, I must admit, Chi guy that the "I am sort of mentally slow" comments along with actually having gone to college, kinda does sound fishy.

And you are still not funny, maybe some will not see your backhanded insult to liberals here , but I do.

"***The sad thing is that I'm 24 with a college degree & don't know or understand politics & taxes & stuff. I'm sort of mentally slow. My GPA upon graduation was pretty low."

Therein folks, this person betrays the intent of their question.