liberal? conservative?

[stonefly]

I don't know much about international politics (or domestic). Does "Liberal" and "Conservative" mean the same thing in the UK, Canada, etc? Is it a name for a certain political group (party)? A description of the group's moral values/opinions/stance? A description of the group's stance on size or amount of government?

stonefly Reviewed by stonefly on 04-26-2005. liberal? conservative? Hey hey sup all. ok a lil thread bout politics. but ill make it short. yea i mean america is pretty divided like whos the best blah blah blah. so first i just think both liberal and conservative suck hard. no i mean why being in one side? politicians are fuckin corrupted cocks anyway so i just dont get it. and u guys may have noticed it, but yea i hate governement, and especially Bush. The point is: Bush will make the America fall. dunno if u guys saw the debt of the USA, but thats Rating: 5

[NowhereMan]

there is a polotics board,
plenty of discussions there about Mr bush ,torog and ect ect.

[ermitonto]

I don't know much about international politics (or domestic). Does "Liberal" and "Conservative" mean the same thing in the UK, Canada, etc? Is it a name for a certain political group (party)? A description of the group's moral values/opinions/stance? A description of the group's stance on size or amount of government?

No, not in America. In America, a "liberal" is a Democrat, and a "conservative" is a Republican. Individual points on their agenda may differ sometimes but they don't really have any fundamental ideological differences. Sort of like in 1984, when the three governments of the world operated under the same ideology with different names and fiercely hated each other, just not as oppressively totalitarian yet.

But in layman's conversation, the terms are a bit different because most Americans like to see politics in black and white (hence the two-party model). If somebody calls you a liberal, they probably mean it as an insult, roughly equivalent to "you little pansy tree-hugging Christianity-hating pinko commie" and if you're called a conservative, that's pretty much shorthand for "you evil Bible-thumping, brown-people-bombing fascist Nazi".