i ask this question in all seriousness...not to bash. i really want to know the answer

[wilheim]

Truthteller, actually if you read my entire post you would have noticed I said:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>somehow that belief puts me on the liberal side of many issues. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The key words are "many issues". You seem to be implying that I maintain a liberal, or left wing agenda on all issues, untrue. I happen to have strong feelings about abortion, but quite frankly don't feel this is the appropriate place to discuss the issue. All I will say is that abortion, pro or con, is an issue I have always wrestled with.



wil.

 

[barman]

D2Bets pretty much summed up the best reasons to back liberal causes.

I first voted for President in 1980 and voted Reagan twice and then Bush. It was during this time that I became exposed to a driving force behind 'conservative' Republicanism and that is the Religous Right.

The RR is the only significant voting bloc in the U.S. that spends inordinate amounts of time seeking to pass laws which are quite often unconstitutional. This ties up huge amounts of both legislative and then subsequent time in judicial review.

The majority of cases overturned by the SCOTUS are those related to some kind of law and/or regulation that had its basis in some kind of religous belief. This is highlighted by the fact that the SCOTUS for all of my adult lifetime (I'm 44) has been driven by judges appointed by Reagan or Bush. And even these 'conservative' jurists routinely have to knock down unconstitutional laws which were put into place by so called 'conservative' lawmakers in response to the RR constituency.

Finally, I'm one who does not have the knee-jerk belief that a government program or agency is automatically 'bad' or always less preferable to a similar effort done privately.

I'm pleased about a lot of our goverment programs and agencies, thank you very much. I have friends, neighbors and family that either work for a government job or have done so in the past.

There's more than a few ideas commonly labeled 'liberal' that I might not agree with.
But my chances of finding open minds is usually greater within a liberal crowd than with a conservative crowd. It's those pesky Absolutes that keep the conservative all flapped up and off balance when they are forced to come face to face with life situations where such linear thinking does not best apply.