Conservative and Liberal, two words that should be used much much less.

There are many things I find unhelpful in American political discourse. At the top of this list: the rampant overuse of two labels that are so ambiguous, it hurts my head when I think about. This is a very long post, it is something that has been on my mind for a long time, and I hope you agree with me and a will be willing to act.

First off, some definitions:

• Conservative - Holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautions about change or innovation.
• Liberal - Open to new behavior or opinions and will to discard traditional values.

So if I am a "liberal", that means, on any given issue, odds are, I would support "change for the better" and if I am a conservative I would usually want to "leaving well enough alone".

These are straight forward an sensible definitions. However I will bet, based all political discussion in the media, on the interwebs, or my own friends and family, if I hear those two words said, the speaker has a much different definitions in mind. I am sure, if Americans adults were asked to define what it meant to be a liberal or a conservative volumes could be filled the different definitions. However one trend would, doubtless, emerge:

• Conservative ≈ Republican
• Liberal ≈ Democrat

Why we do this? We take perfectly good words with clear definitions and then twist them to sort to mean things we already have perfectly good words for already, but now we can be even less definitive then the already massively huge tents that are the major political parties..

Here is my understanding of why these words came to this sorry state. First off, English politics, in the UK there are political parties that are actually named Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats. So if I were in England it would make sense to call my self a "Liberal" if I supported the Liberal Democrats, maybe a little ambiguous, but given the context most people would know if I was referring to the political party.

The second reason for the slide of these words into ambiguity is that someone, (possible Rush Limbaugh) decided to make a list of the major issues and determined what positions represented traditional American values and which ones did not. That way you could run down a score card and decided just how liberal or conservative someone is. Then we get to make everyones decisions easier by labeling people.

This second (and primary) reason represents flawed thinking and resulted in a semantic disaster. There are so many examples of this, I do not know where best to start, so I'm just going to list a bunch and, hopefully the idea will come through.

1. Take abortion, my parents consider supporting legal abortion a liberal thing to do. I do not, abortion has been the law of the land my entire life. Not only that, but according to polls most Americans think abortion should be legal. I think if something is widely supported and the law of the land for 35 years (older than me) qualifies it as a traditional American value.
   
2. Slavery, I would say being anti slavery is a pretty conservative view point. However if you go back 150 years, that would have not been the case. So, American is about 230 years old, slavery was abolished about 145 years ago, so we have had more years with out slavery than with it making it a more conservative view. However it was an integral part of our founding (not to mention thousands of years of human history) so maybe it is more of a liberal view.
3. Federal Income tax, it is hard for me to imagine America with out a federal income tax, taxing our income strikes me a solidly conservative. However income tax in a America is a relatively new thing, but old enough that just about everyone alive today has lived with Federal income tax their entire lives. Getting rid of it sounds "crazy liberal" to me. However "conservative" politicians seem to be all over the ideas to get rid of the IRS and replace it with the "Flat tax" or the "Fair Tax".
   

I could go on, and on and on. Whether or not something in a traditional American value is not an easy thing to pin down and will very dramatically from person to person depending on when they were born, where they were born and many other factors. The point is, the definition of these words is so they should should not ever be used. There is no point to using them. Well, I take that back, for some, there is a use for these words, a subtly evil and dangerous use. This is where I get really riled up.

The primary "definition" of these words is obviously not to give us a clear understanding of someone political views. So why does not a day of news go by with outs countless reference to "liberal" and "conservative"? Why on earth would anyone want to associate others and be associated with something that is essentially, meaningless. It is not treated as meaningless either. I have heard about many elections that were won and lost based on how much of a liberal or conservative light a canidate was cast in. If you are a politician does anything actually matter less then then the "conservative" or "liberal" label you get stuck with? Why does something so nebulas, so ambiguous, so meaningless, seem to matter to much?

Well, there are probably a lot of reasons. However the primary reason, people are lazy. We want to vote, but we do not want to have to actually spend a lot of time looking into and thinking about the political views a politician supports. Public policy is complicated, very complicated, and we only have so much time on this earth, there are other things we want/need to do.

Defining a politician as "liberal" or "conservative" is an effective and easy method for getting enough people to win elections voting a particular way.

The ambiguity is the reason this technique works so well. If you are someone with a political agenda, maybe you are helping run an election, a politician, an editorial journalist, or anyone trying to convince people to vote a certain way, it does not matter what the politics are in your particular case, you are free to carefully choose whether you want someone to be considered a "liberal" or a "conservative" based on how many people you think will respond positively or negatively to those words. You do not need to give much regard to positions on any actual issues. Want to make everyone feel negatively about something or someone just prefix add the prefix "ultra", and bam, pure evil. You have achieved, what so many in politics seem to want more than anything, to "taking a stand", to "laying out your agenda", to "discussing the issues" and to "get out the base" with out having to say anything with any substance at all.

Here are some assumptions I would make if I had only heard about my "liberal" and "conservative" Minnesota's senators and applied my own definitions:

• "Ah, Amy Kloburcha, I hear she's as liberal as they get, I sure hope she gets that massive IRS overhaul though".
• "Oh, that conservative Norm Coleman, surly he voted against the supreme court justices Bush appointed, he would sure hate to see a massive change to our traditional American values like Row v. Wade being over turned".

Political parties are supposed to make the decisions easier for us. However we have primary elections, and if nothing else and one message rings loud and clear from those every election year. People in the same party sure disagree a lot. So how is a lazy voter to know who to vote for? "Conservative" and "Liberal" gives us a nice scale with "centrist" in the middle. This allows us to put anyone on the sliding scale, the more to the right they are, the more conservative, the more to the left they are, the more liberal. So nice, so easy. This scale is really tempting for anyone who likes doing things other than pay attention to politics. It seems to hit the sweet spot for just the right amount thinking.

Human laziness, coupled with inherent ambiguity associated with trying to associated "liberal" and "conservative" to particular opinions is what makes these terms so dangerous and so pointless.

Many discussions I have been apart of have turned to politics. The phrase, "Well, I consider my self a liberal" almost inevitable come up early. Most of the time I let it slide, because if I did not I would probably say something everyone else would find confusing like "What you mean by 'liberal'?". Their confusion would be understandable, because everyone else seems to use that label as if it's definition is a clear and obvious as the number 2.

Besides, usually  I do not want to discuss semantics, I want to talk about something real. However, if there's a third person, all to often they will chime in "oh well I'm a conservative". I try to change the subject as quickly as I can. If I fail to do so in time, the discussion often degrades to more ambiguous words and phrases being used, that doubtless (especially if the parties are from different ends of the political spectrum) would have very different definitions if the conversation is stopped to discuss semantics. I should point out here that I am as guilty as any of of throwing around words and phrases without thinking about how they could be defined differently by different people, but I'm trying to change my evil ways. I have found, that as I have improved, much more interesting, rich, and useful conversations ensue.

So in conclusion, there maybe times with the words "conservative" or "liberal" are just the right words to convey the meaning you intend. However, the odds are too high that person you are talking to is going to misunderstand you, even if you try to use the dictionary definitions. My advise to you is simple just do not use the words "liberal" and "conservative" any more.

Many years I was taught a game that I really should play more, it is a great game for long car trips or any occasion where there an opportunity for a long conversation. Basically every talks as they normally would with the following rules:

• If someone uses any meaningless "filler words" like "um", or "uh" they are punished.
• If someone the word "like", they are punished. (if you have to say something is like something else, you use the word "similar")

Naturally the punishment needs to chosen in advance, usually ridicule is enough of a punishment.

It is a great game, everyone starts sounding so much smarter. I, in particular use filler words and 'like' way too often. When I'm forced to avoid them, I have to think about what I'm going to say before I start talking (which is a good thing, in case you were wondering).

I would suggest playing this game during political discussions with the following additional rule:

• If anyone uses the words "liberal" or "conservative" they are published.

I think this would also result in more thinking before talking and I have never been in a political discussions that suffered from too much thinking and not enough talking. Don't ambiguate, disambiguate.

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