Conservatives and Liberals

It seems necessary to determine what a conservative and what a liberal are. Google will give you countless ways and means to explore this. As it is early on in this new blog, I will admit up front that I have not tried to validate the bias (or lack of bias) in any of the below referenced sites. I am sure that sooner or later there will be some level of bias in all of them. I did find that the views I am relaying did line up with my personal views fairly closely.

From www.student newsdaily.com I found the following descriptions...

CONSERVATIVES - believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals. Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems.

LIBERALS - believe in governmental action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all, and that it is the duty of the State to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Believe that people are basically good. Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people's problems.

I also saw an interesting 'related search' for a quiz. There are many, but I had to pick one.

http://typology.people-press.org/typology/

It appears that I am an Enterpriser. I can live with that. This early on I am not trying to draw lines in the sand, but create a starting point for debate. For the most part, we all want the same things. We want freedom, prosperity, opportunity, peace, love, etc. Many of us just differ in our opinions on how this can be best achieved.

I'll leave for now with another interesting link.

http://marksquotes.com/Founding-Fathers/

I encourage everyone to take some time to read some of the quotes from our founding fathers. It helps us all develop a better understanding of their ideals and what they had in mind for our country and form of government. I leave us with a few from Thomas Jefferson to ponder.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.
Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789

And finally...

Is it the Fourth?
Thomas Jefferson, evening July 3; Jefferson died the next morning, July 4, 1826

Tell me that he didn't love this country...