helene_t, on Nov 8 2008, 03:38 PM, said:
As for the semantics, it is very confusing to me that in the US, being "liberal" means that one is actually anti-liberal on lots of issues (pollution, trade, gun ownership). I am used to using the word "liberal" on specific issues. True, we have "liberal" parties over here, also, but they are quite marginal in most countries. Left-wingers are sometimes called socialists and right-wingers are sometimes called conservatives or christian democrats but those terms are rarely used except when one has a specific party in mind. "Liberal" parties, to the extent that they exist, tend to vote with the right more often than with the left.
I tend to vote for "liberal" parties which I consider to be liberal (i.e. anti-regulation) on most issues, but maybe that's just my biased perception.
in that case helene, it sounds opposite of here... here, liberals are associated with governmental control, especially central gov't control... they've usually never met a regulation they don't like and prefer to leave choices in the hands of gov't rather than the people (who they don't think are smart enough to choose for themselves)
take this prop 8 vote in california... liberals would tend to want to take the choice out of the state's voters' hands totally (same for abortion or any number of things)... they'd want the control of such things to be national... now it's true that some conservatives want the same thing on some subjects (pornography, etc), but insofar as either wants the fed gov't to control the issues, that would be a liberal position
in general, in this country republicans want (or used to want - there aren't many republicans left that i can see) more local control while democrats want more centralized control
"Paul Krugman is a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like." Newt Gingrich (paraphrased)