Liberals and Conservatives

When I was young and much more naïve I thought of myself as an intellectual liberal (a description, not a label).
I didn’t really consider all the unintended baggage that would attend such a description. To my way of thinking while label-ignorant, an Intellectual Liberal was a thinking person who would consider the entire spectrum of possibilities before taking a position or making a stand.

A Conservative on the other hand was a person who wished to be thought of as a thinking person but who denied the existence of a spectrum having already decided what should be.

Labeling is easier than thinking and demonstrates an absence of rational thought. Just tell me what you THINK. Leave the labeling to the grocery store clerk.


        “If by a ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind,
         someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions,   
         someone who cares about the welfare of the people
        -their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights
         and their civil liberties
        -someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions
         that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal‘,
         then I'm proud to say I'm a ‘Liberal.’”

                                                                                    —John F. Kennedy
                                                                                                    Profiles in Courage