- Joined
- Jan 3, 2012
- Messages
- 14,773
- Reaction score
- 11,327
- Location
- NY
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
By definition, Conservatives favor the "make no law" approach to governing.
That the religious right is a part of the Republican Coalition does nothing to make central governmental control of a person's gentalia any less Liberal than does the assertion that Central Governmental control of anything is any less Liberal.
If you seek the limit of personal freedom in favor of the control of peoples' lives by a central authority, you are espousing liberalism.
This is ridiculous. Long, long ago, Republicans were socially libertarian enough to support women's rights and to see sexual behavior, birth control, and abortion as private matters that the government should have nothing to do with, but the composition of the Republican Party has completely changed since then. Republicans wanted to win so much that they sold their souls to the far right wing misogynistic, homophobic, religio-sexual busybody police. It started with blackmail by the Christian Coalition - only have anti-abortion presidential candidates and have a relevant plank in your national party platform and we'll deliver the votes, but if not, we're voting for a third party. Everything went downhill from there. There is still a wonderful organization called Pro-choice Republican Majority or something, and they still want to get their party back from these control freaks, but the truth is that most Republican social libertarians left the GOP and became independents. Liberalism today is the only national force for social libertarianism and individual constitutional rights in everything but your pocketbook.