Okay, as a self proclaimed liberal, I'll give it a shot at being "fair and balanced". The modern liberal movement is much more interested in human rights and equality than the conservatives. Liberals are too scattered. They lack allegiance to authority figures. There is no cohesion. (these are not negatives unless you are up against people who are the complete opposite). The minute Obama came out (again) against gay marriage (which he did before he was elected) I had several friends say "I will never vote for him again!". I guess they didn't hear that part the first time around.
There are so many causes and every liberal believes theirs is the most important. We are not above chicken little tactics either. While, in many cases, the facts are on our side, we get too caught up in the emotionalism to make cogent arguments. Liberals are the people saying "stay out of my bedroom". Conservatives are saying "stay out of MY bedroom, BUT get into everyone else's and make sure they're not doing anything God wouldn't like". Modern liberals are scared of their own shadows. It's like they've been neutered. I sometimes think they feel guilty about not being God's chosen.
while there are plenty of Christians on the left, they don't own it. They don't shove it down everyone's throat or try to make laws to limit other's freedoms. Again, not negatives but when up against it, it wouldn't hurt to be less sheepish and accomodating. To Fundamentalist Christians, if you are not thanking god for every single thing in your life then you worship satan. If you try to show some equal footing on treating all religions the same, you are not to be trusted (there's that weird misunderstanding of the Constitution again).
One of my biggest problems with liberals is how wishy washy they are and how easy it is to sway them because, I suppose, of some idealized sense of fairness. They want to hear both sides, but when they are presented with nothing, they feel THEY are somehow missing the point - when, in fact, no point has been offered.
If you effectively demonize your opposition among a certain percentage of the population who doesn't care about facts - the opposition will lose among them every time, no matter what you say. This is something most high power liberals don't understand or refuse to accept. They think they can play nice and be conciliatory as if there could be some ultimate win. The fact is if you cannot penetrate the shell of those against you, being right or factual will get you absolutely nowhere. On the other hand, I have effectively disproven things that my conservative friends believe to be true. If it's one on one and face to face it is easier, however, even if what I say seems to have sunken in, they will still vote against me. They have an unshakable loyalty which might even be admirable, if they weren't wrong so much of the time.
I frankly don't see much hope with the status quo. I recently read a study that stated that even with evidence against what many conservatives believe, they will still cling to the original belief and even reinforce their stand.
The fact is these terms we are using mean different things than they used to. My father was a Republican all his life, up until the time that Ronald Reagan invited Jesus into the party. While Dad never claimed to be an atheist, he never went to church or adhered to any religion. Dad was always socially liberal I suppose, but keeping the government out of our personal lives was, I thought, always a conservative position. Now that only applies to them, not anyone their God would deem inappropriate.
Okay, I tried Iss, but seriously, the big problems started when God was drafted into the Republican party. Until he is no longer welcome in our secular Government, conservatives will remain laughable and dangerous. My friends that are conservative - but not religious - and I get along just fine. If conservatives were to suddenly, overnight decide that separation of Church and State was actually important and acknowledge that it is part of the founding documents of this Country they claim to love so much, many of our disagreements would become much more civil and reasonable. I would like to hear some conservative positions that do not have God or getting rich at the root. Something that didn't sound like "I got mine, you get yours". However, I'm not holding my breath, since without God and money firmly and irrevocably entrenched on their side, they don't seem to have nor want anything else beyond ultimate power and dominion over the rest of us - AND the liberal sharks who 'get theirs' while paying lip service to their constituents are certainly not going to help us either.
"You're gonna need a bigger boat"
