Thread: Define your lean

Most of you have selected a lean on your profiles. Now that you've selected it, will you please define what it means to you? Often we find ourselves pigeon-holed by other posters because they view our lean differently than we do. I know I, for one, changed my lean to "other" specifically for that reason. In an effort to understand my fellow posters better, I'd like to know what your lean means to you.

What does it mean to identify yourself as "liberl", "conservative", or any other available selection?

Originally Posted by tessaesque

Most of you have selected a lean on your profiles. Now that you've selected it, will you please define what it means to you? Often we find ourselves pigeon-holed by other posters because they view our lean differently than we do. I know I, for one, changed my lean to "other" specifically for that reason. In an effort to understand my fellow posters better, I'd like to know what your lean means to you.

What does it mean to identify yourself as "liberl", "conservative", or any other available selection?

moderate liberal. fiscally moderate, socially liberal. on a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being hard right, i am a 3.5.

i chose conservative,because the majority of my views are conservative.however i do have disagreements with some mainstream conservative ideology,and also im not a republican!!!!!!!!!!!

Commie Pinko.

Originally Posted by tessaesque

Most of you have selected a lean on your profiles. Now that you've selected it, will you please define what it means to you? Often we find ourselves pigeon-holed by other posters because they view our lean differently than we do. I know I, for one, changed my lean to "other" specifically for that reason. In an effort to understand my fellow posters better, I'd like to know what your lean means to you.

What does it mean to identify yourself as "liberl", "conservative", or any other available selection?

How interesting to see this post today. I just this morning when into my Control Panel and changed my lean from Undisclosed to Conservative. What "conservative" means to me is probably very different from what it connotes to others on this board.

I'm not a die-hard as evidenced by my support of Obamacare, Social Security and the myriad of public assistance programs. I am against employers' rights being infringed upon by much governmental regulation, yet fully understand the need for rules/regulations as I don't trust big business (nor small, for that matter) to act in good faith safety-wise and environmental-wise.

I'm against the government picking winners and losers...against the fraud that I believe our public assistance programs are fraught with...against full amnesty for illegal immigrants...I support a strong military, but not sending our men and women to fight in "faux" wars with a list of rules so complicated only a Philadelphia Lawyer can understand them...I am completely against public unions as I do not believe negotiations happen in good faith within them and the taxpayers' dime seems to be a bottomless pit against which unions can bargain. (As opposed to profit-making corporations that can either afford union demands or not depending on their individual condition.) I believe in term limits and campaign finance reform. Oh, and I support a woman's right to an abortion (though I'd much prefer we had a 3-month or 4-month window for them to occur). Double Oh. I think the Christian Right is NUTZ.

Whew! I feel much better now. Thanks for asking.

PS Edit: I changed my lean from Undisclosed to Conservative today because of Rush Limbaugh and the most partisan discussion I've yet to read on DP. ......Not that anyone who reads my post wouldn't have known my lean anyway.

independent
views are formed without respect to party or lean expectations
they are based on good sense and not in conformance with any political ideology

In my personal life, I'm conservative, but I tend to vote libertarian. I support small government and free markets, with very little government involvement in anything not laid out in the founding documents. I think the role of government is to uphold laws, and those laws should be primarily for the protection of individual rights and liberties of all free citizens.

I have actually been thinking about this a lot lately.

At first, I tagged myself as liberal. However, in further exploring that label, I realized that I am very much NOT in favor of enforced equality as it is impractical, unnecessary, and frankly immoral in many cases. Thinking about conservativism, I am certainly not socially conservative, while I am in certain ways fiscal conservative, (such as believing we should not fun a deficit in our spending and favor lowering spending when ends do not meet, also I am not big on high amounts of taxation because it impedes the market, which is a very necessary force for modern society and prosperity). I completely disagree with libertarians on a lot of issues and especially on the foundations of thinking about societal issues.

Lately, I have tagged myself as centrist due to the fact that I swing both liberal and conservative, depending on the issue. However, I do not feel that the public and private sector are necessarily in conflict with each other, but in fact both sectors need each other. So I don't think that is an appropriate tag for me either.

Right now, I think probably the closest label is progressive (which is not the same as liberal for those one dimensional political thinkers we have on this site). In combining my various views, there is one theme that comes up over and over. The betterment of mankind. I am for the future. I am for using whatever has been shown to work for that cause without regard to their philosophical foundations, just as tools. I wish to see the free market and government improve people's lives, health, standard of living, happiness, what have you. I wish to see more and more opportunity for people as we allow science to push away our previously natural boundaries to make mankind better by use of its tools, whether they are a hammer, economic theory, regulation, what not. I want to see people truly set free from what nature has given them to be more as time goes on. To what end? I have no idea, but I do know this. We have had less war, less strife, less starvation, and generally fewer problems in modern countries. Even today's problems in Europe, the US, or even China, these problems are BETTER then the day to day existence of life a few generations ago. I believe this is a result of all of those factors I mentioned from science and engineering to better policy, to plain old hard work. I am for more of THAT.

I originally self-labeled as Libertarian, because I have a strong vested interest in personal liberty, and prefer small government as much as is feasible.

At lot of what passes for libertarian these days is mighty extreme, though, and much of it just impractical and politically unfeasible. I needed a new lean.

I am quite conservative in my personal life but largely disinclined to poke my nose into others' business; I am fiscally rather conservative but recognize the need for progressive taxation and some form of safety net, as well as some intervention in the "free" market by gov't to protect the individual from the corporation.

For the most part I do not favor rapid or extreme change, especially based on untested ideas, but careful progress towards improvment with due compassion for the little people that might get steamrollered in the rush to push an ideology. I have a wide streak of pragmatism but also certain principles that I hold to like life itself.

I chose "independent" because I do not fit well under any label, really. The next-closest thing would be a center-right Centrist with a few "flyer" positions.

Originally Posted by Goshin

I originally self-labeled as Libertarian, because I have a strong vested interest in personal liberty, and prefer small government as much as is feasible.

At lot of what passes for libertarian these days is mighty extreme, though, and much of it just impractical and politically unfeasible. I needed a new lean.

I am quite conservative in my personal life but largely disinclined to poke my nose into others' business; I am fiscally rather conservative but recognize the need for progressive taxation and some form of safety net, as well as some intervention in the "free" market by gov't to protect the individual from the corporation.

For the most part I do not favor rapid or extreme change, especially based on untested ideas, but careful progress towards improvment with due compassion for the little people that might get steamrollered in the rush to push an ideology. I have a wide streak of pragmatism but also certain principles that I hold to like life itself.

I chose "independent" because I do not fit well under any label, really. The next-closest thing would be a center-right Centrist with a few "flyer" positions.

I think what I find striking Goshin, it sounds like we are not too different, except I don't care how fast the change is, as long as it ends up working.