Liberal? Conservative? Don't care?

[Revert TSIEG]

How would you classify yourself and why?

I tell people I have liberal political views and conservative moral views.

The reason that I have these views is that I believe people need to be accountable for themselves. Mainly, if the government tells us what we can and can't do, we would not be able to use the free will God has given us. Now laws are laws, but I know what is right, and what is wrong... who is to say that I should impose my beliefs on someone else.

Now I say that I am Conservative on my moral views, because I believe in the traditional family. I think that if a person is a homosexual, they should not live in sin, just as any unmarried couple. I believe that marriage is for a man and a woman. I pray for those who are not under God's grace.

By no means do these two small paragraphs encompass everything I believe, but this is just a starting point.

The post is not to attack or refute anyone's opinion, but just a survey to see why people believe what they do. Honestly I do not like any label except the label of being Catholic!

God Bless

-Revert TSIEG

[Dale_M]

Originally Posted by Revert TSIEG

Honestly I do not like any label except the label of being Catholic!

I agree with your attitude about political labels. I suppose they are useful shorthand, but can be misleading and even distracting. I care less about broad labels such as conservative and liberal than I do about specific issues.

[Revert TSIEG]

Originally Posted by Dale_M

I agree with your attitude about political labels. I suppose they are useful shorthand, but can be misleading and even distracting. I care less about broad labels such as conservative and liberal than I do about specific issues.

Yep... Labels are not they way I like to go, but it seems like a fairly accurate way to assess a person, but as you said... I care more about the specific issues not the label!


Revert TSIEG

[fix]

Originally Posted by Revert TSIEG

How would you classify yourself and why?

I tell people I have liberal political views and conservative moral views.

The reason that I have these views is that I believe people need to be accountable for themselves. Mainly, if the government tells us what we can and can't do, we would not be able to use the free will God has given us. Now laws are laws, but I know what is right, and what is wrong... who is to say that I should impose my beliefs on someone else.

Now I say that I am Conservative on my moral views, because I believe in the traditional family. I think that if a person is a homosexual, they should not live in sin, just as any unmarried couple. I believe that marriage is for a man and a woman. I pray for those who are not under God's grace.

By no means do these two small paragraphs encompass everything I believe, but this is just a starting point.

The post is not to attack or refute anyone's opinion, but just a survey to see why people believe what they do. Honestly I do not like any label except the label of being Catholic!

God Bless

-Revert TSIEG

For one thing the law is a teacher. If the law teaches it is acceptable to kill that hurts others.

[rlg94086]

Originally Posted by Revert TSIEG

Yep... Labels are not they way I like to go, but it seems like a fairly accurate way to assess a person, but as you said... I care more about the specific issues not the label!


Revert TSIEG

I understand what your saying. I don't like labels either, but if someone asks me if I'm liberal or conservative, I don't want to get into a long dissertation about labels and end up looking like a pompous jerk. I just say "fairly conservative" and maybe add "I'm a faithful Catholic, so my views pretty much line up with the Church."

EDIT ADD: Another good response is "depends on the issue." As a salesman, I find that fairly useful.

[Polaris]

Im fiscially conservative, with a love of the idea of the small government, but Im a weird mix of liberal and conservative morals. Im pro-life (conservative), anti-war (liberal), anti-slavery, pro-equality, pacifism is the ideal (liberal), fair and open trade, profamily (liberal and conservative ideas really mixed, my definition of a family is larger but I hold to high standards, as in I do not believe in or support an easy divorce) I do not support promiscuity (conservative) proeducation(liberal) in an environmentally friendly wrapper (liberal). Another words when I voted for McCain a small part of me died, but less than if I had voted for Obama given the evidence. Though I like what Obama is doing in the Middle east, he has not pushed FOCA, I like what he is trying to do with Guatanamo, but I stongly disagree with the bailout. He is pretty smart, more so than I thought. So I might change my idea of him, which is they way I work you present me evidence and I will try to make the best decision. I do not follow blindly, which is why I make a bad catholic, but I can accept that because God knows Im trying my best with the info at hand.

So I say Im middle of the road.

[rlg94086]

Originally Posted by Polaris

I do not follow blindly, which is why I make a bad catholic, but I can accept that because God knows Im trying my best with the info at hand.

"Good" Catholics don't "follow blindly." You tend to post that a lot which is very insulting to other Catholics. I follow Church teaching as best as I can and accept Church teaching, even when I don't understand yet and/or disagree. Obedience is not blind, though it is supposed to be humble.

[Polaris]

Originally Posted by rlg94086

"Good" Catholics don't "follow blindly." You tend to post that a lot which is very insulting to other Catholics. I follow Church teaching as best as I can and accept Church teaching, even when I don't understand yet and/or disagree. Obedience is not blind, though it is supposed to be humble.

Why is it insulting if the church told me to kill someone, I would not, you would. It has happened in the past,so you can not deny it just look at Ustashia, why do you think the serbs hate the chuurch so much. The Church is perfect, the church which you follow is not.

[rlg94086]

Originally Posted by Polaris

Why is it insulting if the church told me to kill someone, I would not, you would. It has happened in the past,so you can not deny it just look at Ustashia, why do you think the serbs hate the chuurch so much. The Church is perfect, the church which you follow is not.

I don't wish to take the thread further off track by responding to your flawed understanding of Church teaching and obedience, but I will say that I would not kill an innocent person if a member of the Church told me to. Once again, you have made a statement about what I would do or what I think which is off-the-mark.

Btw...which Catholic Church do you follow?

[rlg94086]

Revert TSIEG,

Sorry for taking your thread off-topic. We can get back to politics.

[Robert Bay]

GENERAL REMINDER

Please stay on the topic of the original post

[thereseozi]

Fr. Benedict Groeschel said on his television show last Sunday that he is neither conservative or liberal but orthodox/traditional. He said conservative means staying the same, as things are now, and he wasn't for that.

[rlg94086]

Yes...that is the problem with labels. The meanings of conservative and liberal (and even socialist as my wascally wabbit friend from Europe likes to point out) are not static. In fact, yesterday's Liberal, is today's Conservative...which I guess means they were for change and now they want it to stay the same.

Anyway, I still prefer "fairly conservative" or "depends on the topic" as it avoids pigeon-holing and long arguments about affiliations. Generally, people in the US go with the current usage of the words in US politics, so getting into semantics gets boring.

[universalist]

I label myself as an "Independant" depends on the issue i,m talking about, abortion= AGAINST IT, death penalty=AGAINST IT, warmongering=AGAINST IT, free health care=FOR IT,THINK ITS A HUMAN RIGHT, anti smoking laws= AGAINST IT,UP TO THE OWNER OF BAR OR RESTAURANT, violence=AGAINST IT, self defence= FOR IT I can,t stand labels or generalizations about folks,lots of folks are more nuanced than the tired old right wing,left wing,conservative,liberal,fascist,commun ist BS that gets thrown around in the media ad nauseam. as George Carlin used to say;I like to do this really crazy thing called "THINK FOR MYSELF" amen

[dixieagle]

Catholic moral and social teaching, all the way. That would sometimes be classified as "conservative", sometimes "liberal" according to current political labels, I guess.