What are the conceptual values of liberalism?
Our nation was founded on Liberalism. Embodied in the Declaration of Independence are its three tenets: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The very term, itself, is taken from the same root as the second of these precepts. To be a Liberal is to defend the freedom – the Liberty – of all people who make up our great nation. To be a Liberal is to trust individuals and families to run their own lives as they see fit. To be a Liberal is to create a nation where anyone can excel if they are willing to do the work. There is a lovely little essay on it here: http://www.elroy.net/politics/liberal.ht… Oh, and “big government” = big spending. Google “deficit by president” and hit “images” to learn the truth about big spenders.
The values of Liberalism is a lack of adherence to principles of traditional values. You should read Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the French Revolution”. Burke was a great (and really the first) conservative, he combined Christian Values and respect for tradition values with Adam Smih’s free-market ideas. He basically points out that Liberalism is based on abstract and untested reason, while conservatism is based on the collective expierience of a society. For example, American conservatives support the free-market because our culture has been prosperous because of it. Liberals want to make changes that were thought of in a class room, these changes have no historical basis. Really, Liberalism ignores the very nature of humans…
