What is a Conservative and what is a liberal?

Conservatives believe in small Government, which means the Government does not interferre with their daily lives and has little power over them.

Low taxes - the more money the Government typically has, the more it usually wastes, so let the people keep what they earn.

Right to bare arms - it's in the Constitution. An armed population is MUCH harder to control, if they are armed.

Thomas Jefferson:"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness- If you decide you want to work hard and earn a good living, you can do so. If you decide you don't want to work hard and be poor, you can do so.

Pro Life - A woman had the right to use birth control. If she gets pregnant from failure to use it, there is an innocent life that must be protected.

Pro Capital Punishment - If you commit a crime, you must be prepared to do the time.

What all these boil down to is your Personal Accountability........freedom to do what you want, but also be prepared for the consequences of your actions.

That is a darn good question. The concepts certainly have changed over the years. There is a concept of a "classical" liberal or conservative, which bear no relation to modern "neo" liberals or conservatives.

And of course, today each side loves to stereotype and charicature the other side. E.g., those on the left will rant about "conservatives" being rich, greedy, racist, religious, war-like, blah blah, while those on the right will rant about "liberals" being mamby-pamby, wimps, gay, addicted to big government and taxes, etc. The problem these days is that the labels "conservative" and "liberal" have lost real meaning and have instead become simply convenient labels that each side uses to rip the other. It's been my experience that most people don't neatly fit either label.

Thomas Jefferson was a "classic" liberal - he was not in favor of an overly powerful federal government and was a strong proponent of broad individual liberties - which actually is where the word "liberal" comes from - it shares the latin root for liberty.

Wikipedia has some good discussion of the concept of liberalism at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.

Classic conservatism is a philosophy of "conserving" the status quo ante - keeping things the way they were, rather than making drastic social/political changes.

Gross oversimplifications, but unfortunately, that's all that most people have the attention span for these days.

Again, Wikipedia has some pretty good discussion of this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservativism.

There is a political spectrum, which goes from left to right. All of us are on that spectrum somewhere in terms of what we believe about economic and social issues. Conservatives are to the right (more traditional), liberals are to the left (more progressive). Today's issues are many, so someone can be on the left socially (i.e. someone many believe in gay marriages) but on the right economically (i.e. that same person doesn't believe increased public spending is the right way to help the economy). It's complicated, but you can visualize both terms and they work.

Senator Joe McCarthy was a conservative and Senator Ted Kennedy is a liberal. Just examine the differences.

A conservative, conserves things ... like thanksgiving left overs. They carefully conserve the extra gravy in a Tupperware bowl (made in china) then they conserve the turkey with aluminum foil (made in china) Every aspect of a conservatives life involves conserving.

Liberals on the other hand simply following the teaching of Christ (the father of liberalism) as he presented in his Sermon on the Mount

Conservatives represent the interests of the very rich, though they may not be very rich themselves. Liberals believe in the great freedoms.

Conservatives are pragmatists. Liberals are idealists.

Action speaks louder than words and it defines what they are. You can interpret however you like.

Reps kill foreign babies

Libs kill domestic babies

Both of them tell each other to stop killing babies, but Reps hide behind religion to justify their actions.

I couldnt examplify enough to tell you, but I know were screwed either way.