Politics, part 2 - Those damn liberals

I don't know much about politics. I do know that people are passionate about them. It's like sports. You support your team and defend it against all others. Even when they suck and you have no basis for it. You make shit up so that your team doesn't sound like they suck. "Well, as soon as Schilling gets back we'll have better pitching." and "Wade Phillips looks like a grandpa but he's a defensive genius." People who follow politics usually support the party their parents did, and their parents, and so on. Defend the party against all others. Even when we have no idea what they believe. It's the American way.

Since I decided to start caring about politics, I thought I'd figure out what some things mean. Seemed like an easy thing to start with. So I want to know 4 things.

1. What's a liberal or better yet, what's liberalism?
2. What's a conservative or what's conservatism?
3. What's a Democrat?
4. What's a Republican?

I plan on figuring that out and writing about it in a simple way that even Wade Phillips could follow.

Liberalism

Best I've learned, liberalism is 3 things. That's it. Well, really 4 things, but the 4th thing (and most accurate) is "Whatever I don't agree with". I'll leave #4 alone and focus on the 3 items that make up real liberalism. Feel free to use #4 whenever you don't have anything to support what you're talking about. Saying, "It's really because of the damn liberals in the White House" is always a good thing to say to the JesusGodFlag crowd. They'll usually agree with you, no matter what you said previously.

Here are the the tenets of liberalism:

1. Individualism - A liberal political system believes that its purpose is to secure some good for individuals. Liberals believe that individuals have desires and wants that existed before political systems, and the purpose of political systems is to attain these goods for individuals. These rights typically include education, healthcare, housing, and employment. The more liberal a political systems is, the more "rights" it believes the government should provide to individuals.
2. Equality - A liberal political system also believes that all citizens should be treated equally by the government. The purpose of the political system is to make sure everyone is treated equally. Laws against discrimination, equal employment, and equal access to the same rights and privileges for all citizens would be supported by a liberal political system.
3. Freedom - The liberal system should take an active role in promoting the freedom of citizens. They believe that real freedom can exist only when citizens are healthy, educated, and free from dire poverty.

So there you have it. As simple as I can put it. The argument against liberalism is that it takes money to provide all these rights to people (i.e. higher taxes). Liberals would say in return, "if not us, than who? Who is going to take care of the poor, uneducated, unemployed, etc. etc."

Maybe the church should do it. Just saying...

Thanks to Wikipedia and The Intellectual Devotional for the info.