NN, without Google or otherwise, how do you personally define the terms Liberalism and Conservatism?

Weirdly enough I agree with most of your points, though some parts I don't completely understand. Liberals are more in the pocket of big banking (but liberals wanted Dodd-Frank, conservatives did away with it)? In the US, hate speech is a protected civil right (up until you make death threats or something) & liberals themselves don't want that gone. Don't college students have the right to 'safe spaces' in private establishments, or a private reservation of a public space, anyway? Sometimes on my campus, there's 'safe spaces' for support groups like rape victims, kids who come from troubled backgrounds, or people with depression/other disorders. This isn't even legally enforced, it's just an announcement to ask people to not be insensitive, legally you could still barge right in and yell things and be a dick. Right-wing media has spun this into some sort of freedom of speech thing, which I never really understood.

For instance, you said social conservatism is counter to what the party (I assume Republican) embodies? Even though the Republican party, Democrat party, Federalist, Green party whatever have you, are just vehicles that court liberal or conservative voters to remain in power... changing their values whenever necessary, for the past century, the Republicans have been pretty socially conservative, no? Voter suppression, LGBT rights, civil rights in the South, etc.?

I suppose you identify as a libertarian (economically conservative/socially liberal), but I don't see how libertarianism can be reconciled with Trump's policies?

Socially liberal: * LGBT rights - despite "I love the LGBT", banned transgender people from serving, allow them to be persecuted at their workplace, keep them from going to bathrooms of their choice in public places * Abortion - not much noise here * Voter suppression - insisted he won the popular vote (because every single illegal voted for Clinton), wants everyone to put their details into a federal database? * Xenophobia - So much BS here... Build the border wall and tell Mexico to pay for it. A travel ban on Muslims (not even allowing refugees and translators and people who had to go through 10+ years of screenings.) * Freedom of speech - basically called the free press the Lugenpresse whenever it's critical of him. His Twitter is just journalist bashing at this point. * Marijuana - a basically safe drug on par with drinking alcohol. Put in AG Jeff Sessions who's staunchly against legalization * Net neutrality - loved by everyone, liberal & conservative, except a few Republicans in power. Trump chose to put in Ajit Pai, that total and complete piece of shit * Environmental issues - extreme climate change denier, says it's all made up by China, didn't sign the Paris Climate Accord to promise to keep temperature increase <2degC (we're one of what? 2 or 3 countries in the whole world who didn't sign?)

Economically conservative * Big banking - staffed the department with Goldman Sachs execs who did away with banking protections Obama put in after the recession. I guess he's being libertarian here? * Free trade - Trump advocates for extreme trade protectionism. Tariffs on foreign imports, subsidizing for Carrier to stay here (which ultimately laid off workers anyway.) He basically looks at the news about some company leaving and then offers tax incentives based on that, he even bashed foreign companies like Toyota for not having only American plants. Didn't follow through w/ the TPP (depending on your point of view, good or bad thing) * Healthcare - kept promising "everyone's going to have great beautiful health insurance" and implied universal health care. But we all know he'll sign whatever law that Republicans are shilling in Congress, as long as it doesn't tank his approval rating.

Trump was basically a Democrat a decade ago, while running he made all sorts of weird "leftist" promises - universal healthcare and trade protectionism instead of free trade - and coupled that with some weird xenophobic bullshit (build the border wall, keep out refugees) and then layered on some climate denial crap. He might of said a lot of things during his campaign, but it seems like he's done almost the complete opposite of libertarianism. I personally was libertarian until recently (just worried about the trend of automation stealing jobs & needing some sort of UBI in the future) and I don't see how Trump embodies those ideas at all.

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