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[EuchreJack]

Another odd LCS design choice. Liberals seem to be against genetic research. But isn't stem cell research, a form of genetic research, something Liberals love?

It's more that Stem Cell Research is something Conservatives hate, so supporters are thrust into the Liberal Catagory.  One of the sources of Stem Cells is aborted fetuses, thus narrow-minded people would have you think that to support Stem Cell Research is to support Abortion.  In fact, there are other sources of Stem Cells.

[Servant Corps]

Another odd LCS design choice. Liberals seem to be against genetic research. But isn't stem cell research, a form of genetic research, something Liberals love?

It's more that Stem Cell Research is something Conservatives hate, so supporters are thrust into the Liberal Catagory.  One of the sources of Stem Cells is aborted fetuses, thus narrow-minded people would have you think that to support Stem Cell Research is to support Abortion.  In fact, there are other sources of Stem Cells.

Okay, then. Maybe to rephrase.

"EMBYRONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH." The stem cells from embryos, aborted, discarded from IVF, etc. They are against it becuase getting the stem cells destroys the embryo.

And to be fair, those people are in fact campaginig for other sources of 'stem cells' that comes from embyros but do not at all hurt the embyros. I highly doubt that will stop embyroic stem cell research, but it would help those having health problems, wanting to use the holy power of stem cells, but wanting to ensure that the stem cells that are being used are not at all harvested from embyros.

[Yanlin]

Sheesh. I have so much wisdom I should be an arch con by now. How the hell am I still liberal?

Again. From my research, genetically engineered food can be pulled off properly. In fact, it's a natural advancement in farming technology. First we got organized. Then we started timing the farming. Then we started doing it as a team. Then we got better tools. Then we got more fields. Then we got better security. Then we got pesticides. Then we got accelerants.

In case you people don't know, about 80% of all the food you eat is genetically engineer is some minor form. In fact, there isn't a species of farmable plant that hasn't been genetically engineered. Corn is a good example. Before genetically engineered corn, corn was expensive and yielded less. Modern engineered corn is cheaper and healthier.

See, people love to fixate on all the bad crap the genetic engineering can cause. But it can cause so much good. A good example is "Internet Neutrality" Look into that. If we can maintain "Genetic Neutrality", we can have good positive advancement. We can't let corporations take over it for quick bucks. We must let expensive labs research the stuff until we have good ways to pull it off. I personally support genetic engineering. It's scientific advancement. It can lead to so many good things. If the bad is avoided and... What's the word? Blocked? Something like that. I forgot. What I'm trying to say is, if we allow it to be taken over by corporations interested only in profit, we lose. But that would happen with any technology. Genetic engineering is bound to develop into great stuff. Curing cancer and such is always fun. Having clean food. The way the pesticide damages plants is getting down to the cellular level. It kills the plants. It poisons the food. We can vaccinate them against it with genetic engineering. Make the vaccine IN THEIR GENES. We can spray them as much as we like and after a quick wash, just as good as organic vegetables. Mind you, this is an oversimplification for the common folk. All food we eat today is cleaned anyway. If the pesticide threat is removed, we get healthier food. But corporations are seeking to exploit it. Make the food cheap to grow. Don't care about the health risks as long as people are willing to not care.



This discussion has just created a good suggestion. How about intelligence being able to negate the penalty for high wisdom? Say you got high intelligence and high wisdom. You're able to take the shit the conservatives spew and think about it! Then realize it makes no sense. It would make sense if you didn't have intelligence. With intelligence, you score an edge on them. You can even counter debate them! Prove to them that their view is narrow minded and wrong!

With this, wisdom should grant bonuses. With wisdom, you are able to reason properly. To think properly. But without intelligence, wisdom is NOTHING.

[Aqizzar]

This discussion has just created a good suggestion. How about intelligence being able to negate the penalty for high wisdom? Say you got high intelligence and high wisdom. You're able to take the shit the conservatives spew and think about it! Then realize it makes no sense. It would make sense if you didn't have intelligence. With intelligence, you score an edge on them. You can even counter debate them! Prove to them that their view is narrow minded and wrong!

With this, wisdom should grant bonuses. With wisdom, you are able to reason properly. To think properly. But without intelligence, wisdom is NOTHING.

I think it'd be cool to have mental powerhouses by way of high intelligence and wisdom, but there's too many obvious counter examples for it to flatly be intelligence>>wisdom, like the Cato Institute, William F. Buckley, or Colin Powell.

Maybe with high enough of both, you can knock off heat when you grab a television camera or something.  There's got to be ways to use both at once to good effect for the LCS.

[EuchreJack]

It seems, for the wackos of the Liberal Crime Squad, Wisdom is bad, just because it's conservative.  Currently, gaining wisdom is a penalty you get for certain risky tasks.  Those tasks suddenly don't become scary if wisdom is a good thing.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I believe Wisdom is not a great threat to you as long as you have sufficient Heart to keep you strong. Intelligence itself is insufficient to counteract Wisdom; at some point you just become a Conservative intellectual. But Heart, that can enable you to get high Wisdom and still stay Liberal. There were a few cases where Wisdom is advantageous; bluffing used to be one of them, but I ended up cutting that and replacing it with pure charisma and persuasion. I don't remember any others off hand, so no promises.

Intelligence may factor into some debate attacks, so it may indeed serve as a barrier to Wisdom in that way, but I'm not certain. Getting your skills up in areas like Law and Business and Science will definitely help against attacks by the associated classes though (Judges, CEOs, Scientists).

[mainiac]

a Conservative intellectual

A what now?

[E. Albright]

a Conservative intellectual

A what now?

An intellectual who uses their powers for evil instead of good. 

Think (<shudder>) John Yoo, to go with the first one that sprang to mind.

Or for a (somewhat) less repellent example, Leo Strauss.

[narskie]

Definitions are so screwed up at this point...  Liberal is used as a four letter word to describe anyone who dares to challenge the status quo.  Conservative is supposed to be a good term to describe someone who supports the current system. 

Like it's interesting, look at Code Pink for example.  They're called Liberal by the corporate media or even called radical.  What's their main message?  To stop the war in Iraq because we were never attacked or in any eminent danger from the Iraqis.  From the dictionary definition, that's a conservative position.  But from the doctrinal definition, that's a "Liberal" or "Radical" position. 

Orwell is at least happy about one thing: he was right. 

[Earthquake Damage]

From the dictionary definition, that's a conservative position.  But from the doctrinal definition, that's a "Liberal" or "Radical" position.

You fail to acknowledge the difference between what Conservative and Liberal originally meant and what they mean now.  We live in a vastly different political culture these days.

To clarify, I'm not arguing against how you say the terms are used from a "doctrinal" position.  I'm saying the words themselves have been redefined, and not just for political expediency.

I suspect it has something to do with our two major political parties initially aligning themselves along conservative/liberal lines.  The parties have changed over time, and since we love the C/L association so much, we've redefined the terms to instead match the respective party positions.

Today, if a Democrat advocates it, it must be liberal by definition.  And so forth...

[Yanlin]

That is such horse shit.

[Servant Corps]

I suspect it has something to do with our two major political parties initially aligning themselves along conservative/liberal lines.  The parties have changed over time, and since we love the C/L association so much, we've redefined the terms to instead match the respective party positions.

[/quote]

Well, American parties are formed for a myraid of different reasons. The Anti-Federalists/Democrats was formed in order to stop federal tyranny in the form of the US Consitution via the promotion of states' rights, the Anti-Mason Party was formed to stop Masons, the Whigs were formed for, um, something (economic development?), and the Free Soil Party and Republican Party was formed as a way of stopping slavery. It seems though that campagining against "masonic lodge influence" really doesn't seem to do much though, so people seem to take up other issues too. The formation of American political parties is very, VERY complex and therefore it is important not to make any generalization.

Liberalism is based on the belief in the enlightment and reason, by using rationality, you would be able to solve problems. Conservativism stress instead tradition and morality as a way of solving problems. There are lots of sects within Liberalism and Conservatism though that stems from Conservatism and Liberalism, (and this is a biggie) FORIEGN POLICY IS DIFFERENT FROM DOMESTIC POLICY! Just because your ideology calls for upholding tradition at home, that have very little effect on how your nation should deal with other nations, at least in an ideological sense. When you're dealing with other nations, what do you do? That's a seperate question entirely from "How do you run your own society?"

Liberals and conservatives may desire to invade other countries, liberals would want to do it to promote the Enlightment and Conservatives would want to do it to protect American security. Or, liberals and conservatives may desire to work with other countries and engage in group hugs, liberals would want to do it to promote the Enlightment, and Conservatives would want to do it to protect American security. It all depends on who you talk to. Though, I think it's the sterotype that liberals are dovish, and conservatives are hawkish, so there ya go. (It is my belief that the Iraq War is based off liberal and conservative reasons: the liberal reason is to spread democracy/Enlightment ideals, the conservative reason is to protect American security from those invisible Iraq WMDs.)

It is still a shame though Liberal Crime Squad doesn't care (at the moment) what the foriegn policy of the US is. The US may nuke the entire Middle East, and the LCS will protest because the nukes are enviromentally unfriendly and they should instead use swords instead.

EDIT:

The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from 1833 to 1856,[1] the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the executive branch and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism.

There we go.

[E. Albright]

Liberalism is based on the belief in the enlightment and reason, by using rationality, you would be able to solve problems. Conservativism stress instead tradition and morality as a way of solving problems.

This is generally true, but it also obscures a fairly important point. Liberalism tends to generally favor more decentralized authority, and conservatism generally favors more centralized authority. This to some degree harkens back to the Enlightenment birth of Liberalism where it was new-fangled Liberalism on one hand, and traditional Monarchy on the other. However, most modern movements claiming to hoist the banner of conservatism still tend to be arguing for more authoritarian political structuring (which is traditional, natch), and most of those claiming to back liberalism argue for more popular distribution of political authority (which is in keeping with Enlightenment notions of universal equality and the sovereignty of reason). A lot of this comes down to whether a movement rejects rule of man in favor of rule of law, and vice versa. Those claiming the mantle of conservatism tend to be reluctant indeed to do the former, and those claiming the mantle of liberalism tend to be likewise reluctant to do the latter.

[mainiac]

I don't really see it those ways.  Sure, the liberals want the direct vote and D.C. to have representation for it's taxes.  But the conservatives have long hoisted the banner of "states rights" and take umbridge at imaginary slights against small town America by the elite.  A lot of the times, it's towards an end, liberals think that DC will be unfairly treated until it has representation to push it's (liberal) agenda.  Conservatives believe that declaring states rights and small town america sacred will make their social message appealing.

[E. Albright]

This is a point we can argue over quite a bit. However, "state's rights", if even actually supported, is quite consistent with a divide and rule paradigm of governance. After all, if politics are reduced to a microscopic level, it becomes much harder for popular organization to occur and overcome disparities of wealth and entrenched, inherited influence. Furthermore, that's generally about specific policies, not the more general structure of governance. While you can certainly find Freemen and the like loudly decrying the notion of a strong central government, this is considered a fringe position. Conservatives generally advocate a strong military and strong law enforcement; popular rule by the Great Unwashed is to be feared and loathed whether said mob rule is conceived as being by the poor, urban minorities, or coastal DFH. Populist posturing to one side, conservatism often puts forth rhetoric that can be boiled down to praising a "moral, responsible (adult) Us who can be trusted to rule wisely" as opposed to a "fickle, reckless (immature) Them who lack the Wisdom to be trusted with authority".

As to "state's rights", the American conservative movement tends to advocate "state's rights" only when faced with an inability to succeed in applying its preferred policy at the national level... and they're quick enough to champion the primacy of federal regulation when it advances their agenda. Consider stricter emission standards in California, or states deciding to perform marriage w/o gender restrictions, or states legalizing medical marijuana. Or (cringe) Terry Schiavo. Mysteriously, principles of local governance and "state's rights" vanish into the mists. Honestly, this serves as more of a convenient bludgeon than a sacred principle in the modern political landscape.

[e] Also, given that the context is a discussion of origins of political movements in the US, recall that state's rights was originally something embraced by the liberal Jeffersonians in opposition to a nigh-monarchical federal government as advocated by the conservative Hamiltonians. I repeat: in American politics state's rights is quite often a handy bludgeon moreso than a sacred principle.

[e2] Regarding the hoary tradition of populist anti-elitism, recall that the conservative interpretation of it very rarely manifests as resentment of economic elites, but rather of intellectual elites. The simple, jus' folks rich who earned their status by dint of hard work and thrift (and/or inherited wealth and exploiting the masses) are okay because of shared social values (see e.g., rich blue-blood scion with two Ivy League degrees G. W. Bush), as opposed to the fiendish, contemptuous intellectual elites (who may be rich or may be poor) who came by their status through mere schooling and/or snobbery (see e.g., rich blue-blood scion with an Ivy League degree J. Kerry... not that he's particularly Liberal, but that's unfortunately irrelevant to the matter at hand). Reverence for "small town" life has little to do with a preference regarding manner of governance, but it still is relevant to the liberal-conservative dichotomy largely because it's a lingering reflection of the squabble's very Enlightenment roots.