Woe is us. Sound-bite media, sound-bite politics. It's too easy and it's a deadening distraction to ask or answer the question: are you a Liberal or a Conservative? For those of us who suspect that we are very much too discriminating to be "lumped in" with one motley crowd or the other, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press comes to the rescue.
http://typology.people-press.org/typology/
The Pew folks have used their extensive and time-tested research to identify 9 "typologies" in the political spectrum (if you're a country boy like me, think "mutually exclusive categories" and you're in like Flynn).
Use the link above to answer a few questions (really, it takes a minute or two) and get Pew researchers' feedback on where you stand in the lineup: Liberal, Conservative Democrat, Social Conservative, you get the picture. There's considerable, easy to understand detail about what makes each group different from the others...probably you won't be too surprised.
You may be surprised AFTER you understand more fully why you belong to one of Pew's typologies.....you may be surprised when you realize that you understand more intuitively and in more empirical detail why it's downright dumb for the news media and our elected political representatives to talk blithely and belligerently about "Liberals" and "Conservatives." These two popularly named, deeply misunderstood and more or less undefined groups of people too often act out their fantasy that vilifying the other group is a downright satisfying way to express their beliefs and advance their cause....let's stop pretending that "Liberal" and "Conservative" are useful categories.
Go to the Pew Research Center site (link is above) and clarify your understanding of where you really stand, and find out who you're NOT in bed with, politically speaking...
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