THIS IS A JOB FOR PHILOSORAPTOR...

con·serv·a·tive/kənˈsərvətiv/ Adjective: Holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in politics or religion.
Noun: A person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in politics.


lib·er·al/ˈlib(ə)rəl/ Adjective: Open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.
Noun: A person of liberal views.

      See now, I had this likely hackneyed thought yesterday. How is it the candidates proffered by the Republican Party all over the country can go around claiming to be conservatives and continue to claim that the Democratic Party is comprised of liberals? Based on the definitions above, it is the Republicans who are the liberals as they have been proposing changes, some rather radical, to the way things are being done in Washington. Even if they are considered old ideas, those are still not the ideas in current practice. It is the Republican Party which is "open to new behavior or opinions" and they are certainly "willing to discard traditional values" [or at least those traditional values that have now been the norm since the 1960s and in some cases the 1930s and even earlier since Theodore Roosevelt favored breaking up monopolies and the estate tax to prevent plutocracy and Lincoln, the party's first President, favored public education]. The Republicans want to uproot and radically alter things which have been considered normal and even expected of government for at least two generations now and THAT'S considered conservative??? I just don't get it.

       But the Democrats are just as disingenuous. They claim to be supportive of liberal values. And how exactly are they supportive of them? By promoting the status quo...by urging that the system is fine as is and with only minor tweaks and adjustments will continue to serve just fine. The Democratic Party, if anything, is certainly espousing traditional conservative values by remaining cautious and even opposed to changing the system which they (as liberals of yesteryear from both parties) are largely responsible for having set up in the first place. How can you consider yourself open to new ideas and behaviors if the whole role of your party's current incarnation is to preserve the system more-or-less as is?

       If you ask me [and I know you haven't], the Democrats are the true conservatives and for better or for worse, the Republicans are the liberals. I think the sooner both sides can be made to understand this, the better because I'm really sick of the mislabelling.