I have seen attempts at makeing short, pithy statements about what liberals/conservatives or Democrats/Republicians are, but they end up sounding like "ain't never heard a horse sing one"...for example " Democrats want to make laws everyone to make everyonebelieve like them, Republicans want to make laws to make everyone be like them."...not very useful, huh?

there are SO many things that are involved in a definition:

How should money be controlled and/or regulated, and who should be allowed to do it? (perhaps the one that is most used and least acknowleged)

What 'moral values' are most important in society, and are they absolute or relative? (This 'sort of' means, should established religion have ANY direct/official input to the structure....but not just that)

How should laws be designed in order to balance the perceived "National Interest" against individual interests & desires?

How sacrosanct is 'privacy', and who decides when it can be invaded and for what purposes and for how long?

What should be the relationship between national government and state/local government?

Who should be allowed to own weapons, and what kind and with what restrictions?

.............there are surely more issues, and the ones I noted can be re-phrased and re-cast, but you see the problem-- as one begins to answer these questions, he/she begins to form an extremely complex matrix of beliefs and attitudes, and often, people will discover that they do not really HAVE a clear position on some issues, but merely identify with some group or single issue that 'tends' to draw them into an automatic allegiance to other ideas.

When you add to this the confusion that arises when people agree on some idea or practice or law...but, for different reasons, and you see why 2 divisions and 2 political parties is not adequate!...In Israel, for example, there are many little splinter parties, who form temporary alliances, but can barely tolerate each other. This has its advantages and disadvantages...*wry grin*

I, for example, favor more restrictions on immigration than we currently have...just as a neighbor of mine does...but for VERY different reasons and with VERY different attitudes. You see the same thing regarding the death penalty and gun control...so are they both conservative if they want 'less' gun control?...not necessarily.

One of the difficulties is that so many people "throw the dart and then draw the bullseye around it"...meaning that they find a position/principle/goal that they favor emotionally, then go looking for ANY reasons to justify it. And when two people who disagree on the GOAL argue, they often find themselves not even able to share enough language and definitions to conduct a dialogue!...They just talk past each other and shout!

**IF** we would make a long list, like I started with, of a lot of 'issues', and a sub-list of as many positions (and yes, SUB-postitons for many) about these issues as we could think of, we could 'sort of' draw a graph and map where in a general spectrum we stood....and would probably be bored to tears and confused before we finished...*wry grin*.