I tried to post this just before - or did I cause it?- the Cat crashed so I'll try it again. Eb

"Liberals offer Sexual, recreational drug, and most other behaviors MUCh greater latitude than do conservatives." John Hardly

This certainly is not a new thought but I'll say it again anyway. If - and I agree with you - liberals offer greater latitude regarding sexual behavior, drug use and most other (controversial) electives, perhaps it is simply that liberals trust other adults to think about their own standards of behavior and act accordingly while the US conservative tends to want laws made to address such behaviors - and wants them to be enforced.

Individually, however, there are many conservatives who truly do want government to stay out of the people's business and there are liberals who - well, no, actually.

I think of a liberal as someone who knows that a burden shared becomes light for all- and therefore supports pooled resources for the poor, the homeless, the jobless, the orphaned, the neglected and the exploited, and feels strongly that a dollar spent in intervention at an impressionable age is better than 5 dollars spent 15 or 20 years later in the criminal justice system. I think of a liberal as less punitive, to begin with. I think of a liberal as being someone who wants appalling people locked up rather than killed. I think a liberal would love to believe that rehabilitation is the goal of incarceration. I think of a liberal as someone who is always learning, even though s/he recognizes that changing and releasing long-cherished but ultimately wrong ideas can be painful.

I would welcome having conservatives list the qualities that they love.