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Originally Posted by Sea Demon
The founding fathers of America were certainly not liberal using todays definition of the word.
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What are you talking about, 'today's definition?' Liberal and conservative are relative terms, not absolutes. Conservatives preserve the status quo, liberals advance it (or degrade it, depending on your perspectives.) A liberal in America is not the same as a liberal in Russia is not the same as a liberal in China. It slides also on the dimension of time: relative to the late 18th century, they were very much liberals. Advocating for...
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Originally Posted by Sea Demon
...economic freedoms, limited government, personal responsibility/self determination, and the acknowledgement that civil liberties are God granted inalienable rights that require a sense of morality and justness.
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...are all very liberal positions to take, relative to the time period. A revolt against the king was no doubt a huge slap in the face of their conservative contemporaries! Without their liberal stances, the USA might still be a British colony. Without any liberals, we might still be stuck in the feudal age. Truth is, you need liberals and conservatives both. Liberals get it right a lot of the time (as they did with the constitution or free market economy and anti-mercantilism) but you need conservatives to apply the brakes and make sure they don't take things too fast or over the top. I could not live in a country without a right to the left or a left to the right. You must also be careful not to confuse Democrat problems like bloated government or tax hikes as 'liberal' postures. It's hard sometimes to seperate out the dumb-assed vote pandering from what is actually 'liberal.' Possibly, as many here seem to argue that there hasn't been a true 'conservative' prez since Reagan, that neither has there been a seriously 'liberal' prez since... well, I don't know, maybe Truman? I don't know enough about presidential histories to make the call.
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Originally Posted by Sea Demon
The Founding Fathers of the USA would be utterly dismayed by the state of politics in America, but would be more inclined to see the side that believes in the above principles as more true to the core of the founding of America. That would be the conservative point of view. The Founders would be disgusted by liberal Democrats for much of what they advocate. And the list is long. By their own standards of how they handled "Benedict Arnolds" in those days / treachery against our military during a time of war, I'm sure those founders would advocate quartering or hanging many of todays liberals.
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Just as I'm sure they would advocate the quartering or hanging of many of yesterday's conservatives; the grandfather of conservatism, Edmund Burke, was a huge advocate of a strong monarchy and chided the French Revolution at length. If you disagree with his perspective that makes you even just the teeniest tiniest bit of a liberal
