Good reply. I have noticed that liberals want us to live according to their perceived socialist teachings of Jesus, but not all of his teachings.

“Quite a few liberals believe that they are doing the work of Jesus by redistributing wealth.”

While true, this does not necessarily equate to them believing in the God of the Bible. Liberals (and conservatives) can and do believe many things about Jesus ranging from lunatic to prophet to God incarnate, while still citing his "good works" and using him as a poster child for their pet initiative. Indeed, Liberals just love to paint a picture of Christ that is equal parts radical activist like Abbie Hoffman and passive dispenser of love beads and platitudes like John Lennon.

The way that many liberals "name drop" Jesus when talking about inherently socialist concepts is really just a way of using someone's Christ's unquestioned "VIP credentials" to erroneously lend credence to their own ideas.

Thus, while they recognize him as a VIP, it doesn't necessarily mean that they deem him to be who he actually said he was in the Bible.

Indeed, Christ said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." All Jews understood immediately that the name I AM was reserved for God alone, and was a statement of blasphemy…unless he really was who he said.

To cite Josh McDowell once again as in my previous post, he pointed out many years ago during his own quest from atheism to Christianity that Christ was either really who he said, or he was a delusional nutjob.

In continued Polylogistic fashion, many liberals want to simultaneously hold that he was "a great man/teacher/prophet" without really coming to grips with the fact that he made outrageous claims about himself that would render him a narcisstic mental case…unless his claims about himself were actually true. And that you cannot simultaneously hold to the belief that Jesus is right, Mohammed is right, Budda is right, etc. Their claims are mutually exclusive.

“Quite a few liberals believe that they are doing the work of Jesus by redistributing wealth.”

This is undoubtedly true, BUT that doesn’t change what liberalism itself holds. What individual liberals believe is not the same as the aggregate belief. Liberal leadership has done an excellent job of convincing conservatives that most liberals believe religion is only superstition.

[note: Wikipedia, despite its open format, is dominated by liberals who give the definition of liberal a liberal favoring spin, so I took some liberties with ‘correcting’ it for greater balance. It still includes things I’d argue are interpretations (i.e. modern-liberals are not greatly enamored of free-markets and are not fastidious where property is concerned), but will leave those for now as too much correcting will only distort the liberal self-image and impose yet another bias. To decide how fair or unfair I’ve been in this distillation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.

Suffice it to say both liberals and conservatives use much the same rhetoric and refer to the same foundational ideas. Each is genuine in his embrace of these values, yet arrives at different conclusions regarding implementation. Within liberalism, there are two major currents competing for use of the term "liberal", known to clash on many issues because they differ regarding what constitutes freedom.

• Classical-liberalism (aka, libertarian) emphasizes negative rights: freedom from coercion. As a result they see state intervention in the economy and personal affairs as encroaching on freedom, emphasize laissez-faire economics, and oppose welfare.

• Social-liberalism emphasizes freedom ‘from’ economic coercion (and other perceived coercions) as necessary to the operation of freedom. Social-liberals, therefore, theorize numerous positive rights, including: voting, education, healthcare, wage, reproductive, euthanasia, anti-discriminatory (housing, education, health, employment, & speech), environmental, security, and welfare rights; all to be provided by the state supported by progressive taxation.

Conservatives, therefore, tend closer to classical-liberalism with minor differences (not as ‘pure’ as Libertarians). [Note the Libertarian is suspicious even of police and military as legitimate objects of government, and would have us return to the posse comitatus model; but is not an anarchist.] The main difference, then, must turn on application of principles; and Roebuck has taken us some way in discovering this. Let’s review some of the differences he mentions:

term: freedom
conservative interpretation: independent to manage our own affairs short of violating rights and persons of others (not as independent as libertarians, who would reduce government to the point of ineffectuality)
liberal interpretation: unconstrained by advantages that give some greater options – perceived as a ‘disadvantage’; unequal treatment correcting unequal operation of freedom

term: equality
conservative interpretation: equal application of laws (governance)
liberal interpretation: equal advantage in the application of laws, equal opportunity, unequal treatment to correct for handicaps or discrimination, equality of outcomes, disinheritance as a means to return everyone to the same footing, inequity aversion, social equality, cultural equivalence

term: rule of law
conservative interpretation: we are ruled by laws not subject to arbitrary interpretation
liberal interpretation: we are ruled by laws democratically arrived at, but open to interpretation by our courts

term: right to life
conservative interpretation: applies to all humans (regardless of viability or burden); exception: forfeiture for murder
liberal interpretation: applies to all humans; exceptions: the unborn, choice women have to not support life of another in her body; those not independently viable AND lacking any consciousness or will (all of these use ‘viability’ plus ‘consciousness’ plus ‘burdensome’ as criteria for ‘humanity’)

From these, we see a pattern of ‘stretching’ or expanding the meaning and spheres of liberalism by those presently regarded liberals from its original form. Where the conservative generally limits his interpretation of liberalism to a constraint on government, the liberal expands the operation of government making it ultimate arbiter in every sphere. The conservative will allow government to expand to encompass certain objects he cannot do on his own but only within the original mandate, the liberal will expand government almost without limit in the delusion he can do this without sacrificing those freedoms he genuinely cherishes. The conservative is also guilty of this, but far less inclined to do so than liberals and with respect to fewer objects.

That there are objects for which government is better suited than the posse comitatus we have no doubt. That we revere some of the same things liberals do has become a sticking point in our dialog with liberals, and has lead some, on both sides, to spin ever more fanciful distortions of interpretation just to differentiate ourselves from the other. If we can’t even agree on those things to which we agree, there is little hope we can persuade even moderate liberals of our goodwill or that ours is the surer path.

First, Roebuck’s quantification of abstracts comprising liberal thought include many that are equally attributes of the ‘true’ American-conservative; suggesting conservatism v. liberalism is not an either/or proposition, but, rather, a matter of interpretation; with one set of rules at one end and another set at its polar opposite governing the same basic ideas. [Hereafter, I will use ‘conservative’ to connote ‘American-conservative’ for brevity, except when discussing non-American conservatism.] The conservative just as genuinely reveres freedom (perhaps more so), equal (fair) treatment, openness (that does not compromise), and particular venues in which the judgment of others is unwelcome. The conservative is less compromising of his personal freedoms and those of his fellow citizens; he’s just not enamored of giving away his birthright to non-citizens. His notion of ‘equality’ is limited to the sphere of law and justice, and does not admit government into other spheres for which it is unqualified. The average conservative is just as open to the ideas and opportunities of other cultures as the average liberal; he just doesn’t make a religion of preferring the values of every Tom, Ricardo and Mohammed to his own. And, in the realm of conscience, the conservative bows to none in his preservation of this right.

Second, while I agree American-conservatives are, all of us, in some measure ‘of the liberal persuasion’, I do not see this is all to the bad nor ‘separable’ from conservatism as Robuck makes it. He comes nearer the mark suggesting these two antipodal philosophies are inseparably linked than many conservatives will admit. The philosophies of Locke, Adams, and Jefferson were, in their own day, radical and to the ‘left’ of what was then deemed conservative. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are radical from the standpoint of parliamentary-monarchists (themselves radical in the view of pure-monarchists). So, why is it conservative to embrace those philosophies today when they were so ‘liberal’ then? Answer: because they are now established and the nature of conservatism is to conserve that which has been established. At the same time, the ideals we conservatives relish are, in some regions of the world (not even including progressive or socialist embellishments), deemed way too ‘liberal’. Take the ‘purest’ most adamant American-conservative you can find and plunk him down in Saudi Arabia and he will be regarded a dangerous liberal lunatic. To Saudi sharia loving sensibilities, not only are American-conservatives liberal, we are radical and dangerous; only slightly less obnoxious than Western-liberals masquerading as multicultural ‘friends’.

So, if we (liberals and conservatives) both ascribe to the same core notions, by what do we differ? To get at this, we first have to know where we agree so that we can set it aside and not degenerate into endless parsing of terms.

According to Wikipedia (after some trimming): ‘Liberalism’ consists of a broad array of related ideas and theories of government considering ‘individual-liberty’ its primary political goal. Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism propose very different policies, but are generally united by support for a number of principles: freedom of thought and speech, limited-government, rule of law, free exchange of ideas, free-market or mixed-economy, and transparency in government. All liberals (as well as some adherents of other political ideologies) support some variant of the form of government known as liberal-democracy, with open and fair elections, wherein all citizens have equal rights by law.

Liberalism, in all its forms, rejects certain foundational assumptions dominating earlier theories of government: divine rights of kings, hereditary status, and state religions. Social-progressivism, the belief traditions have no inherent value and social practices ought to be continuously upgraded, is a common component of modern (non-conservative) liberal ideologies. Liberalism is also strongly associated with the belief human society should be organized in accordance with certain unchangeable and inviolable rights. Different schools of liberalism, however, are based on different conceptions of these rights, but there are some rights all liberals support in some degree: life, liberty, conscience, and property among them. [end of Wikipedia]

(cont.)