When people start calling Hitler a leftist you know that the political discourse has reached Orwellian levels of absurdity.

So the core qualifications for being a conservative are;

1. eat meat
2. smoke

Anyone else is a leftist.

I'M SORRY IS THIS THE NEW STATESMAN?

Don't forget #3: be a racist.

Haha, no. Obviously the internal improvements, social welfare, heavy regulation/control are more to the point.

Still, picture Clint Eastwood eating a medium rare steak and puffing on a cigar between bites and tell me whether you think he's more of a conservative or a liberal. LOL.

Yeah fair enough. I wish I remembered more about his opposition to smoking off the top of my head, I can't say but I think he was pretty fanatical about that.

I never should have invoked his name. Stuff never ends well when you do that. But he's sorta the go-to guy for racism, like it or not.

I think Farakhan and the rest of his ilk should count here too, though, let's not ignore them.

Racism exists, this much I believe everyone can agree on. The major question, at least for me, is who is best equipped to stop it and using which methods? I don't think the government has done a good job to solve the problem of racism. Albeit well-meaning, I believe that not only do laws aimed at making life more 'fair' for certain segments of the population not work, they also exacerbate the problem.

For instance, let's look at the "Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002" that was signed into law by G.W. Bush with the help of Republicans in Congress. It was well meaning, to be certain, since its aim was to make sure disabled people had secure jobs and a more handicap friendly work environment. However, since that law has been passed, the number of disabled workers employed in the U.S. has fallen to around half the 2002 levels. This cannot be explained entirely by the recent economic downturn.

The truth is that employers are less willing to hire workers that they might have a tougher time to fire for GOOD reason if it is required, and they are also less willing to foot the bill to make their workplace handicap friendly as required by the law. They could get sued for attempting to fire a worker or for failing to remodel their premises, so they just don't hire at all. Even government subsidies and such aren't enough for many of them to accept the hassle and potential litigation.

The same type of problem exists for other types of affirmative action legislation. From personal experience I know that such laws engender resentment towards the groups that they are supposed to help. I have heard folks say things such as: "I applied for the job, but there was a black woman applying for the same job. I, of course, didn't get the job because she was a two-for-one for them!" She might have been the best qualified, but that isn't what many folks immediately think in that circumstance. Same can go in reverse when employers hire the white guy instead of the black guy out of college because the black guy "probably got into college because of affirmative and they had to graduate him because of a quota." True or not, this is what some people think, often subconsciously.

My point is that sometimes these laws can engender bigotry as much as they help alleviate it. There is no cut and dried answer to which is the worse sin: doing nothing or attempting to fix the problem but causing negative secondary effects. I generally go with the former, because it is cheaper; fewer tax dollars are usually spent to do nothing (although, exceptions do exist!).

EDIT: Oh, right, I forgot to preface this saying that I am a conservative, and these are my feelings on the government's role in preventing racism. It was probably obvious, but I might as well spell it out. :)

EDIT 2:
Oh, right, I also forgot to add MY solution to the problem. First, i would get rid of all affirmative action legislation, including those laws pertaining to 'hate crimes' (seriously, I think all violent crimes are fueled by hatred, not just racially motivated ones). If someone is wrongfully fired or killed, we already have laws for that sort of thing; we don't need racially charged legislation for it.

If we stop using race as an excuse for everything, and if we stop accepting 'race-baiting' in politics, I truly believe the problem will mostly vanish within a couple generations. I don't think it will go away entirely, as people are predisposed by evolution to form groups (tribes) with similar people to the exclusion of those that are different in some way. However, I don't think my way would work worse than affirmative action has worked over the last 40-odd years. You tell me, are African-americans better off as a whole than they were in the '70s?

Isn't Clint Eastwood a liberal? Or was that the point... oh I'm confused.

Edit: Oh I guess he's not. Huh, I thought that the movies he directed were pretty left winged. Then again... Gran Torino.

Difficult to say really. Clint's very much Republican, but his social positions are more consistent with liberalism. He's pro-choice, pro-gay rights and done a fair bit of anti-racism and environmental campaigning. I think his support of the Republicans is purely economic. Besides, not all conservatives are hateful bigots - the majority of Republicans I know personally are actually reasonable, respectable types. It's just that the GOP tends to attract the bigots and the corporate shills.

Gran Torino is about as left-wing as his films get - portraying himself as the neo-con racist who has a change of heart when he gets to know that Korean family. Most of the right-wing stuff that he had a lead role in has been written and directed by other people.

Pretty much this. He is basically a Libertarian that really likes guns. Just like me, actually! Heh.

And this is precisely why broad-brushing does not work. It assumes that if a person follows one particular belief then it also assumes a whole other unrelated set of beliefs. Doesn't work. While some folks may perfectly fit into the dictionary definitions of Liberal, Progressive, Libertarian, or Conservative, most of those I meet are a mix of seemingly conflicting beliefs, hence the "impossibilities" of the racist leftie and the wealth-redistribution rightie.

I'm not sure I understand how what you just described isn't socialism. Yes, the immigration and foreign policies are effected by the nationalist part, but everything else about it is traditional socialism. How exactly is it "a different ideology altogether"?

I am honestly not sure if you are agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or merely using my quote as an example (leaning towards this one). Regardless, I agree with your statement. People tend to stereotype people (even themselves) to make categorizing their environment easier. Identifying people with a particular political party or political movement that a they mostly agree with is one way to do this. This type of categorizing can lead to some fuzzy logic and inaccurate intuition down the line, but most people do it unconsciously. I admit that I do it far more than I would like.

There was never a better time.

I don't really know what the OP is on about, but America is a very small place and branding all Conservatives and Liberals by the standards of their American counterparts is kind of insulting.

This