Liberal, Conservative, and Libertarian Political Philosophies

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Living in the United States some people may forget how closely our political perspectives are to each other relative to those of foreign countries. While there are many political views and stances that an individual might take on any given topic, generally people in the United States fall into one of three categories: liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. Keep in mind that most people will not support all of the ideals of their advocated faction, but they must support the vast majority of them. People that fall into the liberal category believe that the government should have the goal of equality providing opportunity for its entire people and that a strong central government is needed to keep order because people are not inherently good. Additionally, liberals are more willing to give up their rights with the good of the country in mind than either of the other two mentioned groups. Under these umbrella principles, liberals are pointed toward believing in economic equality (perhaps through means of progressive taxation), short term and long term unemployment benefits, same-sex marriages, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and other acts like it to prevent terrorism. Conservatives support the general idea of personal responsibility on issues pertaining to life and believe that people are capable of managing their own life as well as their government. Addressing governmental functions, conservatives feel that federal governmental power needs to be very limited, and directed at protecting the rights of its citizens (in this way they are very similar to libertarians). To expand on individual ideas, it might be mentioned that abortion is thought to be very wrong in that it goes against a very basic right; the ri... ... middle of paper ... ...heamericanconservative.com/articles/the-conservative-view-on-foreign-aid/>. Used specifically for gathering information what the title indicates: "The Conservative View on Foreign Aid" "The Differences Between Conservatives And Libertarians." Capitalism Institute The Differences Between Conservatives And Libertarians Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. . Great first person source to illustrate the differences between someone that has conservative views and someone that has libertarian views. The site is obviously bias, but in this case that is okay as they are stating their own opinion and that is why I came it in the first place. "There is not a title on this web page." Reasons to be Against the Death Penalty. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. .

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