Statements like that show the difference too. Liberals avoid such false analogies. Conservatives love to use them to rationalize their greed.
Ambrose Bierce: "Conservative: a statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."
Conservatives see themselves as conserving what is Good in society. Progressives see themselves fixing what is Bad in society.
Liberals want to evolve our system into a communist state. Conservatives want to evolve our system into a facist state. Politicians want to win the next election, and do not care about anything else.
Just as funny are all the anarchist conventions, marches, groups and meetings. Organized chaos. What maroons! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Organized chaos? Oops. I thought this thread was about George W. Bush's term as President, not difference betwen conservatives and liberals. My mistake.
There are two main types of conservatives in my perception. The first is composed of pragmatists who feel that, by and large, ideals can never be achieved mainly because of human nature. You put things together as best you can and try to keep the whole thing working until someone figures out how to make it work better. Sometimes hurt feelings and broken teeth result. The second type, religious conservatives, believe they got some type of instruction manual by way of the bible and such nonsense and try to manhandle the machine to fit the diagrams inside. There also appear to be two forms of liberals. The first are generally well intentioned and feel that nobody knows enough to even try to fix or control the machine. They think that any organization larger than the family or possibly the local community can't be good. The other group here is crusading liberalism. Like the religious conservatives, they seem to have dreamed up an instruction manual in the middle of the night and also want to manhandle everything to meet their design... and are willing to take a sledgehammer to anything which goes against their blueprints. That it could ever possibly not work is alien to their minds.
Liberals want to liberate people from the ignorance of humanity. Conservatives want to conserve the ignorance of humanity. Unfortunately both liberal and conservative politicians are conserving the ignorance of humanity in their own way. The ideal political party would have some liberal and some conservative policies. They would be a party of science, reason, and rational thought. They would be a party that is willing to do what ever has to be done to make life more pleasurable and enjoyable for the citizens that elected them. They would be a party that is willing to do what ever has to be done to change this world and make it a better place for everyone. But most politicians do not want a change. Most of them want to conserve our present state of ignorance.