I think people can be conservative in many personal ways, in terms of money or how you dress and so on, musical tastes - while deeply caring about your fellow person and believing that we are "all in this together" and have obligations and responsibilities to society as a whole and to those individuals we are able to help in whatever ways we can on a personal basis. Indeed, to be conservative financially is part, I think, of being socially responsible.

Maybe the key is making one's own decisions. Because it seems like conservatives believe in top-down kinds of political and religious institutions. Whereas liberals or progressives seem to believe in thinking things through and not just following the leader. We may choose to "trust" leaders, but we never leave to others the task of choosing values and beliefs for us.

It's a worthwhile endeavor to look back at how we came to certain ways of thinking and believing. And honestly I think we may do that early on. For all I know reading and rereading Animal Farm and other classic books prior to 10 years of age may have powerfully influenced my own political views, which I adopted more specifically at a later age. But my brother tells me that already at 14 or 15 I was arguing with my repub dad in favor of JFK, and he said he learned from these discussions, so I must have had some pretty well formed ideas already by that point - as my brother also veered left.

What goes into one's politics? That's a fascinating topic!

Being progressive means being non-judgmental about someone's personal life, especially when it has zero effect on yours.

Comments like:

Apparently, there's some kind of game where men in helmets growl and throw themselves in each other's paths or something. Seems silly, but whatever.

indicate otherwise. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a joke, but similar comments have been made here many times by multiple people. In fact, many here who have made the requisite "joe six-pack" comments during the course of the election, would not be viewed that sophisticated themselves by other crowds.

Being progressive means growing beyond your upbringing. Simple example: how many of the people here actually chose the religious practices they subscribe to? How many have even thought about this at all? How many could give it up?

Being progressive means to think beyond the norm, and not subscribe to dogma, be it religious, political, or otherwise.

I like this thread, Orlando. Beneath it lies the notion of labeling. Many people here covet the "progressive" label -- it may or may not even apply.

Personally, I tend to describe myself as 'progressive', but I don't tend to think of myself as 'liberal'.

A distinction without a difference? a purely semantic quibble? Maybe, I'm not sure. I'm just describing as best I can my internal sense of myself, in terms of my best read of the current meanings of these words.

It seems to me that a 'progressive' believes in 'progress' (of sourse), but in a perhaps cannier and more practical, realistic sense. 'Liberal' (fairly or not) has come to imply a certain outmoded big-spender, big government idea, somewhat out-of-touch with everyday people in their everyday lives.

I don't know what I am anymore. This place and this election has me questioning everything I ever thought I knew, re-evaluating every position I ever thought I held, and wondering how, at the ripe old age of 56, my basic understanding of who I am can be so much in the air and so contradictory.

I personally like labels...or at least I did. I liked knowing I was a conservative...or at least I did. I liked knowing I was an Evangelical...or at least I did.

Suddenly I find myself needing to redefine who I am, and I no longer seem to fit into any of the clearly defined boxes into which I used to place myself.

I came of age at a time when women had few choices. I had no interest in any of the traditional female careers, so opted to get married and be a stay at home mom until my youngest was in 2nd grade. Then I let the "women's movement" convince me I was less than a whole person if I stayed home and was a wife and mother, so I opened my own business which I adored, but it was pretty much at the expense of my marriage (which suffered greatly.) Once my 1st grandchild arrived, I realized that family was where my happiness was to be found, sold the business and became a full time wife, mother and grandmother...thus coming full circle.

Both my daughter and daughter-in-law have careers they loved prior to having children, and now that they have lifestyles built around 2 incomes (you just about can't own your own home w/o 2 incomes, at least in CA.) wish they could stay home with their children.

This is progress/change, but is it good?

I'm not fond of abortion, but don't want the government making the choice for my family, I don't believe we "chose" who we love, but I am resistant to the idea of gay couples adopting. I think that I think "marriage" is a religious institution, and all other unions are "civil," so maybe it's time for redefining our relationships. I believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ, but the Christian community really turned me off w/ its performance in this election, and although I love God, have huge issues with my church family to the point where I haven't been to church in months.

I believe we are our brother's keepers, but somewhere in the deal there has to be some accountability for one's personal choices. I can't turn my back on starving children or sick people, but I know that welfare is a form of slavery. I know that hard work and saving should be rewarded, yet I think those who makes tons of money have an obligation to the have nots of the world...where do you draw the line? Is it necessary to own 10 houses all over the world and fly around in private jets and have $100 dollar a minute massages, and caviar and $3500 jackets? Can you legislate against that? I don't believe in "forced" socialism, but shouldn't we, as individuals be a little more socialistic? Shouldn't we "self" socialize?

I think government should stay out of our lives as much as possible, and do only those things that we can't do for ourselves, i.e. defense, infra-structure, education, health care, environment, regulations that keep us honest (financial markets -duh, utilities, food/product safety) So in other words, so much for small government :-) !!!

So what am I? Or do labels even work anymore? Should they?

What is wrong with being progressive enough to get over our own personal beliefs and letting people be people, so long as they don't kill themselves?

Many inner school programs that let "at-risk" teens become artistic (dancing, art, acting) are working, but no one is willing to pay for it because no one knows those programs even exist.

Many people love one another and want to have the rights that married people have but religion and state laws interfere.

Learning is learning, and love is love. Let it be and help it along, and it will help to alleviate so many problems.

My two cents.

I understand the thought behind this blog but believe the mindset that prompted it reflects what I find missing on the "liberal" side of the house when these issues are raised. There seems to be a decided lack of historical context to our current problems and a desperate clinging to yesterday's label's as a way of framing tomorrow's challenges.

When I finished Audacity of Hope, I came away with an operating manual for a new kind of politics. You'll notice Barack never defines things in terms of us and them, there is only what we must get done. He don't label solutions as conservative or liberal, which are meaningless, but simply lays out the problem in plain English and describes what he thinks will fix it.

It is amazingly refreshing to hear a politician, democrat or republican, speak with candor and common sense about our most pressing issues. He actually inspired me to join the republican party in August of this year to try and be a catalyst for change in the GOP. I always considered myself conservative in methodology and admired Lincoln and TR. It made perfect sense to me and still does. It is a bit of a pain given the vitriolic disgust most democrats aim at republicans these days.

I hope most conservatives pay attention to Obama's leadership vice various democratic pundits and bloggers who are still gloating. Not that they don't have a right. It is a very human response, but it doesn't help heal our wounds anymore than when the Rapture and Reagan Right did it.

At any rate, this blog prompts and important discussion, even if I don't really agree with its conclusions as they are too limited by yesterday's struggles.

I make the case that there remains a single spectrum on which people can be placed.

My personal experience is that my own intellectual curiosity developed significantly earlier than my own situational curiosity.

This meant that as a young person I cared very little for the places I should go, basic day-to-day tasks, or work concerning things I already knew but was very interested to learn new things about the world in which and the people among whom I lived.

Essentially this lead to my intellectual curiosity overriding the standard human situational curiosity. I arrived independently at a set of conclusions based on my own reasoning about my role in the world, and how I was able to shape this. This lead to my belief in a liberal political ideology.

Those whose situational curiosity overrides their intellectual curiosity do not reason their way to a world view. They instead seek to be given their world view by others. Those people who are influenced early enough by reagan-esque political ideology tend to become conservatives. Those that are not influenced particularly by any political ideology early on become swing voters.

Seeing as these swing voters are intellectually incurious, and only care about their immediate situation, these people only vote on issues that they feel affect them. And thus the GOP tries to persuade swing voters that various social wedge issues directly affect them (when they, by and large, don't), and the Democrats tend to only win when economic issues are so fucked up by the GOP that the swing voters see their situation as being adversely affected.

This is such a great article, Orlando, both for the descriptions of the differences between the two political parties and for your recognition of how those qualities are so intrinsic within our selves, yet still capable of changing, as stillidealistic also wrote. (Wow, did I really manage to avoid labels and shoeless feminists in that sentence?)

Anyway, I find it fascinating how some go for the conservative angles and others of us go the other way. This article discusses what researchers think they have found so far on the possible origins of the great political divide:

"Personality researchers have identified five major traits or characteristics or dimensions of personality," says John Jost, associate professor of psychology at NYU and one of the lead authors of the study. "They spell out the acronym OCEAN -- openness, continuousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism or emotional stability/instability. And I can tell you that research has shown that liberals and conservatives differed on two of these, and they don't differ on the other three." Can you guess on which two they differ? "They differ on the first two -- openness and continuousness," Jost said. "So liberals score higher on measures of openness to new experiences, whereas conservatives score higher on measures of consciousness that include aspects such as need for order, structure, discipline, duty and obligation." [italics are mine.]

I like the roller coaster image better.

O, I think you captured eloquently what it means to be a progressive for me as that steady march forward towards social justice for all - regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or economic circumstances.

Progressive to me means not being satisfied with good enough, but being on the side of pushing society towards more wholesale changes now. Liberals openly advocate for gay civil unions; progressives are on the march for gay marriage. What am I most progressive about - total rehaul of our educational system funding on a federal level so we don't have seperate and unequal education systems based on what zip code you live in.

Being progressive means suffering disappointments because by definition you are trying to push society forward even when they are not ready. I self-medicate with lychee martinis.

I knew I was a progressive/liberal/Democrat when I was 5 years old. I just didn't know what it was called.

The Buddhists say change is inevitable. Maybe we're all just Buddhists! :-)