David Mitchell, star of Peep Show and recent presenter of FAQ U has got almost exactly the same outlook on life as me. He said on FAQ U yesterday that: 'people should be able to do whatever the hell they want, as long as it doesn't infringe on other peoples ability to do whatever the hell they want, so murder is out of the question for obvious reasons'. And i thought he looked a bit conservative. Dont judge a book by its cover! cheers, lionface
accually thats a liberal position, originally concieved by john steward mill in his book "on liberty" basically stating that you can do whatever you want, as long as it doesnt hurt anyone else it is also the foundation of the conservative party, in that they originally used to believe that the state should play as little part in peoples lives as possible, being a night watchman state, the last person to believe this in british conservative politics was margret thatcher! unlike the modern conservativism of the last ten or so years which has leaned more towards being a nanny state and has adopted a lot of left wing ideologies.
Despite this traditional belief that the state should not interfere with people's lives there has long been an aspect of social authoritarianism to the Conservative party. This is reflected in their attitudes towards families, the tradition of marriage, and issues such as homosexuality. There seems to be an unspoken belief among Conservatives that there is a right way for people to live their lives, and it should be possible to see this in the policies they enact, such as tax relief and other differences of equality between married and unmarried couples. A very good example might be section 28, enacted under Thatcher in 1988, a law which forbade teachers from discussing gay relationships as an alternative lifestyle. Traditionally our more leftist parties are socially liberal (section 28 was scrapped under Labour) but fiscally regulatory, whereas more conservative parties believe in a free economy but are more restrictive of personal freedoms. Of course, Labour's economic policies since Blair have swung towards Conservative thinking in the sense of belief in a free market economy and much less regulation of business. www.politicalcompass.org discusses these two axes of liberalism vs authoritarianism in a very eye opening way.
david mitchell is cool i saw him on FAQ U aswell....but i found when i saw him on peepshow his eyes freaked me out
