A lot has crossed my mind in the past 12 hours--it happens when you have 2 papers to write both due at 10am today. So, I'm just going to make a list of topics that I often think about but never have time to write about--today just happen to remind me of it. I'll give full blogs of them later when I'm a bit more awake.
1)Why do "common folks" give definitions to the terms liberal and conservative that are the complete oppsosite to what EVERY academic book, paper, and professor I've ever 'met' use. For example. Why do the books speak of liberalizing China when they are describing China's transformation into a more capitalistic society? Common folks would say that to be more liberal economically would mean a transformation into socialism. I guess both are techincally true if the real definition of liberal is a change in the traditional way. So I guess a better question would be not so much why they use this term to describe two very different situations, but whether there someone would dare disagree that a liberal China is capitalist (that they would call it conservative).
2)On this same note, but in England in 1650 (right after the execution of Charles I), the liberal minded parliament ruling England (they would have to be liberal minded seeing as a conservative minded parliament would have been royalist ) swung more towards the right, not nearly enough to be considered conservative. In the US, I guess it would be strange to think of conservative being royalist, but definitionally it would be correct. It sure makes me question certain people who say that conservatism is the only way to be--I don't want to be a royalist or wear skirts all the time.....But many I take things too literally, haha.
My brain is fuzzy. Maybe I'll add more topics later....or maybe this is a full blog post. I'm not sure. Leave comments and I'll add more if necessary.
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