A liberal politician believes in protecting individual freedom through government, but recognizes its potential harm. They prioritize human rights, capitalism, and constitutionalism, and view law enforcement as responsible for ensuring safety and liberty. They differ from progressives who support big government spending. Liberals welcome change while conservatives preserve existing conditions. Liberals prioritize freedom but may accept restrictions with sufficient justification.
A liberal politician is one who has the belief that the primary purpose of politics should be to protect and enforce the freedom of the individual. Liberals recognize the role of government in enforcing this freedom, as well as the restrictions it can place on it; to this end, government can be helpful or harmful. Central to a liberal’s beliefs are concepts such as human rights, capitalism, and constitutionalism. A liberal politician perceives the legislator, police force, judges and other legislative or law enforcement agents as the persons responsible for ensuring the safety and liberty of the individual. This politician, however, also recognizes that the power held by this same group of people can be used to harm the individual.
The classic liberal politician is known for raising different, and even radical, ideas in the interest of promoting his or her beliefs. The liberal must be differentiated from the one now called progressive. While a liberal political leader seeks to promote liberality and open-mindedness to new and non-traditional concepts, the progressive apparently modifies the concept of liberalism by entertaining ideas outside the confines of traditional liberalism. These ideas include support for big spending and a love of big government.
To better understand the foundations on which a liberal politician stands, it is important to distinguish him from a conservative political leader. First, one must understand the concept of a political party. A political party mainly refers to a group of people who have the same ideas about how to run government and have organized themselves to implement these ideas. Political parties seek the approval of the electorate by settling the issues they believe should be primarily addressed by the government.
Liberals are characterized by independence, open-mindedness and flexibility in administering government. Those who identify as conservatives typically are known to hold back, identify boundaries, and enforce those boundaries on the citizenry. Simply put, a liberal typically welcomes change in nearly every aspect of governance, while a conservative prefers to preserve existing conditions, especially those perceived to work.
Even if a liberal politician’s priority is to defend freedom, that does not mean that he is absolutely opposed to restrictions on freedom. He or she typically makes a presumption towards freedom, but this presumption can be rebutted. It must, however, be superseded by sufficient justification. The liberal politician, therefore, works to support an individual’s choice over the options available to him and believes that one citizen should not be coerced by another unless there are compelling reasons to do so.
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