United States of America Has a Long Essay

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United States of America has a long driven history where two political parties ruled the territory and its people since it assumed independence. Several presidents with different political and moral beliefs/views have come into power, which largely influenced the policies and strategies that they employed to run the country. Liberalism is one of the prime political beliefs found in America's political system that promotes freedom. On the other hand, the opposite political idea that has long existed in America is termed as Conservatism (Lipsman, 2007).

Liberalism that is presently promoted as progressivism by its supporters believes that citizens can do nothing without the assistance of their ruler. It encourages a governing system that allows the leaders to control the lives of its entire populace. Moreover, it supports the idea of benefitting the country by granting social power and rights to its people (Lipsman, 2007).

On the other hand, Conservatism deems to establish a central government that holds the integral power of ruling. It does not allow denizens to receive excessive social entitlement, which restricts their freedom. Additionally, this political view promotes the idea of creating responsible individuals who are expected to address their issues on their own rather than depending on their government who believes in rendering least assistance. This is because citizens are considered to be capable enough to look into their issues with gravity and derive appropriate solutions (Lipsman, 2007).

Conservatism and Liberalism are two distinct ideologies that have almost nothing in common. They both possess different positions with regard to their responses to particular circumstances. Coupled to this, both the liberals and conservatives have beliefs that govern their code of life throughout (Lipsman, 2007).

Liberals believe that family does not hold an essential function in bringing up the children; however, they require government to help them all the way through. Whereas, conservatives hold an opinion that family has the ultimate rights to up bring their children in a manner they think is best. Additionally, they believe in making their offspring strong and mature so that they can be prepared to address their own problems in future (Lipsman, 2007).

Conservatives believe that citizens are responsible for their own actions; therefore, they should be rewarded and punished on individual basis. Furthermore, they value autonomy and individualism. However, Liberals consider society as a combination of groups that are formed on the basis of differences such as difference of gender, class, race, color, and so forth. This practice encourages discrimination that disturbs the balance of society (Lipsman, 2007).

Moreover, conservatives hold an idea that good and bad both exist in the society and that good should be used as an arm to eradicate evil from the society. On the other hand, Liberals believe that man is created with good traits and if he commits crime or does evil, there must be a driving force that has caused him to do that. Additionally, they favor the idea of revolutionizing the nature of society to stop the people from doing wrong. This reflects that criminals including terrorists are allowed to speak for themselves (Lipsman, 2007).

Similarly, Conservatives strongly believe that financial and other kinds of aids should be given only to those people who genuinely need it and cannot fulfill their needs. Aid should be offered for the purpose of making the people capable of supporting themselves and strictly not for making them dependable for rest of their lives. However, Liberalism promotes a government that is permitted to take things from people who are resourceful and transfer them to less-privileged. It says that all denizens have an equal right to attain basic necessities irrespective of their status of work/job (Lipsman, 2007).

Both the ideologies share diverse political views where Liberals favor large-sized government structure whereas conservatives support the idea of small governments. Liberals encourage the government to be deeply involved in provision of basic necessities such as healthcare. This explains the reason for Liberal governments setting up health care systems that are largely supported by the government funds. On the contrary, Conservative governments support only a little in providing the basic needs to the citizens, rather they promote their people to look after almost all the facets of their lives including healthcare and business (Lipsman, 2007).

Conservatism depicts that private sector should loom large in the society than the public sector. Additionally, conservatives prefer a government in which more power is situated in the hands of provincial governments. Conversely, Liberalism supports the development of public sector services significantly.

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Moreover, Liberals encourage the formulation of such a government in which with greater fraction of the authority lies with the federal government (Lipsman, 2007).

These ideas justify the economic practices of both ideologies. Conservatism allows the government to take less tax from its people so their expenditures are less as well. Additionally, it believes that if individuals are rich or are earning good, they possess all rights to spend that money according to their will. However, Liberalism teaches the government to take high taxes from citizens in order to provide high quality facilities to them. This means that Liberal governments spend gargantuan capital that they collect in the form of tax to develop government services. Moreover, they consider it a healthy practice to distribute the money collected from rich amongst poor in order to balance the economy (Brux, 2007).

On social grounds, Conservatism possesses very reserved opinions whereas Liberalism holds broadminded views. Conservatives support the idea of individuals owning personal weapons such as guns. On the contrary, Liberals do not support this idea and impose strict restrictions and laws regarding who should be allowed to buy personal arms (Lipsman, 2007).

In the current U.S. these ideologies are particularly influential and are widely practiced by the prominent political parties of the country -- Republican and Democratic. Both the parties hold differing viewpoints regarding almost every aspect; however, Conservatism is practiced mainly by Republican representatives whereas Democrats are chiefly liberal. Both these groups believe and implement different sets of values that are represented by the manner they govern the states (Lipsman, 2007).

All Americans whether they be Conservative or Liberal consider themselves and their people to be superior to other people of the world. However, the justifications of superiority presented by both the groups are different. The representatives of Republican Party believe that Americans are people with noticeably high worth and value and this is why all non-Americans should accept them as a superior class of global population. Moreover, they hold an opinion that they possess innate characteristics for which global populace should accept the foreign policies designed by their government (Deutsch, 2010).

Furthermore, Republican government opposes the involvement of international bodies such as United Nations in the policy building process. Contrary to these ideas, sources reveal that conservatives who expect people to accept the supremacy of their government sometimes tend to oppose their government themselves. However, the key belief that they possess is that America should have a strong foreign policy that should depict their high virtue irrespective of the effectiveness of the policies practiced on domestic level (Deutsch, 2010).

On the other hand, Liberals/Democrats hold a totally different perspective. They believe that they are exceptional due to their government that is established on the basis of their fine constitution. Additionally, they consider themselves better than others due to their ideology of economic equality and social progress. Also, it is deemed by them that their culture is dominant over others because the history and creation of their nation is greatest of all. This is the stance that was held by Democrats during the last election that was conducive to numerous people supporting them (Watts, 2006).

During the present era, Liberals advocate the establishment of the presidency that operates dynamically on domestic as well as foreign stage in order to extent their dominance in all aspects/facets. Moreover, where Republican governments favor unilateralism, multilateralism is supported by the Democrats on global front. Unlike Republicans, Democrats have a firm trust and conviction on their leaders; therefore, they wholeheartedly allow their government to take decisions for the betterment of the state's population (Watts, 2006). This can be explained by the example of measures taken by the Liberal government for people in the form of free medical facilities (Medicare and Medicaid programs), which faced massive opposition from Conservatives who like to promote private medical insurance schemes.

The most important issue of current times is War on Terror that was initiated after the incident of 9/11 by Republican government who was in office at that time and was highly determined to do anything for achieving victory. The attack on Afghanistan and Iraq as part of this War was highly advocated by the Republicans who consider the invasions and military operations to be huge victories on their part; however, Democrats oppose this. This example reflects that Republicans/Conservatives support the idea of spending a great deal on military operations on all fronts together with having firm policies towards certain countries, whereas Democrats/Liberals.....

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