Fact Check Me: What Conservative and Liberal Actually Mean
Let me tell you the difference between what it means to be conservative and what it means to be liberal.
And I don’t mean party politics. Parties swap ideologies like cheap outfits and keep the same names.
I’m talking about the words themselves.
The identities people tattoo on their personalities.
We toss them around like we know what they mean — but we don’t.
So listen up. Eric’s going to explain it nice and slow.
Well… maybe not so nice.
Start with the word Conservative.
Forget politics for a second.
What does it mean to conserve?
To hold back?
To go slow?
To keep things safe, familiar, untouched?
If I said the word “conservative,” which way am I looking?
Backwards.
You know it.
A conservative is the kid who walks out onto the high board, gets pushed to the edge by his friends, looks down at the water…
and climbs back down the ladder every damn time.
Conservatives are about the individual:
You do for you. I do for me.
They protect systems, even when the systems don’t protect them.
Election reform? “How could you?”
Change anything? “Why would you?”
When we’re all supposed to fend for ourselves, nothing gets done.
Except, apparently, by “private enterprise.”
And how’s that working out so far?
Conservatives love trickle-down economics —
give the money to the king
and trust him to flick a few crumbs off the table.
Are you sold yet?
Now look at the word Liberal.
Liberal literally means generosity.
Openness.
Giving.
Acceptance.
Liberal means progress.
Liberal means risk.
Liberal means reward — shared, not hoarded.
Liberal means working with others because you believe growth requires company.
That’s why we call them the liberal arts — because knowledge evolves.
It updates.
It refuses to stay still.
Liberal is openness.
Its opposite is fear.
So ask yourself:
What does your political party sell you?
Hope?
Or fear?
Because no matter their colours or mascots, conservatives and liberals always speak the same languages:
One sees the world as something beautiful, something worth expanding.
The other sees the world as broken, dangerous, too fragile to touch.
Here’s the truth:
We build the world we live in.
Brick by brick.
Choice by choice.
So which world do you want?
A conservative one?
Or a liberal one?
Only one of them imagines a future worth walking toward.