What issues divide the left- and right-wing? What do liberals and conservatives believe?

[What is a good username?]

I want to understand more about current politics and the issues and their proponents and opponents. I come from a politically unaware family, and I don't know what to believe.

I don't want propaganda, I simply want to understand these groups of people. What do liberals and conservatives believe about abortion, gay marriage, border control, the environment, the economy, health care, gun control, freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the press, and what political ideologies/systems of governments do liberals and conservatives advocate?

Also, while discussing political systems, can somebody please briefly describe to me what Capitalism and Socialism are?

Last question: Are either liberals or conservatives anarchists, or is anarchy irrelevant to this discussion?

Thanks a lot.

[Curtis 1911]

Abortion is the most dividing issue between libs and Cons.

Republicans think, and Democrats feel.

Democrats feel the government is the answer,
Republicans think the government is the problem.

Democrats trust big government,
Republicans trust big business.

Democrats feel, it is ok to kill an innocent fetus, and let a convicted murderer live.
Republicans think it is ok to kill a convicted murderer, and let an innocent fetus live.

Democrats feel the answer to any problem is to raise taxes.
Republicans think the answer to any problem is to cut taxes.

Democrats hate the rich,
Republicans want to be rich.

Democrats hate guns,
Republicans like guns.

Democrats feel global warming is more of a threat then terrorism.
Republicans think terrorism is more of a threat then global warming.

Democrats feel the USA is occupying Iraq,
Republicans think the USA is liberating Iraq.

(Anarchy is extreme right)
(Communisum is extreme left)

[MarjaU]

Liberalism and conservatism, today, reflect party politics more than ideas. Each party is trying to cobble together enough fundraisers to beat the other. Each party promises to limit the government, but each party shovels the money to the arms lobby, the insurance lobby, the prison lobby, the copyright and patent lobbies, etc.

Some selected issues:

Abortion: Conservatives believe that the government own's womyn's bodies. Liberals can't decide.

Gay marriage: Conservatives believe that the government should decide who gets to marry. Liberals agree, and decide to push for second-class citizenship for the rest of us.

Gun Control: Liberals believe that the security of a free people can be guaranteed by disarming the civilians. Conservatives believe it can be guaranteed by disarming black civilians (they supported gun control in the '60s to disarm the Panthers).

Freedom of Speech: Each side complains when the other side uses the state to limits its freedom of speech. But they are both fine with jailing anarchist journals, with jailing protest organizers, etc.

****

For many supporters of socialism, "socialism" means that the workers control the means of production, while "capitalism" means another class controls the means of production.

Historically, supporters of socialism have varied from opponents of the state (like Proudhon or Bakunin) to supporters of it (like Engels), as well as from supporters of completely free markets (like Proudhon or Tucker) to supporters of planned economies (like Marx) to supporters of free access to common means of production (like Kropotkin).

http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/2006/0...atism.html

Now things get complicated because some people (e.g. Marxists and Misesians, taking opposite sides) have identified centrally planned economies with "socialism" and free-market economies with "capitalism." Anarchism and similar ideas, originally considered forms of socialism, would be a third category, "syndicalism," in the Misesian classification.

****

Anarchism has historically been considered part of socialism.

Anarchism supports free association, opposes the state, and opposes hierarchy. (At the very least, anarchists oppose involuntary hierarchy; anarchists often try to create egalitarian alternatives to the semi-voluntary hierarchies too).

There are several different traditions which respect these values, and usually recognize each other as forms of anarchism. These traditions borrow ideas from classical liberalism, from early socialism, from each other, and sometimes from other sources.

People depend on each other. People tend to create their own voluntary social order, including free association, reciprocity, mutual aid, and, if necessary, mutual defense. Once people create this order, a state, or any other criminal gang, is in trouble. So the state, to preserve itself, must preempt voluntary social order.

Highleyman, "An introduction to anarchism:"
http://www.spunk.org/texts/intro/sp001550.html

Danny OKC, "Anarchism, 3 minutes at a time," (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H0LYUQIP...re=related

"An anarchist FAQ:"
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/ or
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html (same text)