Pedro Martínez: thanks Hun for that information.....

Bernice: Liberals are conservative everywhere in the world, only in the US and Canada, for some weird reason, "liberals" is what they call social democrats.

Bernice: "stereotypically I categorize everything"

Perfect!!!

Ferris Bueller: Good question.

Librarian a category of a certain type of job. From that there are sub categories.

All librarians are old ladies with funny glasses that say, "shhhhh" a lot." is a stereotype.
The term "stereotype" is itself a category.

Things that are heavy = a particular category of things.
All fat people eat potato chips is a stereotype.

A category is a division of classes of things (small, large etc) It's a classification - a group of a particular kind.

A stereotype is the characteristics assigned or generally associated with a particular group. Here there is a bit of a crossover as certain "categories" of groups (liberals) could be given stereotypical characteristics.

But, to say someone is a liberal isn't the same as saying someone IS liberal. The first identifies the category, the second describes the person (and perhaps stereotypes them in doing so).

All liberals have a philosophical leaning that differs in ways from conservative philosophy. Otherwise they'd both be liberals or conservative. A liberal can be a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. (same is true of a conservative - conservative on finances, liberal on views towards social issues).

A stereotype would be to say all liberals are fiscally irresponsible. All religious nuts are conservative. etc

Übergeek 바둑이: Don't forget the Barny Franks(who is attempting to repeat his failed policy again) Harry Reid,s and Jimmy Carters of the world and accorn

Übergeek 바둑이:  All good points.  Things are hardly ever as simple as they appear.  There will be enough blame to go around if the economic policies fail.

In response to this comment:

> it is the liberals telling us how we have to keep the big dogs alive
> because the little dogs rely on them???

I consider the recent round of bailouts to be neither the result of liberals (or democrats) nor of conservatives (republicans)

As I recall the course of events, initially there were failures in some huge financial institutions such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The Bush administration came to their rescue and turned them back into public companies. This reverse privatization was the first symptom of things being very wrong.

After that we had problems with big banks such as the Bank of America, UBS Payne Webber, Wachovia and eventually the big one, J.P. Morgan. The Federal Reserve opened the cash window and let out about 400 billion in loans to keep banks afloat.

George W. Bush convened a high level meeting with Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Federal Reserve) and Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury). They drafted a proposal for the bailout. The bill went to congress and it was narrowly defeated because of opposition from both Democrat and Republican representatives.

George W. Bush convened a second meeting. This time he also called John MacCain and Barack Obama. They interrupted their campaigns and in the meeting they redrafted the bill with stipulations for continuity of policy after the election. Meaning that regardless of who was elected the bailout would go forward.

The bill went to the senate and it was passed to everyone surprise. The bill was expected to fail because there was opposition from both liberal and conservative senators.

Democrats charged that the bill was nothing more than using tax dollars to prop up banks, while ignoring important needs of the working public such as education and health care. Republicans charged that the involvement of the government in sustaining private companies was a form of socialism and that free market forces should let the system find equilibrium and that meant letting banks fail.

The bill was drafted by both Democrats and Republicans during the Bush administration, and it was opposed by both Democrats and Republicans.

While all this was going on, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Swiss Central Bank, the Central Bank of Sweden, the Central Bank of Russia, the Central Bank fo the People's Republic of China and many other central banks drafted similar bailouts and opened their cash windows. There were unprecedented lowerings of interest rates.

This was a case where capitalists, communists and socialists of different colors and stances worked together to pump cash into the world's financial system and avert another meltdown that threatened to be worse than the crash of 1928.

The bailout is a phenomenon that started with the Federal Reserve in the US, but eventually spread itself around the world.

If all the cash that was released into the system fails to revive the economy, and the banks fail to repay their loans, there will be a lot of finger pointing to see who is to blame. Barack Obama will take the brunt of it, because he is the president. One would hope that John MacCain, George W. Bush, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson would take the blame too. So should Gordon Brown and Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England), and for that matter all the other politicians and economists around the world who took part in what has the potential to become the biggest economic disaster in modern history.

Ferris Bueller: stereotypically I categorize everything

Artful Dodger:  What is the difference between a strereotype & a category?

Vikings:

Artful Dodger: you will be as soon as you sit on the copy machine

Artful Dodger:yep

Bernice:

are we off topic yet?

Artful Dodger: I love office parties...I can pinch the bosses bum HAHAHAHAHAHA

Artful Dodger: that made me laugh

Imsoaddicted: We have three parties too. The democratic/liberal party. The republican/conservative party.

And the office party.

Imsoaddicted: 3 main parties....I know and so do we but AD and I were only talking those 2 :)

Bernice: ah but we have 3 main parties in the UK
i let V fill you in with what they stand for..lol

Bernice: Well if that's the case, then my bad. I stand corrected.

I think ROFLMBO

Artful Dodger: well......Labour is/was for the working man/underdogs. Liberals are conservative in UK or if you are in the USA Republican.....

Bernice: What are they and what are their leanings? ;)

Artful Dodger: not over here it isn't....2 different parties altogether...

(V): alright, lets go your way, in the U.S. constitution there is a saying that people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. there is another quote that says the government will provide for the common defense and promote for the general welfare.
nowhere does it say that there is a guarantee of success.

So that little hot dog maker while you have to applaud his rugged individualism would have made a better choice opening his stand outside someplace like Madison Square garden.
If the government would have been doing it's job, promoting the general welfare, they wouldn't have been siding with unions and instead would have been giving tax breaks to that hot dog stand in hopes that he would eventually invest in a second stand and hire an employee

(V): Democracy is a political system. (sigh)

Bernice: I think the Labour party is equivalent to the liberal party. Mostly

(V): You can claim to be a box turtle for all I care. That's not the point. Much of your leanings are consistent with the leanings of the liberal establishment. You're religious views for example, are very liberal.

So there.

(V): well thats good, and at least for a change you don't

Bernice: Certain philosophies would disagree with you on that.

I'll say goodnight.. no-one wants to answer to "what happens to the millions of little people"!!

(V): I probably should have said "has a leaning towards"
as was said below by someone....everyone leans towards something, you can't be "nothing"

(V): No this thread started with your responding to

gogul: want the big fishes to starve so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much. Well high politics, justice and the big corporations, soon as it implodes this will be a real relief for the people.

by the way I want a ford because the wheel base suits me but I don't want a ford engine, who do I contact to sue

Bernice: Nope.... political systems by their nature don't work. As someone said, democracy is just the best system so far!!

Vikings: I didn't want an apple, I wanted a PC... but with apple is the OS bundled?

No.... we were discussing today the little people.

I would say that Jules would be of the LABOUR persuasion........

(V): no body forced you to buy it, you could have bought an apple if you didn't want it.
The subject originally was big business going bankrupt and it evolved into trickle down economics

Artful Dodger: Wrong. I am not liberal. I will not repeat myself again!!

Vikings: It came with the machine, I had no option not to purchase the machine without windows as most do not.

Anyway... the subject was the little people, part of the big businesses. Or the little people, those who invest their life savings in what everyone says is a safe bet. It's not their fault a big business makes a mess of things, so why should all those normal, everyday people loose out? Why should they loose everything they spent a life building??

I've seen no-one here come up with an answer to that, just diversion and changing subjects.

(V):  It doesn't have to be accurate.  But in general, it's safe to say that you lean on the liberal side of politics and on moral authority.  My leanings are much more conservative. 

Artful Dodger: And being loose it is never accurate. period.

(V): judges are 1/3 of the government acting like 1/2 of the government.
who forced you to buy it?

(V):  Yes.  Even you fit into a slot of some kind.  It's what defines you and your way of viewing the world.  Not necessarily a rigid definition, but a definition nonetheless.  I'm a conservative thinker.  That ought to give you some idea of my political leanings and view of life.  Not every detail, but to some degree.   Some attitudes are definitely characteristic of the left, some of  the right.  Some fall in the middle.  

Vikings: we were talking about government, not judges....

Windows is not IE!! You'll agree 99%+ PC's (I allow for error) are sold with windows installed.. even the cashpoints and shop tills use windows.

Artful Dodger: WE are all God. Everything IS God.

"We all fit into some slot with respect to our political views and with respect to our philosophy of life."

Ohhhhhhh no we don't!!

(V): First of all it was judges that took his money, they weren't elected so there was no change in subject,

secondly Gates made a consumer product people voluntarily purchased it, then the government took his money because people are too lazy to download firefox. or buy apple
He stole from nobody, nobody had to buy from him

(V): Well, you're not God so that comparison is weak.   And a liberal IS a category.  We all fit into some slot with respect to our political views and with respect to our philosophy of life. 

There's a difference between a category and stereotyping.   Nothing wrong with identifying categories. 

Artful Dodger: I find categorising people never works. It's like trying to describe God with words.... how do you describe something that IS???

Vikings: I can disagree with policy without saying someone is stealing.

And Gates was stolen from... yet over here we find in respect he's been stealing (to use your phrase) though in broad daylight from consumers!!

And btw... I was talking not about judges, why change the subject?

(V):  it's not a stereotype, it's a category. 

Czuch: I'm a human being, not a liberal. It would help if you remember that. As I said stereotyping me as a liberal will not work.

Do I have to repeat myself on that??