THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM: LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES-AN INVESTIGATION

TODAY IS TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010

Good Tuesday Morning Bloggers!

Did you ever hear the terms conservative or liberal?  How about the terms radical or reactionary?

Did anyone ever call you a moderate or centrist?

If you observe the people around you, and listen to their views on different issues, it will help you to determine where they fall on the political spectrum.  You may hear things like, "But we've always done it this way" (conservative) or "Let's try to think outside the box on this" (liberal).  These types of statements might give you an idea of how people feel about different social, political and economic issues. (ideologies).

Ideologies are a person's political views or beliefs that are shaped by two major factors.  The first factor is how much change a person is willing to have within their society and government. The 2nd deals with how much government involvement we want in our everyday lives.

Often, the way people behave, gives us clues as to whether they are rules-followers (conservatives) or rebels (liberals). None of us are all one or the other. Whether we're conservative or liberal depends on the environment we're in. When the majority of what we do and say falls within one category, we can say that our behavior or thoughts are basically one or the other.  Political parties are loosely formed around these broad political ideologies.  Of the two major political parties, Republicans are generally seen as conservatives because they advocate a reduction in government.  Democrats are generally seen as liberal because they support government regulation of the economy.

Now for the fun part:

As a preview for today's lesson, click on the following link and take the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html   Then come back to this posting and tell me about your results and whether they surprised you or not. Explain to me any questions you still have about the political spectrum and the different ideologies.

We will then work together as a class, identifying some vocabulary, writing them on note cards, watching and discussing a slide show presentation and making a posting on our own blogs connecting to what we learned today. 

As always...remember proper and appropriate internet usage and to treat our laptops with gentle loving care.
Blog onward soldiers!!!