What are liberals and conservatives and how do they relate to democrats and republicans?

Democrats and Republicans are members of political organizations with long histories and gradually developed agendas, which, however, change over time. Liberals are people who want to improve society. The whole drift is that things are not as good as they should be, and reforms and changes are in order.

They want to liberate someone or something from any unfair circumstances that they may suffer under. Conservatives are people who think that things should not be changed. They want to conserve what they have.

Some conservatives, many these days, are actually reactionaries who think things were better in the good old days and want to move backward, undoing any recent changes. When the Democratic party was founded it was a liberal party of the people. It continued that way until the middle of the 19th century.

When the Republican party was founded it was a radically liberal party, in particular wanting to end slavery, which was its main agenda. The Democrats became the party of the conservatives. This continued roughly until the turn of the century as the Republicans became more and more the party of the conservatives and big business.

The last liberal Republican President was Teddy Roosevelt. He left the party and started the Progressive Party, being that party's only major candidate. Meanwhile the Democrats turned liberal in the North and West.

This culminated in FDR and the New Deal. For the next few decades there were still some liberal Republicans holding out in the Northeast and upper Midwest. In the Deep South the whites still hated the Republicans for freeing the slaves, even though they were very conservative, which led to them being the Dixiecrats, or conservative wing of the Democratic party.

When LBJ made civil rights the agenda of the Democratic party, Blacks switched to the Democrats as quickly as they became able to vote. Being conservative, the process of the Dixiecrats switching to Republicans was much slower, a few holdouts are still switching over today. So that's the way it is at the moment, the Republicans are almost completely conservative or reactionary, the Democrats are mostly moderate, liberal, and a few left over conservatives especially in the South.

More and more people consider themselves independent because of the polarization of the two parties. Election laws in all states make it very difficult for third parties to have any success. But, if the Republicans collapse it is possible that a party like the New Whigs will take over the center.

Democrat and Republican refers to parties, and to people that support those parties. Liberal and Conservative refers to to certain points of view, rather than to any political parties directly. (Btw, here we're talking about the US terms.In other countries, the same words mean very different things) Loosely speaking... Liberals are generally believers in government intervention, especially to help the poor and labor.

Usually they'll be favor higher taxes and spending than others would, and be more inclined to believe in government regulation, for example on environmental protection laws etc. Not all Democrats are considered Liberals, but there is a Liberal wing of the Democratic party. Conservatives come in two main flavors - economic conservatives and social conservatives. Economic conservatives believe in small government, low taxes, the free market etc. Social conservatives believe in traditional social values, for example they are often religious, opposed to gay marriage and abortion etc.Sometimes people are conservatives in both ways, sometimes only in one of the two ways.

There are plenty of Conservatives in the Republican party, and given their influence, no one in the Republican party would most likely want to come out and say that they are not conservative. However being Conservative and being Republican aren't the same thing. There are social conservatives who are Democrats.

There are economic conservatives that aren't social conservatives. And there are people in the Republican party that are arguably not conservative in either of the two ways. Confused?

I guess that's politics. :) I'm afraid the words are often used as insults or as marks of approval more than they are as an enlightening description of what people actually think.

Members of the Democrat Party are seen to have liberal views, while Republicans consider themselves to have conservative views.

Liberals believe in loose reading of the constitution and conservatives want strict reading and taking the constitution as it is laid out word for word. Conservatives tend to be republicans and liberals democrats. Tip/vote/best answer if you thought this helped you please =).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.