True, you can always manipulate philosophy. Stalin and Robbespiere were ultra-democratic. They were so democratic they not only thought they represented the nation, they WERE the nation. The Soviet-constitutions of Stalin and the one of 1977, were the most liberal ever. All rights, including rights on education, health service, free opinions, free press … However, the latest phrase (article 59 or so) said: all rights can be suspended if the individuals are not performing their duties towards the community. This opened the door for a wide interpretation. Not performing their duties, like for instance, Jews wanting to start a new life in Israel, legitimised the gov’t to punish them. Same for the ultra-democratic constitution of the Jacobins (don’t know this word in English, only in French, sorry). Liberal democracy was not going far enough because it didn’t represent the people as a whole, only some individuals. So, the thought the state should be the people (people’s republic), and hence, being too democratic will result in communism, dictatorship.

I love constitutions 😀 I guess you figured that out already.

I was only quoting Mr. President’s words. I should have used capital letters and brackets though: “Evil” and “Good”.

In the post-modern world we don’t simply believe in ONE religion, be it or Judeo-Christian God or the Almighty Dollar. Philosophically I think making a difference between right and left is not needed, because we have to accept both are necessairy. Otherwise we’ll end anyway in a totallitariam regime, be it extreme right (nazism) or left (communism). We have several ‘religions’ now, the economy, christianity, ecologist, nationalism etc. The important thing is to keep them balanced, and therefor democracy is needed today, while people didn’t need it during the Middle ages for example.

The unabomber killed people because he wanted to stop them from destroying the environment–just like the people at the earht liberation front, or the animal lib. front. WHACKOS!!!

Yes, they were wacko’s. But people who believe in animal rights are not. (same argument as the one above). Don’t be shocked for what I’m now going to say, but this is what’s animal rights is about.
1. First there were civil rights (French Revolution), restricted for citizens only (racial disputes)
2. Then there were human rights (WWII) = all men/women are equal (giving rights as well to the black)
3. Now is the time for animal rights. If we are not allowed to distinct people from the fact that they have different colour, why should we distinct animals from human race. They can suffer as well. (P. Singer) Should animals hence be allowed to vote? Ofcourse not.

Yes, possible, but you still haven’t answered my original question: the US constitution is based on liberal ideas (philosopically so no political tree-hugging sh!t): Kant, Montesqieu, Locke, Hobbes (probably Kant most of all, even more than Locke). The founders of the constitution were ‘liberals’, which meant they took distance from the Judeo-Christian values, which they found themselves to be backward and fundamentalistic (I’m not saying this, in contrary). Religion is allowed, but has no “constiutional meaning”, and is restricted to the private level, to ensure state and religion are sepperated.
So theoretically, ‘conservatives’ in America who don’t want to change the constitution are actually ‘liberals’. Paradox: Bush is considered to be a conservative, however, he wants to change the constitution to disallow gay-marriage. Same with Reagan.

The Constutition hasn’t changed since 1783, only ammendments have been made. But times have changed indeed, as you pointed out. The people who want to change the constitution though, are politically conservative. The US constitution is quite socialist in this matter: everyone should have the right on social aid (not the duty of the gov’t!!). Semantic crap you say, maybe, but this proves that the US in theory is not a a-social state where people are not to be helped by the gov’t. The people who want to change the constitution are the conservatives, not the liberals.

I always have problems with Americans using the word “liberal”. Liberal doesn’t mean “leftist”, ok? AFAIK liberalism is what the American society represents, namely freedom. Moore is not a communist, he’s a liberal, but so is Bush. It’s true that liberals want to increase the succes of their company, but not at the cost of society. Liberalism, which is economically nothing more than “utilitarism”, Adam Smith, means that every unit should be egocentric and think of its own succes, but the calculation of each individual succes should result in a healthy community. Practically this means “true” liberals also have to think about the poor and the helpless to increase their own succes. (if you have nothing, you can’t buy nothing, so the gov’t should give money to fulfill your duties as a consumer, otherwise the whole system collapses). So yes, Moore is a liberal and a utilitarist, more than Bush. If it was up to Bush, society would collapse. Reagan, a libertarian, wanted to scrap the right on social benefits from the federal constitution and leave it to the states to decide wheter they want to organise (or not) a social security. If that would have happened, the “American dream” of a free market would not exist anymore, because you can’t have free acces to the market without a gov’t backing the helpless individuals. Moore is “the Amercan dream”, so in this case, he’s defending the American constitution! He’s a conservative, not a lefty! That the gov’t should not intervene is utter BS! That’s no liberalism, that’s just anarchy. What did Roosevelt do during the crisis of the 30’s. Yes, Keynes: let the gov’t invest in public work. After all, the gov’t is not an “evil” dictator, unless there’s something fundementally wrong with your democratic system.

Most important of them all is that it’s not written in our constitutions that everyone should have the right to carry arms/guns. Since the US has the oldest constitution, that might have something to do with it. People know their rights, and like to use, sometimes abuse them. So in this case there’s no difference between the US and Europe. However, the US constitution also says that only the gov’t is legitimised to use violence, so threatening someone with your gun is still unconstitutional. You can only use it as a self-defence.

But there are other things different. Many Americans would probably see drunken driving as a form of murder too, in Europe, untill recently, that was not an issue.