Reply #20: Put the ball in his court.

[mgc1961]

Ask him what the conservatives have done that's so great? And remember, conservative is not by definition, Republican. It was conservatives that resisted the abolition of slavery.

I would also point out that his use of the word liberal is a political definition. Personally, I like the word conservative when used as a general description of someone who exhibits a healthy degree of civil restraint. I also like liberal for it's descriptive policy of honoring differences. The problem is, many people have much broader, political definitions of those words. They associate such a plethora of political and/or religious evils to both of those words that their use has become toxic to polite conversation about good governance. In fact (IMO), there's really aren't that many issues that truly divide the way the two parties govern. Much of the perceived differences between liberals and conservatives are merely word-weapons manufactured for political combatants to use against one another.

Here's an example. The right-wing likes to hurl charges of "socialist" in regard to liberal or Democrat governance. In my opinion, we all live in and support socialist policies regardless of which party holds the levers of power. It's only a question of which socialist program we chose to spend money on in any given term and how much.