Paula Said:

Socially conservative, fiscally liberal?

We Answered:

I think your categories pretty much sum it up.

To answer your question I do not know of a party that fits that bill.

The people that mention the Blue Dogs fail to mention that they are not a seperate party as they are "Blue Dog Democrats" and they all hail from more conservative states. They are simply reflecting their constituents and aren't really a "party" of their own.

The reason is that conservative people tend to like personal control over things like their money. It is pretty much what defines a conservative as once you forfeit control of your money to other groups you inevitably will have people that do not agree with everything you do. I feel it is human nature but that's my opinion.

Therefore you won't find many "conservative" groups that really want to have their money spent by the government even if it is on roads, social security etc.

Conservatives (I freely admit I am one) see things like the Teachers Unions as not working in the best interest of students as most of the things they fight for are for the teachers and having nothing to do with students. They fight against longer hours, more school days, testing as a means of measuring teacher performance etc. In Massachusetts there were several teachers strikes threatened due to rising health care costs... no different than everyone else but the unions wanted nothing to do with paying more. Hey understandable but it doesn't really help the students to go on strike. In one town they were fighting against a property tax increase and the teachers printed up literature and gave it to the students to bring home outlinging how their parents could get the tax hike passed. Unabashedly recruiting the students they teach to wage a propaganda war? Ewww sounds like Nazi Germany to me (being a wiseass but the analogy stands!)

I guess being from Massachusetts I am a little bit of a conservative snob. I think the fights about creationism are pretty silly but it doesn't kill anybody to just say "some groups of people do not believe in evolution" what is the harm of letting students know that not everyone agrees with scientists? I always felt part of a liberal arts education was to give the broadest range of thought you possibly can.