conservative vs. liberal

Exactly what does it mean? You think there would be a clear answer, but there isn't. There's the international level of conservative and liberal, the domestic version of conservative and liberal, and the social version of conservative and liberal. Frankly, I choose independent because I'm completely confused. They seem to have morphed into labels, into us vs. them, with very little differences between them.

Please pipe in. So what brought on Bureauqette questioning the meanings of conservative and liberal? Probably because I've been utterly confused when I found myself agreeing with people who outwardly claimed they were conservative Republicans.

There are the obvious humorous stereotypes (I don't advocate them but this is what I hear) we make:

In General: Liberal-tree hugging effiminate peace loving, hippie World Bank protestor; UN & Nader champion
Conservative-religious rich tie-eating, pro-military anti-abortion, unipower world advocate; Bush lover

In International Affairs: Conservative means realist, and liberal means, well liberal. Realists are obsessed with states and power calculations, liberals are obsessed with multi-national organizations.

Domestically, conservatives are suburban/rural or who have money; advocate less government. Liberals are midde-class young urbanites who want accountability from the government.

Socially: Conservatives are religious, anti-abortion, traditionalists. Liberals are secular, testing social boundaries, pro-life.

Well who gives a sh*t? I'm speaking in generalities here, but here are my thoughts. In all three cases I'd probably claim I'm a liberal. One guy told me that men are hesitant to claim they are liberal because it's emasculating. However, sometimes I find myself distanced from some liberals because I don't really appreciate their talking about the opposition in rabid foul language, where on the contrary I've met gentlemanly soft-spoken respectful conservatives (I've seen vice versa as well). Although this is all situation and personality dependent, I've observed that both sides are sometimes unwilling to hear the other side, and maintain they are right no matter what. Additionally, both sides often generalize their arguments, and seem to think one or two factors have made the situation what they are, ignoring that most of the issues they disagree on are incredibly complex with factors not readily apparent influencing the issue. And that makes liberals and conservatives all the same to me.