That Which Makes Me Liberal (Part II)

(12/27/2009) - A few months ago I wrote that, "The thing that I think makes me a liberal is that my position is almost always opposed to the entrenched interests that are trying to leverage their power to maintain their dominance."  I think the "almost always" might have been an overstatement, but the sentiment remains accurate. 

Then a few days ago, I had another thought that I think makes my point clearer - it's easier to define my liberalism in the negative - what are the reasons I'm not a conservative?  When I say "conservative," I don't mean in the sense that the modern Republican Party is considered "conservative."  This is more of a branding thing.  In many ways, they are not.  For me, conservative political ideology is based on the idea that the way things have been done in the past is the correct way to do them. 

So instead of just taking positions against entrenched interests, my liberalism is based on the idea that I think we can always be working on changing things and improving them, and the argument that "we've done things for a hundred years and things have worked out fine" is not persuasive.