Fun With Cultural Differences!

I think this has to be said to clear some cultural differences between the United Kingdom and United States especially over the use of the terms Republican and Liberal in politics. This in a hope that some Americans do not get the wrong idea of my political views and stance.

So here we go to clear some misconception with those people across the big pond.

Here in the United Kingdom a Republican is not a major right wing political party, though it is a minor political party, but some one who wants to turn the United Kingdom into a Republic that is remove the Queen as the head of state and replace her with an elected President. It is an anti-Royalist stance as some citizens of the United Kingdom are frankly fed up with some their taxes being given to a Royal family whose existence is now in question in a modern country and they think the taxes could be better spent elsewhere as President would be cheaper option.

One interesting thing until a few decades ago to talk about a Republic in the United Kingdom was treason and you could be arrested for believing and even talking about a Republic. But now we can talk about it openly which is most definitely a step forward. There is even now a Democratic Republican Party here now in the United Kingdom but it is still a very minor political party.

Now we come to the biggest bugbear between the United States and United Kingdom the use of the term Liberal which definitely has two different meanings with ours in the United Kingdom being the oldest definition!

Here a Liberal is not a left wing or a communist or even a socialist but a political party which dates back to the early days of Parliament itself here in the United Kingdom. Yes, I will admit the Liberal are more left wing than the Conservatives here but they represent the middle of the road of politics which has always had it’s base in the South West of England.

Over the years the name of the Liberal Party has changed especially after a merger with the SDP party in the 1980s after which the party name was changed to the Liberal Democrats but basically the stance of the party remained the same.

What I think most American miss in our politics here is that our politics here does have a true left wing in the from of the Labour Party, though now they have sold out their left wing politics for votes but still represent the workers and Unions here in the United Kingdom. Plus we also do have real left-wing parties who stand in our General Elections which include the Communist and Socialist Parties.

This one of my pet hates with a large minority of the people from United States as they assume that when I use terms like Liberal or Republic they mean the exactly the same as in the United States but I will reiterate to these people there they do not mean the same.

All this goes to show there are those in the United States who have a cultural laziness to assume we here in the United Kingdom have the same culture as they do which is simply not true. As an Englishman I find this very offensive as after all I have taken the time to understand that the culture of United States is different to ours here which is definitely a very good thing!

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