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Conservative and liberal, are these mutually exclusive terms or is it possible to be both?

SaintClare of YouTube suggests the latter:

What do you guys think?

Without clicking on the youtube video because I'm currently getting bursts of 30kbps, I'm guessing Conservative Liberal means a sharing of two ideologies in one tract or another, like being fiscally-Conservative but civilly-Liberal, vice-versa, et cetera. It is possible to be both, though some would say it's all roundabout of the same issues.

Of course its possible to be both. You have to be a bland person to hold only left or only right wing views.

Of course you can be both. I don't know if Trump us considered a conservative (I think he is though. I don't know a whole lot about US politics, as I'm not an North American), but I took a survey that was posted here and apparently, our economic interests are very similar. On more social issues, I tend to side with Hillary and Bernie, which to my understanding are liberals(?) .

Well the problem is that both conservative and liberal have multiple meanings.

Conservative can mean someone who is opposed to change, or wants a return to certain values of the past. It can also mean someone who wants things in small doses or avoids excess. In politics this would be people interested in reducing either government spending or government power or both. This definition is a near synonym for moderation. These are ideas that can be either comfortable partners or completely opposed depending on the situation. For example in Britain one type of conservative might advocate for returning power to the monarchy while the other type of conservative would oppose this because they believe that this would put too much power in the hands of one person.

On the other hand liberal has different definitions as well. It can mean an ideology that promotes individual freedom as its highest goal. Sometimes this comes at the expense of traditional values. It can also mean someone who advocates easy and frequent use of government power or money. This definition is a near antonym for moderation.

The problem is that the first definition of liberalism is similar to to the second definition of conservatism. The second definitions of conservatism and liberalism are polar opposite and the two definitions of liberalism conflict more often than not.

Further complicating the issue is that most people don't know or care about these distinctions. In (American) pop culture Liberalism = Progressivism = Leftism. Meanwhile we conflate the Right and Conservatism.

So it is 100% possible to be both conservative and liberal on the same issues depending on which definitions you use. And as Freakenstein pointed out most people take different stances on different issues rather than falling behind one blanket ideology.

To those who don't want to check out the video, it basically breaks down that liberalism, at its heart, is a set of beliefs in individual freedom, democracy, and a rule of law. Conservatism is the belif in upholding the status quo, and nothing else.

Liberalisms main opponent isn't conservatism, but Authoritarianism, while Conservatism's opponent is Progressivism, not liberalism. If you seek to preserve liberal values in a society, you are a conservative. If you wish to move society away from liberal values to authoritarian values, you're a progressive.

It's basically stripping away modern defitions, which arose from mislabeling, and taking the words back to their root defitions and meanings.

So basically, it's not only possible, but completely normal, for a person who grew up in a liberal society. Whereas anyone who wants to shift the society away from the liberal status quo to something else, be it socialism, or libertarianism, is progressive, and opposed to those liberal values.

Anyone who points to one of these guys who want more socialism and anti-capitalism and screams "Liberal!" is using the wrong word.

When people say they are liberal or conservative, that just means they lean more on either side.

If someone was completely on one side only that would usually make them an extremist.

The terms have specific meaning in US political context, which are separate from their dictionary definitions or how British conservatives act. A US conservative will always want smaller federal government/budget, more state independence, private/faith-based charity over government welfare, but they have different ways of accomplishing that. A US liberal will always want the federal government to have a larger scope of oversight that states must adhere to, total government welfare as a basic right, etc and they also have different ways of going about it.

The problem arose when we started bringing our opinions into politics. Conservatives and liberals used to be on the same side of largely every social issue, or the government didn't have a hand in those social issues at all (in the past 20 years we've rushed to put thousands of social justice laws on the books, ie the bathroom mess where there was previously no actual issue). Once the public started demanding the government take sides, the GOP became a religious refuge and the Democrats became the party of anything goes. So now you're much more likely to hear someone say they're "moderately conservative" or "a socially liberal conservative" as attitudes change with the generations. Eventually both parties will be on the same side of social issues again and we wont have this confusion because we'll once again be comparing the parties by their economic/etc policy instead of their personal opinions.

isn't that an ideology of most practical libertarians?

The definitions that I was taught were based upon change. Conservatives want things to stay roughly the same (or even go back to the way things used to be) and Liberals want to try something new. Because the method of change is governmental action, this leads to the two being opposed on governmental power as well; Conservatives usually want a smaller government that interferes with their rights less often, whereas Liberals typically want larger government capable of enacting widespread changes more effectively.

Both sides are characterized as using change in small doses, as anybody who wants to change society too much would be classified as a Radical or Revolutionary, not a Liberal, and if somebody wanted to revert society back too far they would be called a Reactionary, not a Conservative.

By these definitions, I would say that it is not possible to be simultaneously both Conservative and Liberal on any single issue, although one can be (and most people are) Conservative on one issue and Liberal on another. When somebody says "I am a Conservative" or "I am a Liberal" I typically default to thinking about what they want regarding government size and power, rather than beliefs on specific issues, since being exclusively Conservative or Liberal on every single issue is difficult to imagine in a society not made up of clones.

One ideology which comes to mind as a good example of this is Fascism, which was a fusion of reactionary social values and radical economic reform. Fascists referred to their position as the "Third Alternative" because of its simultaneous opposition and similarity to the ideals of both strict liberalism and strict conservationism, giving their supporters a third option to choose from beyond left and right. Traditionally however, Fascism is classified as a far-right ideology because of its social agenda, prioritizing self-sufficiency and promoting ethnic nationalism, but looking at fascist governments of the past you can also see that there were many liberal programs enacted including animal rights laws and public welfare initiatives. In this way, Fascists can be classified as "Conservative-Liberal" in spite of their stated opposition to both sides.

I don't see how conservative is based on small government entirely (more something libertarians are for) and liberal is bigger government. Maybe I'm thinking too much from within the US but both are half and half. For example someone who wants social issues to be highly regulated is usually considered conservative while also economically free but liberals want basically complete social freedom with economic protections.

But at the same time that's also not always true. Like with the bathroom thing it could be argued depending on your perspective either side could be considered pro government. Conservatives want the separate sex thing to be mandated but at the same time other conservatives want individual places to have decisions on that and not mandate. While liberals say people should be able to use whatever restroom they desire which is a social freedom thing you know, less interference. But the liberals also want it to be mandated that this freedom take place. So it's very very confusing.

Politics aren't a spectrum at all, or a board, or a horseshoe, all of the visual representations are honestly too simple.

{ I don’t see how conservative is based on small government entirely (more something libertarians are for) and liberal is bigger government. }

This is basic US politics 101. I was trying to find an image that breaks it down neatly but of course Google is dominated by comparisons on gay marriage and abortion, exactly what I was talking about.

The US conservative movement core is based on a shrinking and limited federal government. With that comes tax reform, education reform, welfare reform, etc etc. They think it's better for everybody if we involve the federal government with the least amount of matters as possible. The feds are there to regulate money and keep our borders secure, as per the Constitution. People who need assistance shouldn't rely on the government, but their community, churches, private charities, etc. Everybody pays a percentage of taxes depending on their income.

The US liberal movement core is based on an expanding and powerful federal government. It comes with the same reforms. They think it's better for everybody if the federal government is as involved as possible, the feds are the authority and states should be far more limited in their autonomy. People who need assistance should be able to rely on the government indefinitely for total care. Above a certain line, you have an obligation to pay a significant percentage of your income as taxes to support that care.

Although politicians within each ideology had different opinions on how accomplish the broader goals (thus creating the spectrum), it was really easy to pick a side. Now we have very confusing social reactionary legislation. The liberal says we must protect the transgender people who have had no issues using bathrooms before now. The conservative says we must protect non-trans people who have a right to genital privacy. There is no variation within the parties on these social issues, it's all very black and white. & where there is attempted compromise, one party shuts the other down. Abortion? According to the liberals, it must be completely unregulated. The 20 week limit suggested as a compromise by conservatives, after considering that less than 1% of abortions take place after this date anyway, was declared a "War on Women" by liberals and subjected to a slew of propaganda. Now you have to be a misogynist Christian bigot to want any sort of standards applied to abortion.

Instead of a spectrum, today's social politics are a coin. One side or the other. Yes or no. Prove your genitals at the door, or just make all bathrooms unisex. Politicians react to each other by going further towards the extreme, but it's impossible to put a coin on a spectrum. It should be interpreted more as someone on the conservative spectrum is holding a coin heads up, similarly to someone on the liberal spectrum holding a coin heads up. The coins (their social policy) match up, but they're still on opposite sides of the spectrum. Neither of them are in the middle of the spectrum just because their social policies are similar. What we need is another spectrum instead of a coin, which is what the "socially liberal conservatives" have started to form, but again are generally blocked by the extremes. No compromise allowed.