OpinionJournal - Extra

On Thursday's WSJ opinion page was this essay trying to find what the Democrats stand for. It is the best piece I have seen at explaining what liberals look like to conservatives.

But the complaint that it's impossible to figure liberalism out has, until recently, typically been voiced by exasperated conservatives. For decades they have watched liberals rushing around with wheelbarrows and ladders, busy, busy, busy at building the welfare state. New programs are created, old ones expanded, urgent needs discovered and rediscovered. Conservatives marvel at this vast construction site and ask prosaic questions: What is this thing going to look like when it's done? How big is it going to be? How will we know when it's finished? And just in case there's any doubt that they are conservatives, how much is all this going to cost?

It should be noted that many conservatives are asking the same questions of George Bush's domestic policy, while liberals ask these questions only as they pertain to foreign policy.

A lengthy and somewhat scholarly piece from the Claremont Institute, it's worth a read.