What is a 'bleeding heart liberal' ?

Here in the UK we do not understand this American term. Please explain.

What is a 'bleeding heart liberal' ?
Liberals are politically left-wing, as in more socialist than capitalist. Labor is ostensibly left-wing, though Blair's New Labor is more middle of the road.





One common belief in socialism is to care about the health and wellbeing of other people around you, which is why left-wing, or liberal, governments tend to pour more taxes into social services, like schools and hospitals. The right-wing, or conservative (republicans in the US) tend to instead cut public spending but offer individuals tax breaks.





Bleeding heart means to care "too much" about others, and to want to solve all the world's ills, while perhaps not being completely realistic about the way the world works. Thus a bleeding heart liberal, or bleeding heart leftie, is basically an insult that the conservative side of politics aim at the left-wing to say the left-wing care more for unrealistic ideals of, for example, ending world suffering than the day-to-day reality of living in today's world.
Reply:Not the official meaning. Just my take of it. They are for the underdog. Even tho the same is a curr,and mutt that will turn on you in a moment and rend you. History has proved this out. Since God did not create people, and pronounce what he did about their disobeying and becoming sinful, The liberal believes everyone is good when born. and something in life changes them. They are not sinful, just sick. Even leaving God out their theory does not hold water.
Reply:If you look in the dictionary under "Bleeding Heart Liberal" you will see my picture. ;-)





Seriously, they consider it an insult liberals. Its a sarcastic way to say that we care too much, with implications of phoniness. It amazes me that caring for people who are in bad circumstances is considered a negative.
Reply:Its an insulting term used by conservatives to describe liberals. An example would be a person who does not believe prisoners should be tortured. A conservative would say that a prisoner deserves everything that happens to him. A liberal would say that there are standards of decent treatment of all human beings including prisoners that need to be observed. And then the conservative would insult the liberal, saying he was a bleeding heart liberal and soft on crime for believing that prisoners should not be treated in America as they were in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. But that is only one example. A conservative would say that tax cuts for billionaires are more important tnan adequately funding veterans hospitals, so it is fine if wounded soldiers lie in their own excrement and recieve no treatment in veterans hospitals. A liberal would say, no, if you have to pay taxes to treat the wounds of soldiers properly, you pay them because human decency to your own troops requires it. And then the conservative would say that the liberal is a bleeding heart liberal, a tax and spend liberal, and against the troops and in favor of terrorism. This is what we hear on about 4/5 of our so called news media every day here. And you wonder how the American public elected Mr. Bush. Oh wait, that was the supreme ct.
Reply:"Bleeding heart liberals" so-called are left wing Democrats who ostensibly want to give everything but the kitchen sink to the poor people and tax the rest to pay for it, I guess that's about it in a nutshell.
Reply:Pretty much what a Christian oughta be.