'Liberal' in America

[Stalker]

The reason is that liberalism has different definitions in Australia/Europe and the States. The American right often refers to commies/lefties/socialists as "liberals" and therefore it has become something of a slur. In Australia and Europe, liberalism and conservatism are not necessarily polar opposites and many conservatives might describe themselves as economic liberals.

Indeed. Not just Europe and Australia, most of the world uses it as such, at least those parts with political pluralism. Canada has a mixed situation, given the large influence the US has there.

Yeah, it sounds like you're describing libertarianism to me.

No, American libertarianism has its origins in the Conservative movement.

I'm not sure why the UK is being included in the "Liberal means economically liberal" crowd here. I mean, the Liberal Democrats are pretty much united by social liberalism, but deeply divided on the economic front, with the party being made up of both "orange book" liberals and more left wing liberals.

The current ruling elite of the Lib Dem party are all Orange Bookers, but it wasn't long ago that a lib-lab coalition was a more realistic scenario to a hung parliament, and the majority of the party were centre left.

This is true, but there is an easy historical explanation. The modern LibDems are made up of a merger of two parties, the Liberal Party and The Social Democratic party, the latter a splinter of Labour. I would argue that the liberal faction does make a good example of ideological Liberalism.

The GOP: [...] economically liberal

Sometimes in rhetoric, but in practice traditional Conservative, most of the time.

Basically what's been said. The term has a different meaning in the United States. The Online Etymological Dictionary seems to suggest the term holds a different meaning in the United States due to the implication that a liberal is open to new ideas- these ideas would, of course, include things like economic reform. The usage apparently dates to 1823 (I'd have guessed New Deal politics or perhaps a couple of decades earlier, seems I was wrong).

"[it] seems at times to draw more from" is a very dense collection of weasel wording. But then, there is often a conflation of first observed use and that which influenced a shift in usage, while those things can be entirely unrelated.

My understanding of history is that your guess is spot on. New Deal Liberals espoused policies that the rest of the world would refer to as Social Democratic, a phrase that doesn't even get a listing in the above linked dictionary. I trace this to the first red scare and the avoidance of the word Socialism in US political discourse. Even to this day There are Americans who think Social Democracy still means Democratic Socialism and social democratic European countries have basically chosen to be versions of the Soviet Union.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

No, American libertarianism has its origins in the Conservative movement.

This is not correct. Check out Lysander Spooner, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard. I don't believe you could identify any of these men as belonging to "the Conservative movement".

[Dornish]

The pejorative use of innocuous words is a surefire sign that the user is an idiot. See: liberal, gay, atheist, etc.

[Lord Mord]

The way I see liberal in the pejorative sense is "runaway" as in "runaway train". A liberal government is eighty billion tons of steel barreling along, without any apparent helmsman, or worse, a captain bent on rushing us all to some nightmare dystopia. This they can do due to their liberal use of force, their liberal appropriation of revenue, their liberal doles (which earn them loyal followers). They are generally also viewed as morally liberal (permissive), so that the fabric of strength and order is utterly undone when they have their way without the goosestepping and Final Solutions.

And like most inexcusable bullshit, there are kernels of truth in there. Clearly, American liberals want a very big government,a hell of a lot of power, and to be fair, that government is far away, and the things they do are hard to understand and they can't seem to articulate them, so people who've been taught their freedom is the one thing they have everyone wants to steal, they have to wonder what those smarty people who talk down to them really want, and it's really really easy to convince them with the merest suggestion that maybe everything they love is coming to an end. And with a government this big, the things which they most fear losing really could disappear instantly.

Given that even at its ideal the liberal government has to take plenty sometimes and give only part of it back, and that it often doesn't work at ideal levels, and given that we've all been taught with absurd thoroughness to protect our every privilege and stroke of luck as though each were life itself ... And of course, luck fades and privileges change and erode anyway ... With these givens, liberal=bad is just a very, very easy sell round these parts.

[Asarlai]

The pejorative use of innocuous words is a surefire sign that the user is an idiot. See: liberal, gay, atheist, etc.

But the liberal gaytheists are ruining the world!!

(In my joke, I tried to fuse gay and atheist. I didn't mean to say gay theist.)

[The Anti-Targ]

Isn't it because a whole bunch of non-conformists keep wanting to be liberated? Blacks, women, gays, the French. So from a conservative standpoint "liberation" of groups that don't conform to the dominant demographic (white, hetero, male, anything but a French accent) has been a pain in the arse. Thus liberation of these groups has becomne conflated with the term "liberal", through granting rights and freedoms to people who didn't used to have them.

If only people knew their place, life would be so much simpler.

I mean to say, house maids wanting to become secretaries... what will we have next?

[Asarlai]

I mean to say, house maids wanting to become secretaries... what will we have next?

People marrying their voting cats in the United Socialist States of TerroristWinsville, obviously.

[The Marquis de Leech]

New Zealand is a wee bit of an oddity here: we don't really use the term liberal at all. Our two big parties, National and Labour, are conservative and social-democratic, and that's it.

We did, however, have a Liberal Party a century or so ago, that was in power 1890-1912. It was also the most radical government this country has ever known (it both contributed to, and fed off, the British Lloyd-George variety of Liberal). Amongst other things, it broke up vast country estates and made them available to small farmers, gave women the vote, introduced a system of compulsory arbitration for dealing with industrial disputes, and created the world's first tax-payer funded Old Age Pension scheme. Many of its ideas were later adopted by the Labour Party.

[Lyanna Stark]

In America the conservative party, the Republicans, are even more morally bankrupt than most political parties. Instead of attempting to combat their opponents on the issues, they've decided it's easier to play smear games and toss about insults.

Thus, liberal = bad word. That way, instead of being forced into an intelligent discussion/debate on the issues, they can throw out the word "liberal" as an excuse to avoid using anything resembling original thought.

As a really weird aside here, "liberal" is used as a "bad word" in Sweden as well, but here it's used for someone who is rightwing. Normally reserved for the "neoliberal" or "market liberal", basically a word used in distaste at free market liberals who don't believe in Social democratic principles of heavily progressive taxation and an emphasis on state ownership of stuff like health care, public transport, public broadcasting etc.

So liberal here has come to be far more associated with an fiscally conservative person.

[Galactus]

As a really weird aside here, "liberal" is used as a "bad word" in Sweden as well, but here it's used for someone who is rightwing. Normally reserved for the "neoliberal" or "market liberal", basically a word used in distaste at free market liberals who don't believe in Social democratic principles of heavily progressive taxation and an emphasis on state ownership of stuff like health care, public transport, public broadcasting etc.

So liberal here has come to be far more associated with an fiscally conservative person.

I think in part this is because we really haven't had any seriously organized socially conservative movement in a while.

[mcbigski]

Hardly a novel insight, but to the extent that conservative is short hand for not wanting to throw overboard something that's been working tolerably well, it's not at all opposed to classical liberalism in the US, as we've been running under a system inspired by those ideals for over two centuries. We've certainly been dragged too much into collectivism over the last eighty years or so to be able to claim that we're still a classically liberal society altogether IMO, but the primary conflict in usage between Conservative and Liberal in the US is because Liberal has very little intrinsic meaning left.

I have no idea. I know conservatives use the term liberal as a slur, but I have no idea what they're trying to get at.

Generally I usually think of it as shorthand for 'bleeding heart liberal'. I tend to just use leftist though, lest someone think I'm expecting Democrats to be pro liberty in some way. OK, Dems are definitely pro sexual liberty and pro fetus extermination, but apart from that, the dominant strain of leftism in the US isn't in favor of economic liberty, free exercise of religion, controversial speech, individual self defense, etc.

The blindingly obvious failure of 'liberals' is that they think that people in general are too broken to function happily without massive government intervention. But the government is staffed by the same imperfectable, mostly clueless people following orders from other mostly clueless people who are also power hungry to boot. Centralizing the exercise of power in a bigger government just magnifies the scope of each mistake and multiplies the opportunity for corruption.

I think CS Lewis captured this quite well:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

[haLobEnder]

I think the OP's confusion about the term is that he's attributing the liberal movement to the likes of John Locke, whereas most modern-day 'Liberals' evolved more out of the utilitarian principals established by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I find this disgusting. I cant believe that in America you would associate liberalism with communism for political points. That is so wrong its just ridiculous. To think that the early liberal thinkers who fought against absolute monarchies in 18th and 19th century Europe to be called commies. Im very surprised. That definitely demonstrates ignorance to make a statement like that. Its just so wrong.

In this day and age, sure, but it started during the "cold war". Anyone who grew up with the threat of "mutual assured distruction" has a justified reason for this. I doubt half the board was even born during the cold war. It was a different mind set then and it has been a tough ride giving up the "old" notions of liberalism.

I can speak from personal experience here. I was 24 when the Wall fell, and I was very right wing (in the army). The world has changed, but anyone over 45 years remembers a very different world.

Change is hard. I am sure most people would not put me in the far right today, but in 29 years of voting, I have cast exactly one "liberal" (democrat) vote. If it is hard for a reasoned and educated person to change their views on what "liberal" means, imagine how hard it is for those older than me and less educated.

It is not "disgusting". It is a major part of our history. Time are changing and maybe when those who grew up in fear of the Soviet Union leave politics for the rest homes, it will change too. Change takes time.

[Shael]

Exterminate all fetuses!!! NAAOOOWWW!!!! :commie:

[DanteGabriel]

For the OP, if you want to know why the word "liberal" is so hopelessly twisted in the minds of Americans, just consider that there are a bunch of other people out there who sound exactly like Mcbigski who've been getting their notes from Rush Limbaugh et al.

[mcbigski]

For the OP, if you want to know why the word "liberal" is so hopelessly twisted in the minds of Americans, just consider that there are a bunch of other people out there who sound exactly like Mcbigski who've been getting their notes from Rush Limbaugh et al.

Deep substantive criticism or lazy ad hominen? We report, you decide!

[The Progressive]

Dems are definitely pro sexual liberty and pro fetus extermination

Honestly-held stupidity, or rightwing talkingpoint regurgitation?

We quote, you decide!

[Hereward]

In this day and age, sure, but it started during the "cold war". Anyone who grew up with the threat of "mutual assured distruction" has a justified reason for this. I doubt half the board was even born during the cold war. It was a different mind set then and it has been a tough ride giving up the "old" notions of liberalism.

I can speak from personal experience here. I was 24 when the Wall fell, and I was very right wing (in the army). The world has changed, but anyone over 45 years remembers a very different world.

Change is hard. I am sure most people would not put me in the far right today, but in 29 years of voting, I have cast exactly one "liberal" (democrat) vote. If it is hard for a reasoned and educated person to change their views on what "liberal" means, imagine how hard it is for those older than me and less educated.

It is not "disgusting". It is a major part of our history. Time are changing and maybe when those who grew up in fear of the Soviet Union leave politics for the rest homes, it will change too. Change takes time.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense. First, it wasn't only the US that faced the prospect of MAD and yet "liberal" didn't become a dirty word anywhere else. Also, it assumes that the liberals were fellow travellers, which cannot be supported by the facts. Second, the biggest US cold warriors were actually liberals, i.e. LBJ and Kennedy, so I really don't get what you're saying.

[Asarlai]

the dominant strain of leftism in the US isn't in favor of economic liberty

What's more important, the further liberty of the corporate executive to make even more money, or the liberty of the worker to not be oppressed by an economic oligarchy of the rich? A democratic economy could certainly be construed as economic liberty (for the many, rather than the few), though I suppose most leftists nowadays stop short of that.

free exercise of religion

Isn't it the conservatives always freaking out about Muslims? Isn't it the conservatives who support searching everyone in a Muslim garment for explosives? Isn't it the conservatives who try to stop Mosques from being built? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

controversial speech

And here I thought the liberals were the ones against censorship.

individual self defense

Defending yourself need not entail possessing machines designed for the sole purpose of instantly ending human life with such destructive power.

The blindingly obvious failure of 'liberals' is that they think that people in general are too broken to function happily without massive government intervention. But the government is staffed by the same imperfectable, mostly clueless people following orders from other mostly clueless people who are also power hungry to boot. Centralizing the exercise of power in a bigger government just magnifies the scope of each mistake and multiplies the opportunity for corruption.

Government is filled with the rich, and is often corrupt. However, where government's power is rolled back, the private sector takes over. The government is democratic (hence the "public sector"), whereas the private sector is controlled by an economic oligarchy of the rich. By rolling back democratic government power, you are taking away power from the people and giving it to the few rich leaders of the economy.

So next time you want to say "Let's shrink the government" instead say "Let's take away power from the people."

[Shael]

Deep substantive criticism or lazy ad hominen? We report, you decide!

Did you really just accuse someone else of lazy ad hominem attacks? That's... stuperb. Possibly spupendous.

Conservatives always complain that liberals talk down to them. Well, when someone comes to the table with, "liberals are pro fetus extermination," it's difficult not to. Because it's not honest, and you know that it isn't, but you're saying it anyway.