What do you mean by Liberal?

[Sukerkin]

A most fascinating article on the BBC website that touches on something that I and other English members here have talked about in past discourses:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10658070

I confess that even I was amazed by just how malleable a term "Liberal" has been over the previous couple of centuries!

 

[Carol]

An excellent article.

And if you want to be even more befuddled, check out the history of Spain, up until the rise of Franco. Perhaps the use of "liberal" and "conservative" with regards to the separate factions are closer to how you use the terms in the UK. Personally I find it very confusing...yet still fascinating.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Interesting, but I have to take exception to the author's statements:

In America, neo-conservatives call themselves neo-liberals when it comes to economic theory. They advocate liberal interventionism in foreign policy.

I have never heard a neo-con in the USA call themselves anything but a conservative. Regardless of what they think 'conservative' means, 'liberal' is a dirty word to them and they'd sooner call themselves child molesters.

I agree with this statement:

British Prime Minister David Cameron is, by the current American usage of the word, a liberal.
He accepts the basic science surrounding climate change theories and is an advocate of gay rights. He even calls himself a progressive.
The word liberal has been so debased in America by right-wing demagogues that liberals have for at least two decades preferred to call themselves progressives.

I may be able to assist with his last statement, though:

It really is confusing - although perhaps the real transatlantic confusion is not over the meaning of the word liberal but over the meaning of the word conservative.

The use of the term 'conservative' has also been hijacked in the USA. In my day, and for me still, the word means what people like Barry Goldwater and to some extent George Will believed; beliefs which now encompass both the libertarian and conservative spectrum. Limited government, a weak central government and strong state governments, a strong military, free trade, protecting American interests overseas through diplomatic and other means as required, and a strong core belief that the Constitution is not meant to be 'interpreted' according to the current zeitgeist, but is to be interpreted strictly based upon the intent of the Founders.

Now, we find that the remnants of the Religious Right, which utterly wrecked the Republican Party, has also co-opted the term 'neo-con' and adopted it as their own moniker. Moving away from their religious conservatism, they now appear to have embraced a moving target of populism and populist anger and ennui against the outrage-du-jour. Their outlook is less conservative and more 'what makes me maddest today'?

Liberals in the USA, properly identified as 'progressives' in the sense apparently meant by the term in the UK, have retreated into either outright socialist bleatings about the need for the State to intercede in every aspect of human life, or have simply gone silent on the issues, only opposing and mocking the new 'conservative' agenda without presenting one of their own.

It's a mess. I continue to call myself a 'conservative'. I can't call myself a Republican anymore. I would never consider myself either a Democrat or a Liberal (or even a Libertarian), although I have ameliorated some of the stances I used to have over government regulation; I am now much more amenable to some regulation than I used to be; so that's a bit of a shift to the left for me personally.

And although I tend to dislike both Republican and Democratic politicians with equal intensity, if given no other choices, I'll almost always pull the lever for the Republican. Democrats are in too much of a hurry to spend my money, and I'll never vote to have my paychecks made smaller.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

FYI and along the same lines, when we say 'public schools' in the USA, we mean taxpayer-funded schools run by the state. I have been informed that in the UK, 'public school' means 'private school'. Which doesn't surprise me, since we're two nations divided by a common language.

 

[CoryKS]

"Liberal" is such a flexible word because it has positive connotations and many people want to brand themselves positively. To be "liberal" suggests that one is pro-freedom, and who could be opposed to that? Whether or not one actually is pro-freedom is another question, and it's a testament to the power of labels that so many can get away with calling themselves liberal while doing some really anti-liberal things.

That's why I generally place the word in quotation marks when referring to people or groups that identify themselves as "liberal" or the more self-congratulatory term "progressive". Otherwise I'll call them leftists, which IMO is more accurate and doesn't offer any presumptions of morality.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Hell just to mix it up a bit, throw in the Canadian version of what a liberal is and you get close to neither a UK nor a US version.

We actually have a liberal party and it changes its policies based on who the leader is at the moment, thereby changing what it means to be liberal.

 

[Archangel M]

Democrats are in too much of a hurry to spend my money...

Thats my main beef as well. Even though the Repubs don't mind spending it either. I find that other peoples quotes sum up my views better than I can explain them:

"A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else's money."
Carter Glass

"A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn't own."
Frank Dane

"Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.”

Anonymous
​

 

[Tez3]

Thats my main beef as well. Even though the Repubs don't mind spending it either. I find that other peoples quotes sum up my views better than I can explain them:

"A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else's money."
Carter Glass

"A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn't own."
Frank Dane

"Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.”

Anonymous​

Here Liberals are the ones advocating less government interference and more private ownership, what we would do is change your word liberal for our word socialist instead then it fits our understanding.
Liberals here are understood to be the middle party, neither conservative nor socialist. They want less interference in what a private person does and owns, it's probably more left than right in that the right is considered the party for the rich and titled while the Labour party is considered the working mans party. The party lines though are probably more blurred than they have ever been but here liberals are probably the opposite of what you consider them to be.

 

[Archangel M]

Imporatant stuff to remember while conversing on things political with our cousins across the Atlantic.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Interesting, but I have to take exception to the author's statements:



I have never heard a neo-con in the USA call themselves anything but a conservative. Regardless of what they think 'conservative' means, 'liberal' is a dirty word to them and they'd sooner call themselves child molesters.

I agree with this statement:



I may be able to assist with his last statement, though:



The use of the term 'conservative' has also been hijacked in the USA. In my day, and for me still, the word means what people like Barry Goldwater and to some extent George Will believed; beliefs which now encompass both the libertarian and conservative spectrum. Limited government, a weak central government and strong state governments, a strong military, free trade, protecting American interests overseas through diplomatic and other means as required, and a strong core belief that the Constitution is not meant to be 'interpreted' according to the current zeitgeist, but is to be interpreted strictly based upon the intent of the Founders.

Now, we find that the remnants of the Religious Right, which utterly wrecked the Republican Party, has also co-opted the term 'neo-con' and adopted it as their own moniker. Moving away from their religious conservatism, they now appear to have embraced a moving target of populism and populist anger and ennui against the outrage-du-jour. Their outlook is less conservative and more 'what makes me maddest today'?

Liberals in the USA, properly identified as 'progressives' in the sense apparently meant by the term in the UK, have retreated into either outright socialist bleatings about the need for the State to intercede in every aspect of human life, or have simply gone silent on the issues, only opposing and mocking the new 'conservative' agenda without presenting one of their own.

It's a mess. I continue to call myself a 'conservative'. I can't call myself a Republican anymore. I would never consider myself either a Democrat or a Liberal (or even a Libertarian), although I have ameliorated some of the stances I used to have over government regulation; I am now much more amenable to some regulation than I used to be; so that's a bit of a shift to the left for me personally.

And although I tend to dislike both Republican and Democratic politicians with equal intensity, if given no other choices, I'll almost always pull the lever for the Republican. Democrats are in too much of a hurry to spend my money, and I'll never vote to have my paychecks made smaller.

Without reading the whole statement, trickle down econmoics is liberal economics, Kansian is the more traditional method and is followed by the Liberals. You just got caught up in the word liberal.
Sean