What does "Liberal" mean to you?

I'm a little hesitant to launch this question as my own political ideas are pretty fuzzy (typical bloody liberal). It's just that Liberal often seems (to me) to be used as an insult, a dirty word, a synonym for being weak-minded, apologetic, unrealistic nowadays. (For example, here in the UK liberal seems to be the new "loony left", at least in tabloid conciousness).

Or to put it another way, is liberalism like Pink Floyd in the late 70's?

Er ....?

There have been discussions of this in here before. You could search around and find some without too much trouble I'd suspect.

Modern usage = "socially progressive". (Often pejorative, but not necessarily.)

Classical usage = more to do with libertarian ideas of individual self-determination.

I'll leave you with that little taster.

Just what I was going to say...

I live to summarise.

You know, with lots of infighting and solo albums.

The question is, who represents Roger Waters and who represents Rick Wright?

i get to be dave gilmour.

Liberals : Hash-smokin', tree-huggin', peace-sign flashin', free-lovin', acid-droppin', no-good, godless hippy bastards.

.............................

Come on, someone was bound to bring up that up at some time.

Right?

......Right?.........





Damn librulz.

That's a tough question, and it seems there's never an easy answer. I'll try and illustrate from my (admittedly limited) knowledge of the subject.

A liberal would "tend" to be pro-choice, while a conservative would "tend" to be pro-life.

A liberal would traditionally be in favor of government programs that help the needy survive, while a conservative would traditionally be in favor of government programs that help the needy get jobs to support themselves.

A liberal would appear to support the middle to lower class, while a conservative would appear to support the upper class.

Conservative presidents that come to mind: Reagan, Bush (Sr. and Jr.)
Liberal presidents that come to mind: Kennedy, Carter, Clinton


Truth of the matter: all of them are rich, all of them lie, and they think of nothing else other than how to keep their jobs in the next election.

The only thing that separates the two is the mask they wear.

In the Millsian tradition?

I don't mean to get all so-have-you-read-Plato-in-the-original-Greco-Latvian on your ass, but I associate Mill with something other than "liberal use of government".

Our very conservative Australian government views itself as being in the "classical liberal" tradition. They are the Liberal Party here, after all.

There are times, and this is one, where Little Ms Unravled rocks my socks.

OK, I'm not wearing socks right now, but if I was, they'd be well rocked.

It goes back further than Mill; to Locke and even Hobbes. Locke's concept was that government should exist only to protect the life, liberty and private property of the individual, to prevent the "war of all against all." Modern (fiscal) conservatives are very much classical liberals. Mill was a reform liberal.

And I've always understood "liberal" to be a reference to liberating the individual, not use of government, conservatism came out of worry about the rapid political and social change in England at the time.

Thanks. I'm more Millsian (Millian?), I suspect, thank Lockian or Hobbesian, but the Leviathan idea is worth having in the back of one's mind in the current era.

the link s5 posted to tompaine had a nice definition of liberal and conservative. I personally prefer this definition from dictionary.com: "Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded."

The definition of conservative that I wish applied to many of those in American politics who refer to themselves as such is "Moderate; cautious." In reality, it's more like "An opponent of progress or liberalism." Bummer.

I'm not certain about the origin of the word, though. I'll look into it.

Plato's "philosopher king" is also worth keeping in mind. Completely undemocratic, but at least we wouldn't end up with Dubya or Ahnold in power.

We've gone from philosopher king to celebrity king. Scary shit.

(Dubya might as well be a star of old cowboy movies.)

Open-minded makes me happy. I like to think of liberal as one who wants to liberate the people by reforming laws the government uses to control them. It's sort of a libertarian politic with a bent towards anarchism. Well, if my terms are all right, anyways. I figure so long as doing something doesn't directly violate the civil rights of anyone else, then it should be legal. Murder is bad, drugs are fine so long as you don't murder anyone while on them. If only laws could be as simple as "Don't lie, cheat, steal, or hurt anyone." (sigh)

Dude, you're a liberal!

Sounds a lot like reform liberalism. Coincidentally, Mill, the first r. liberal, is considered by many to also be the first libertarian because he believed that government should make no laws concerning behaviour affecting only the individual. But there's a lot of grey areas: does suicide affect just one person?

yeah that's half of the picture actually libertarianism is a hyped up name for anarcho-capitalism. Those guys are socially left but fiscally right. I think that the term liberal is getting such a bad name because the people whom apply it to themselves have been subtly smeared in the media for the past thirty years as ineffectual intellectuals. Without the backing of the working class (whom have grown ever more apathetic as they become further disenfranchized by manufacturing moving overseas) liberals have become characterized as pointy headed academics, whiny new york jews, and idealistic college students whom will simply turn right after they get a job. As for a definition of liberalism I would say that the essence of liberalism lies in the belief that only through cooperation as opposed to competition can an equitable situation for all be attained.

*hits head against desk*

When talking about a bunch of important policy issues, the appropriate antonym of "competition" is "monopoly", not "cooperation".

More generally, competition (for resources, for power) is endemic and unavoidable, regardless of whether social order is maintained through cooperative behaviours.

Please do not forget this in future. Thank you.

To me it means naive and unreasonable akin to a childs temper tantrum about whats fair or not.

I presume you came to this conclusion through a careful reading of Mill, Locke, Hobbes, et al?

To me it seems weird to contrast "liberal" with "conservative", because to me it seems the natural pairing of opposite is between "radical" and "conservative". Radicals want to pull everything up by the roots and start afresh; conservatives want to maintain the value of what we already have and make progress in small, careful steps.

I'm not sure what I'd contrast to liberal, though; maybe "authoritarian"?

Some would indeed argue that that is the appropriate contrast.

Librals want to take your hard earned money and give it to crack-addicted criminals.
Librals want to legalize drugs and for your kids to have sex, preferably with members of their own gender.
Librals are atheists who will only be happy when all evidence of an almighty creator is detroyed or hidden.
Librals want to destroy all guns.
Librals believe that if you're white and male, you're probably a pretty bad person.