On tenterhooks here :)

The SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!

Just like the liberals want to?

I don't think he's going to ask a question.

Perhaps this is a social experiment, to see if the meer mention on politics spirals a conversation into chaos.

Or maybe it's a metaphor, symbolizing the worry about politics and such during the holiday season when really we just need to stop in our tracks and enjoy ourselves.

Or maybe he went to go grab a sandwich.

first, merry christmas!

Now, I've been thinking about some discussions I've seen here and there's something that intrigues me. Do you know that the word 'liberal' comes from 'liberty' which means 'freedom'?
Why u.s. people tend to associate the word liberal to those who sympathize wiht democrat party and Obama politics? Frequently I've seen here that those who are more to the right, are the ones for which the 'freedom' is more symbolic and important concept (they'll say for instance that they are free to have guns, or I remember that bald old guy that fortunately is not here anymore, that would ague that there's no need of public healthcare cos anyone is 'free' to take care of their health by himself)

Also, if one considers the 'economic liberalism' I wouldn't say that the democrats are more liberal than the 'conservatives', all the opposite.

The only point in which the word 'liberal' might make some sense, is when talking about certain porgesist ideas like the the 'freedom' of lgbt communitiy to do what they want with their ass, but elsewhere, the way u.s. people use the word, is rather confusing to me.

The liberals are lazy pansies who are trying very hard to take our guns and install an authoritarian regime (the way pansies do).

@trPrado, I was trying to discuss about the meaning and use of a term, not trying to make any kind of judgement of what 'liberals' do.

My statement was self-contradictory.

Principians, I've always wondered about that. 'Liberal' is an interesting word with many different definitions, many of which don't seem to have anything do to with each other.

Just my two cents as I avoid working (see?!? us liberals like to shirk and not do our jobs!).

I think it's a matter of the word evolving. Democrats/left leaning people probably started to use it in terms of civil rights or social issues for whatever reason. The Republicans/right leaning people then used it as a way to describe the other team, often with negative connotations (not attacking conservatives on this site, I'm just saying that liberal is usually used as a slur). I guess the thought process was if they use it to describe themselves we can turn it into a negative. I've even seen radical left wing Americans using "liberal" as a pejorative.

tl;dr - both sides ended up using the word as a descriptor of a particular U.S. political position.

We in the U.S. are incapable of polite political discourse. We'd rather use liberal as an attack word, much like fascist, or intolerant, or racist. Heck, the right uses the word progressive as an attack word now. Liberals started calling themselves progressives because of the negative connotations that "liberal" had. Now wingnuts on the internet claim Hitler was a progressive. It ignores the whole history of the progressive movement in the U.S., a movement that included both political parties and led to things like direct election of Senators and the modern primary process. Positions I'd argue that those on the right would support.

So, so many of my fellow countrymen/countrywomen need a basic civics lesson and don't know anything about political theory. We'd rather just yell at each other.

In all seriousness, we would have to look at the terms first to begin a discussion.
First, I think it's a good starting point to look at what has been considered the opposite of "liberalism" ever since there has been a concept of "liberalism": conservatism. This can be taken in one of two ways. It could be the preservation of the status quo, or it could be a desire for a more traditionalist system. "Economic liberalism" and "freedom" in the United States could fit this model very well. The Republicans have taken up the "conservative" moniker quite decently. While that could mean either, in the instance of the Republicans they very much prefer to stay in the confounds of traditionalist, as I will point out bits of the status quo shortly later. And, hell, Reagan ran on a lot of very traditionalist ideas and reinvigorated the Republican Party, with Evangelicals and other traditionalists feeling like they could trust it again after the lies and corruption of Nixon and Ford.
So what of "liberalism" as the US uses it? A lot of what we consider "liberal," I think, came about with what the different parties were looking at in the post-Progressive Era through the end of World War Two. The Democrats became more and more in favor of social progress. Social progress implies change, and change has largely been the deciding factor of the definition of "liberalism" ever since there was a liberalism. Affirmative action, abortion, gay rights, a desire for a "War on Poverty," welfare programs. These were all socially progressive. They were different. They were "liberal." Now, going strictly by the status quo definition makes things a little fuzzy, because a lot of the "liberal" policies ARE status quo, and the Democrats simply want to amplify them and expand upon them.
So I think the crossroads are there, with the "liberals" here being distinguished by social progress and the desire to expand upon social progress, and the "conservatives" trying to use more traditionalist thinking.

You correct point out the difference between economic liberalism and social liberalism; but you don't extrapolate enough from it.

Economic liberalism is the only thing on the menu in the US, and in most other western countries at this point. Since the 1980s market liberal (or neoliberal) resurgence, no major political party, centre-left or centre-right, has really strayed from that line. So there is no point in distinguishing between Republicans and Democrats on that scale, because whilst the Republicans may be a little more "liberal" there, the Democrats have not by any means offering a socialist or paternal interventionist run economy. In recent years, some figures or new parties have finally stepped up to challenge that (Bernie Sanders in America, Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, Podemos in Spain, SYRIZA in Greece, etc etc), but by and large, economic liberalism is still the main offering on the table.

Social liberalism, on the other hand, has not been so dominant. Dating back to the civil rights movements; the Democrats got on the right side of history there, and were the liberal movement. The Republicans, by trying to conserve the status quo, became the Conservatives. Before the Civil Rights movement, the Republican party had always been known as the 'liberal' party, because of its economic liberalism. Since the 1980s, on Social Liberalism has really differed between the two though, and the Democrats got the tag of liberals from the earlier Civil Rights days, and have pushed that further with LGBT and minority rights.

Whilst you point out that the Republicans try to maintain freedom of guns, that's technically both liberal and conservative at the same time - liberal in freedom of choice, but conservative in maintaining the status quo (the definition of conservatism).

the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in American politics are bastardizations of the attempt by the Democratic and Republican parties to increase tensions and build polarization, which ultimately aids in the reelection efforts of high profile candidates in both parties. The actual meaning of the words has only a little to do with the connotations they have in the USA.

hear hear.

I think the term took more of a jump with the New Deal, and the Civil Rights movement just reinforced it.

Republicans weren't originally the more liberal party just because they were economically liberal--they were more socially liberal as well. Early debates between women's suffragists and abolitionists over whether to prioritize women's suffrage or Negro suffrage look a lot like modern debates within the mostly-Democratic LGBT movement over which subgroup's rights need the most political activism. Progressive parties like the Bull Moose party formed from radical elements of the Republican party.

Both the New Deal and the civil rights movement transformed the party landscape. FDR actually ran on what we'd call an austerity platform in 1932, but his New Deal coalition brought together working-class voters, minorities, and Big City machines. Effectively, he got the Depression-era equivalents of the urban vote *and* the rural poor. This lumped a lot of social liberals into the Democratic party, so both parties were mixed bags for a few decades. Then, in the '60s, the civil rights movement led the mostly-rural, mostly-conservative south to desert the Democratic party in droves, making the Democratic party definitively the socially liberal party of big cities and big government.

republicans freed the slaves, then some democrats woke up and realized freeing slaves was only the first step and republicans got antsy

"Republicans weren't originally the more liberal party just because they were economically liberal--they were more socially liberal as well."
We're talking about the party that ended slavery. It was one of the presidential runs against FDR when they cease to be the "party of Lincoln," and lost the black vote.

"republicans freed the slaves, then some democrats woke up and realized freeing slaves was only the first step and republicans got antsy"
To be fair, the Reconstruction Era was meant to address a lot of that and was led by Republicans. It's just they made several corrupt deals in that era and it got very obfuscated.

The whole history of the shifting parties is complex. Some will argue there was a deliberate "southern strategy", which is partly true. Others will argue it happened because Kennedy/LBJ/etc. signed things about civil rights. Also sorta true. I think it's a more complex, long-term thing that happened over the 20th century, beginning with FDR and not really ending until the 80s or 90s.

There absolutely was a deliberate "Southern strategy" used by Republican Richard Nixon during his presidential runs. That was partially responsible, or perhaps symptomatic of, the social unrest and associated political changes during the 60s.

@TrPrado--"We're talking about the party that ended slavery. It was one of the presidential runs against FDR when they cease to be the "party of Lincoln," and lost the black vote."

Yes, but that's just one leg of the social liberal umbrella. For example, Eisenhower won more women than men, and Kennedy won more men than women. Democrats didn't really open up the gender gap until Reagan. The South flipped Republican and the East flipped Democratic in the '60s. Lots more than the black vote going into this demographic shift.

"leg"
"umbrella"
it's just metaphor soup in here ._.

You're all possibly guilty of over-simplifying the question; of channelling the thinking into bipolar, Aristotelean logic: "I think it's a good starting point to look at what has been considered the opposite of "liberalism" Equating political farties with 'liberal' or not is nuts; it's policies and practices that can be typified as more or less 'liberal'. I think, anyway...

If policies and practices can be described as more or less 'liberal', then parties can be described as more or less 'liberal' according to the policies and practices they espouse and implement. Insofar as error exists, it's in the reduction of many varied causes and beliefs to the single term 'liberal'. I think the fact that 'liberal' refers to many different things has been amply acknowledged by the thread, though.

Tyere is some philisophical ambiguity here.

Assuming liberal means 'free'; you can be free to bear arms, or you can be free from gun violence.

That may be a very topical example, but there are countless more. Free to starve, vs free from hunger (a possible socialist vs capitalist interpretation) free to purchase health care etc...

You can be free from threats to your life (typical national security/police interpretations) vs free from government violence (typical anarchist interpretation)

There must be hundreds of dichotomies along these lines. There are liverals vs libertarians. Both aspire to some freedom.

How you resolve this philisophical question 'what is freedom?' Probably says a lot about your politics. Or perhaps it should if you ask it first.

More to the point, that different people may interpret freedom differently... That should inform your worldview even more. They are not wrong, they are merely different.

Using liberal to describe a political party (for example the liberal democrats in the uk) turns it into a flag. A unified identity for many to follow, an while the exact policy may vary the point of a flag is that it can be seen and followed; everyone knows where it is (whether friend or enemy)

Flags are useful tools in both warfare and democracy, but they are unrelated to the question 'what is freedom?'

@principians the "Liberal Party of Australia" *is* our major right wing party - they (were) closer to the "liberty/libertarian" political side of things. These days they're a mix between some of those and a pack of ultra-conservative Catholics and allies.

Our major "left" (really they're centre and maybe slightly left) party is the "Australian Labor Party", originally a union party, nowadays a mix between that and a bunch of people who aren't "real lefties" but aren't conservative and/or right wing.

Our actual left party is "The Greens", but they're not libertarian - they're pretty much socialists.

None of these labels really actually line up super well with the reality of what a political party is though. :-)

In Australian politics the major Conservative party is called the Liberal Party and the trade union supported "socialist" party is the Australian Labor Party, both parties have moved to the right over the last two decades.

There are other parties smaller but still significant players

The old Country Party which was conservative and a rural farmers based party is now called the Nationals
They are a divided party at the moment, Coal Seam Gas is a very divisive issue for them.

There are the Greens who as their name indicates are a party that is primarily concerned with environmental issues, but have broadened their policies, so they are progressive, support free public education as an example, and have support in both city and rural electorates

We also have the silly parties such as extreme right wing idiots who think we should all have a dozen guns and be free to shoot refugees as their boats spproach, or free to shoot uppity blackfellas and gays, and only workers and socialists should pay taxes.

There are other minority interest group parties eg the anti Pokie machines party, who think there should be sensible limits to gambling but have widened their policy base.

There are also the wacky religious extremists candidates and their minor "parties"

We like to get value and entertainment for our taxes, and no matter how silly a citizen's political views are, there's someone they can vote for.

Voting is compulsory, so we get good turnout and vote numbers, although if you don't vote, you only have to provide a polite and plausible reason as to why you didn't vote, and it's easy to dodge the fine
For example "granny was sick and the car got a flat tyre" will suffice although often that excuse is code for " went fishing / surfing / watch the kids play footy or Cricket /spent the day drinking and gambling "

The term Liberal is too narrowly defined by too often linking it to political parties or policies

Classic Liberalism is a philosophical "set of values and principles" that you use to make judgments, decisions, develope policy responses, choose actions etc, in my opinion.

. It's an intellectually challenging phosophy to embrace, and by comparison, the shallow, stupid extreme views are easy stuff for the intellectually lazy to embrace

Liberalism has evolved since
John Stuart Mill drank half a pint of shandy as was particularly I'll
Renee Descartes was a drunken fart etc etc