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What does it mean to be "liberal"

Meadmaker

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Meadmaker
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Apr 27, 2004
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In the United States, the Democratic Party is generally considered "liberal" while the Republicans are generally "conservative". These two words are often used as if they were opposites, but are they? I like to think of myself as liberal, but I frequently find myself on the opposite side of many other liberals.

So what am I doing wrong? Or are they? Who's really liberal?

When defining a word, you can't go too far wrong in looking at the dictionary, so we may as well crib from dictionary.com

1.Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
2.Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
3.Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
4.l Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.
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That's not too bad, I think, as a start. Liberals aren't stuck with doing things one way, and they are willing to change things. They are accepting of others.

I think the key characteristic has be the tolerance of ideas and behavior. The word "liberal" includes the root "liber". "liber" means "free". To be a liberal, you have to let people have freedom. Otherwise, you aren't being tolerant of their behavior.

Note one thing in the definitions. The notion of "equality", so prevalent in leftist politics today, is totally absent. On the other hand, while it isn't in the definition, some sense of "equal rights" is totally consistent with the definition. In my opinion, that's a worthwhile distinction. No law can make me "equal" to another person, and it shouldn't try, but I should be able to behave as I see fit within the bounds of society, just like everyone else has that right. As an example, I should have the right to interview for a job, and be hired if I can do it, but that doesn't mean I should have the right to get a job that I want.




Sometimes, being liberal is equated with being against government regulation. I disagree. While all government regulations restrict freedom, by their nature, some of them have the net consequence of increasing overall freedom. I'm sure we'll discuss that more. The key point is that in my opinion, American Libertarians are not very liberal, either. Or, at least, if their policies were implemented, we wouldn't live in a very liberal society.

Well, I should go, due to time constraints, but I would invite people to do two things. First, discuss liberalism in philosophical terms, as to what principles liberals ought to hold. Second, and I think more interesting, give examples of hot button issues of today, and discuss whether the commonly accepted liberal position is truly liberal. I will do so myself at the first available opportunity.

I am particularly interested in cases where people think that the accepted liberal position in the United States is not truly liberal.
 
Because the USA de facto only has two parties, at least on a national level, those two parties have had to adopt political ideas outside their core ideals, to fill the voids in voter wants.

If the USA had more parties, you'd probably see a much purer liberal Democratic party and a much purer conservative Republican Party.

As a European liberal, I really don't recognize much liberal policy in the Democratic Party. In fact, the core ideals of the Republican Party (small government, economic freedom of the individual, etc) is close to the Liberal Party I'm a member of (although actual Republican Party policy, as seen in our current time, is far from the policies of my Liberal Party, just like it's far from the ideals of the Republican Party itself.).

I belive Wikipeda has a seperate article on American liberalism, to distinguish it from general liberalism.
 
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We have to be careful how we define and use this term "liberal" here in Australia. It's probably a case of Orwellian double-think, because the "Liberal Party" (capital L) is actually the in-government arch-conservative party, equivalent roughly to Britain's Tories, or the US Republicans. Whereas the term "liberal party" (small L) would more accurately refer to some of our minor parties - the Democrats, Greens, etc.

So we have to be able to distinguish between "Liberal" and "liberal" politics, because they are poles apart!

Our major opposition and sometimes government party, Labor, is somewhere between Britain's Labour Party and the US Democrats, depending on which faction holds sway at any point.
 
Well, it's even more of a meaningless word here in British Columbia. We have the federal Liberal party, which although currently an utter shambles, has traditionally been an utterly centrist party, swinging slightly to the left and right in step with public opinion. Hence why they've been hugely successful over the past 100 years.

The BC Liberal Party, however, like the Australian Liberal party, is archconservative. It's actually the remnants of the old Social Credit party, which was quite conservative in nature (although it was originally based in a kooky economic theory). So, people that vote Liberal federally are likely to vote for the socialist NDP provincially; and people that vote Liberal provincially are more likely to vote Conservative nationally. (That last bit is somewhat speculative though; I have no stats to back it up on hand.)
 
I heard an excellent definition of liberalism from radio personality Phil Hendrie--paraphrased into my own words, it means liberal with respect to the use of government. The Conservative point of view is to believe in as little government involvement as necessary. Liberals, instead, believe that an application of government initiative can be good or bad, depending on the issue and how well-concieved the program is.
 
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US liberals: for;

SSM, "alternate lifestyles", abortion-on-demand, higher taxes, affirmative action, blame-society-first, appeasement as foreign policy, snail-darters etal, increasing gov't regulations-everywhere on everyone (except themselves), etcetc,

against;

personal responsibility for one's actions.

Any questions?
 
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hammegk said:
US liberals: for;

SSM, "alternate lifestyles", abortion-on-demand, higher taxes, affirmative action, blame-society-first, appeasement as foreign policy, snail-darters etal, increasing gov't regulations-everywhere on everyone (except themselves), etcetc,

against;

personal responsibility for one's actions.

Any questions?
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I'm almost afraid to ask... what are "SSM" and "snail-darters"?
 
I think Phil Hendrie's idea was that liberals see government as part of the solution to some of society's problems while conservatives see government as the problem.
 
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The government should do 3 things

1) National defense.
b) National health
3) Interstate commerce

That's it. As for the rest, STAY OUT OF MY LIFE.
 
SSM: Single Sex Marriage

snail-darters are on the endangered speicies list and, as such, have been an impediment to some development projects.
 
The Painter said:
The government should do 3 things

1) National defense.
b) National health
3) Interstate commerce

That's it. As for the rest, STAY OUT OF MY LIFE.
Click to expand...
Great ideas! And how could they screw it up, with things so unambiguous and universally agreed upon as "interstate commerce."

:)
 
The Painter said:
The government should do 3 things

1) National defense.
b) National health
3) Interstate commerce

That's it. As for the rest, STAY OUT OF MY LIFE.
Click to expand...

Hmm, you'd probably want a police department or two...
 
One way of being liberal despite wanting government regulations is to support only those regulations that end up enhancing overall freedom. It is illegal in America to open a lunch counter, and refuse to serve black people. This is a liberal law, because it demands a certain degree of tolerance even in private, or semi-private, life.

Another requirement of liberalism is that the tolerance must be pretty pervasive. It's not enough to say, "I don't care what those people do in the privacy of their own homes. When they start doing it in public, it's not right, and there needs to be a law to protect the rest of us from it!" That's not very liberal, because it stigmatizes the group and forces them underground. You don't get to claim liberalism just because you won't search them out and arrest them.

Of course, by "those people", I meant Christians, but it could apply equally well to homosexuals.

I suppose you can't discuss liberal vs. (conservative or other nonliberal) in the USA without dealing with the elephant in the room, and that's gay marriage. The "wedge issue" extraordinaire.

So, is it liberal, or not so liberal?

It certainly isn't conservative, so if that's the criterion, it's liberal. Also, support for gay rights, in the sense of ending laws which prevent them from working, teaching, etc. is clearly liberal.

But what about marriage? I have decided that on balance it's liberal to support gay marriage, but I want to explain why I don't think it's quite so obvious.

Marriage itself is a highly restrictive institution. It creates a restrictive covenant that interferes with our most personal activities. On the surface, it isn't very liberal at all. Historically, it was used in a highly non-liberal fashion, to restrict how and when you could have sex. In my opinion, the only reason such an institution can possibly be justified by a liberal is if somehow, some good comes of it. Not just some good, but some way of enhancing freedom.

I think that can be done, but it's much easier to do for heterosexual marriages than for gay ones. There are plenty of threads dealing with gay marriage right now, so I won't go too far on this topic unless the thread takes us there. I just figured that you couldn't discuss liberals and nonliberals these days without mentioning gay marriage, so I thought I would before moving on to something which is to me more interesting. I eventually decided that for some homosexuals, the same needs exist as for homosexuals, and those needs permit the otherwise unwarranted intrusion of government into our personal lives. Therefore, I conclude that support for gay marriage is a liberal position, even though it restricts freedom.

Notice, however, that I will insist that "equality" is not the reason it's a liberal postion.

Hopefully, my next post will get to school vouchers, support for which is an extremely liberal position, despite the fact that fewself-described liberals support them in the US.
 
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