Quote:
Originally Posted by Arles
for whatever reason, the democratic party is afraid to admit they have liberal ideas. When right started calling the left "liberal", the left could have said "so what?" and disarmed it. Instead, they ran from it like the plague making most non-political voters think there's something wrong with the term.
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The reason is simple: "liberal' is simply the wrong word with all sorts of connotations that simply don't apply to those who would call themselves "progressives". It embraces all sorts of attitudes that progressives would reject - there's even an element of libertarianism in there. There's also a suggestion of unworldly "fairies at the bottom of the garden" mentality - tree huggers and the sandals and incense crowd.
The term is simply inaccurate and misleading. The Liberal Party in Australia is the equivalent to the Republican Party, the term referring to "liberal economics" ie a small government, free market philosophy. The Liberal Party in Britain was the crackhead's party (now reworked with an element of political professionalism as the Liberal Democrats).
The term "liberal" is far too vulnerable to a broad interpretation that allows progressives to be criticised for opinions that they would reject outright.