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In order to answer your question without going over a thousand words I won't go into specifics but the origins of liberal thought were found in the writings of Locke, Hume, Smith, and Voltaire.
The term liberal is found in its Latin root 'Libre' which means 'free,not slaves'.
During the age of enlightenment liberalism rejected the divine right of kings, hereditary status, and established religion.
Classic liberal supporters believed in individual liberty and human rationality should be the purpose of government.
At the core of government should freedom of thought and speech, limitations on government, free markets, private property, and rule of law.
The American constitution was based on these aforementioned principles and that government rules by consent of the governed.
Fast forward 200 years and what we have is a schism, between classic liberals and social liberals. Whereas classic liberals such as Ludwig von mises and Ron Paul support minimist and libertarian concepts such as spontaneous order, free trade, freedom from coersion; social liberals believe that the government need to play a more hands on role to promote the freedom of citizens through programs such as welfare, health care, minimum wage, and housing for the homeless.
Social liberals look at these programs as infrastructure for improving commerce.
Liberalism must also be dissected into two catagories political and cultural.
Political liberalism is the belief that individuals are the basis of law and society, and that society and its institutions exist to improve the individual.
Cultural liberalism focuses on the rights of individuals pertaining to conscience and lifestyle. The classic liberal believes the government has no intrusive role in sexual freedom, cognitive freedom, religious freedom. The social liberal believes the government plays an interactive role in supporting these freedoms.
Cultural liberalism opposes government regulation of literature, art, academics, gambling, sex, prostitution, abortion, birth control, guns, terminal illness, alcohol, drugs and other controlled activities.
'Liberal' is used like 'Communist' was used in the 50's - what exactly defines a 'Liberal' in terms of SPECIFIC issues?
Liberal is synonymous with communist or socialist because they hijacked the term.
Just as we see liberals changing their name every now and again-- liberal, socialist, progressive, etc.-- they also depend on a manipulation of the term. What was once meant to mean free, was distilled into "liberty" and "positive liberty".
Positive liberty is a communist concept. It claims that a person can be more free when the resources of another are given to him/her. That's socialistic... which is communistic.
Specific issue? Check Citizens Against Government Waste: Homepage (http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer - broken link) Look up your favorite liberal and you'll find a list of what makes a lib a socialist.
Specific issue? Like the communists, the liberals are hand-in-hand with the labor unions.
One of the things I hate the most about liberals is their extremely soft stance on crime and how to deal with the scums of society. That is why extremely liberal states like Vermont for example refuse to pass "Jessica's Law" which puts way child predators behind bars for an extremely long time, anywhere from 25 to life. And than you have the extremely liberal ACLU which defends sick twisted groups like NAMBLA.
One of the things I hate the most about liberals is their extremely soft stance on crime and how to deal with the scums of society.
I think the reason for their pro-criminal position is that damage to a law abiding citizen is an attack against our country. It's an attack against the rule of law.
Also, I think it might have something to do with the fact that communists don't support morality. (Well, someone mentioned the other day that they had a special set of morals, but I don't know anything about it.)
Liberal has been tossed around as a 'bad word' lately, especially in light of the election. I think it's WONDERFUL that people are liberals, but as with conservatives, people can take it too far. To be too far left (ACLU is a bit too liberal for me) to being too far right (Fundamentalist religion anyone?) is not good, but to be in the middle (like I am) and be able to sway towards the right AND left on issues based on facts and logic is where we need to be.
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