Quote:
Originally posted by russellwarshay
I was poking fun at you for holding political beliefs different from my own. I'm sorry if you interpreted that as an attack.
As far as being liberal goes, and this is not directed at you, I resent the way that the word "liberal" has been distorted in the US over the last several decades. I am a liberal, in the classical 19th Century definition of the word. That means that I am not left wing. It does mean that I believe in liberalized markets, not only for goods and services, but also for the free exchange of ideas.
In much of Europe, being a "liberal" means that your political beliefs are similar to moderate libertarianism in the US. In Australia, the Liberal Party is the leading right wing party.
A great irony of the distortion of the word "liberal" in the US is that a liberal arts education requires a strict adherance to a grammar, and proper word definitions, so that discourse does not devolve into a "Tower of Babel" like environment.
ETA Australian Liberal Party beliefs
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I'm a liberal in the American sense - I'm a bleeding-heart, pro-choice, anti-death penalty hippie dippie Babs Fembot. Most of the "names" Kitso has called me are true. I'm not ashamed of it, and I don't think I could EVER date anybody who was "pro-life." I have a good friend who's a very moderate Republican, and I could probably handle dating him if I found him sexually attractive, which I don't. I'm a very political animal and there is no way I could handle dating somebody who didn't share the same beliefs I did on my core issues.