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Next week will see if the definition of conservative has changed.From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English liberal lib‧e‧ral 1 / ˈlɪb ərəl / It may be that those who use the word "conservative" as a pejorative label have not been as successful as the makers of the "liberal" label.
#Liberal politics definition free
The idea that it is conservative to remove business regulation, encourage free enterprise and provide an environment of maximum personal freedom was at first a liberal idea. Recently some who like to apply this label to others accused those they label as liberals of wanting the social engineering of socialism and being part of some cultural elite. Liberal now means more government regulation, tax and spend, and government solutions to social problems when the original liberal wanted less government intervention. Today it is the label liberal that accuses people of wanting more government regulation of business and industry. This seems another instance where the definition has changed. This self-regulating economic system was called free enterprise or capitalism, a very liberal idea. These liberal ideas were put in economic terms by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations." He said that everyone benefits when people are allowed to follow their own economic self-interest with little restriction. This is clear in the writings of English liberal John Locke and American liberal Thomas Jefferson. The central idea of these liberal thinkers was that there was a right to rebel against a government that restricts personal freedom. The revolutions established governments based on a rule of law that rested with the consent of the governed. These people wanted to implement a very liberal idea, governments that govern best because they govern least. The same term is used for those who participated in the English revolution of 1688 and the French revolution of 1789. The early people of America that revolted against the crown in 1776 were called liberals. It is the liberal who now says, "Don't touch it." The irony is that those who wish to use liberal as a label today would have the liberal take the words of the conservative and the conservative take the words of the liberal in Roosevelt's metaphor. The radical says: `Cut it down.' The conservative says: `Don't touch it.' The liberal compromises: `Let's prune, so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new branches." "Say that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually produces rot and dead wood. Roosevelt used a metaphor for a definition. During the campaign for his first term, Franklin D. It may help those who see liberal and evil as equal to consider the definition of liberal that was written by a modern liberal. Note that it was a liberal who said "go West young man." The presidential candidate of this party was Horace Greeley, the newspaper editor whose "go West young man" is often attributed to others, including Brigham Young. Grant and in 1872 formed the Liberal Republican Party to oppose him.
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These were party faithful who opposed the re-election of Ulysses S. It may surprise "conservative" (another label) Republicans that the term liberal was once part of the name of a third political party made up of members of the Republican Party. The dictionary is only a record of the past, not a Bible that tells us what we should mean when we use a word. Words are defined by the people that use them, not by the dictionaries that repeat past meanings. Using a word like "liberal" as a label is how words are given new definitions. during campaigns is the effort to pin labels on individuals or movements, attractive or sinister, depending upon the point of view." The label "liberal" is now a pejorative tag pinned on candidates. Dewey once noted that "one of the standard weapons of party conflict. "Liberal" is a label much like any political label and is avoided by candidates because labels tend to exclude more people than they include. The definition of liberal for the next generation will be the definition they hear, not the one they read in the dictionary.
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The meaning has changed.This is not a political comment, even though "liberal" is a politically loaded word that has become pejorative. The word "liberal" has become an oppositonym, my word for label. synonym, homonym, antonym, oppositonym) to define this phenomenon or perhaps phe-nom-e-nym. The fact that bad sometimes becomes good isn't enough now the word "bad" actually means good and the badder the gooder.