Liberalism

Following up on my last post, it seems that many politically prominent "liberals" are demagogues.

I’ve been a proud liberal my entire life, but these days I’m not sure that always a good thing. It (the value of liberalism) depends upon the specifics (details) of a particular issue, and also on how liberalism is defined. Liberalism is opposed to conservatism. Sometimes it’s good to be conservative — with regard to the environment for example.

Of course, most prominent American political "conservatives" haven't been in favor of environmental conservation in recent decades.  Liberals and conservatives became two political tribes with policy positions divorced from supposed underlying principles.  Nevertheless, economic liberalism supports global capitalist preeminence as opposed to economic conservatism which has favored restrictions on the emerging capitalists (bourgeoisie).  Thus, the Economist is a liberal magazine, while the Soviet Union was more conservative economically.  Labels are generally used to demonize those in opposing tribes, but there are competing principles which underlie the varying labels, and the principles are all worthy of respect, in my opinion.

Also, elitism is sometimes conflated with liberalism, in my view.  Back in the day, Christian was the equivalent of Liberal today.  Demagogues such as the seemingly liberal John Calvin would enforce their conventional views by calling their populist rivals heretics.  Similarly, the Democratic presidential candidates lined up to call Bernie Sanders a dangerous socialist who had once said something complimentary about Cuba under Castro. 

During the inquisition, political leaders across Europe denounced Jews, pagans, and Muslims as heretics.  In retrospect, we see this as bad.  But at the time, it was beyond the pale, so to speak, to defend these heathens and heretics.  Thus, today, Tulsi Gabbard is beyond the pale when she questions the U.S. role in Syria vis a vis that of Assad and Syria.  Supporting Trump with regard to the Russiagate investigation is likewise beyond the pale for liberals.  And God forbid that anyone should favor more socialism or have ever spoken positively with regard to Communist countries or leaders.  

I see political landscape in 4 quadrants -- Political / Economic Quadrants -- and I see some merit in each of the 4 labels; i.e. liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist.  I'm not in favor of using these as epithets and judging people by how they self-identify.  Details and circumstances vary and matter.