More like insisting everyone fit a label.
i.e. the label the author acquired and was surprised by.
Certain political parties themselves are self labeled.
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I think the term liberal was associated with free markets far longer than it was employed in that manner. We’re pretty much the only country that uses the term like this. So, that’s what it refers to in the US, but not really anywhere else.
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WTF is wrong with these people! That’s all they’ve been doing since the… hell, the Carter administration, really. There is no leftward drift in America! The closest we came was in the progressive era or arguable in the 60s.
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In US parlance, “liberal” refers to traditional Roosevelt democrats. Neoliberals came to power in the 1990s after the defeats of Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis, in the administration of Bill Clinton.
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It’s a complex issue in the UK, though, where the two wings of the Conservative Party are, in essence, free market and protectionist, because they absorbed the old Liberal party. The “new” Liberal party was a strange collection - it absorbed a lot of people interested in, mainly, male gay rights*, and nearly vanished again before resurging as the “Liberal democrats” by absorbing some of the Labour right.
It may be that the idea of “liberals” in the UK at least is a result of this and the word has been reinvented.
*During the relevant period I knew several Liberal politicians and frequently visited the National Liberal Club, so I do have a clue about this. Lesbians didn’t really get a look in.
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Meh… First you realized that capitalism is NOT always trustworthy, then you started to experiment with an universal healthcare, and now you realize that liberal/conservative labels exclude the left ? What’s next America ? Substitute OH LA LA for OMAGAD ?
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Sure - sounds pretty complicated. It helps that you guys have more than 2 viable parties.
But I was more contrasting it with how the term is used in the US. For most people, that means the democratic party and socially liberal (and up to recent years, more in favor of a viable social safety net, higher taxation, and associated with unions pretty strongly). Ask an American how is a liberal, you’ll hear that it’s the democratic party members, or someone like Sanders. But as noted in the OP, we really don’t have a left to speak of here.
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The modern left is not complaining about the same “liberals”. We have not had those “liberals” in power since 1976, The modern left is complaining about the people who took over the party after 1992 - the “New Democrats” aka the neolibs.
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The language has been completely muddied in the US. Just use international terms and be done with it. The proper response to someone that says, “You’re a liberal.” is “You’re an idiot.”
As far as US politics goes, fighting over terminology is ridiculous. We are entering a fascist state and the fight is on.
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I definitely disagree as far as social attitudes. There are always bigots, but it certainly seems like mainstream America is far more accepting of gayness than it ever has been before. While still having much further to go of course.
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Well, next you’re going to be saying America should use the metric system! That’s just unAmerican! 
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that’s what I use for the most part. “Progressive” lets people know what I believe in.
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My experience is similar. I am a lefty Canadian, who lives outside of North America. I see a lot of Americans where I am. Whenever conversations turn to politics people will call me or assume I am a liberal. As much as I often gloss over things for expediency or to avoid tangential conversations, I just can’t bring myself to call myself a liberal. When I think liberal, I think of the Liberal Party (and the Conservative Party). I think of neoliberalism and laissez-faire government policy. I’d hope that the word is at least somewhat related to liberal economic theory.
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But that’s not the only measure of progress, just one. And the path there was pretty arduous and there are some strong hold outs who would undo the process if they could. The democratic party itself had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting marriage equality and even now there is still a hell of a lot of anti-LBGQT sentiment that shapes our electorate, especially around the much more complicated gender identity issues. Black transwomen, for example, are still at an extremely high risk for violence, just for existing. Sure, it’s better, but we’re still not to where we could be.
I think part of the problem in pinning down definitions is that we’re talking about a couple of ways of understanding progressiveness, which some people think of as mutually exclusive realms. You can get people who believe in cutting taxes as much as possible and eliminating all social safety nets, but are fine with gay marriage. You can also get people who are all for high taxation and wealth redistribution, but think that the races should not mix. Identity politics, as some people like to dismissively call it, make demands based on claims of race, gender, sexual orientation, often contrary to economic status. And plenty of people who push for class being the central determinant in our politics think that identity politics is bourgeois BS, because they aren’t based on “real” claims like economic/class based ones are.
[ETA] Also, there’s shit like this:
http://lgbtweekly.com/2017/07/01/texas-supreme-court-rules-to-undermine-marriage-equality/
And let’s not forget who our Vice President is - not exactly a gay friendly dude.
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In America one who embraces the savagery of capitalism is called a conservative, one who thinks we need to soften the corners of capitalism to make it more appealing and functional is called a liberal. I would call myself a leftist, because I know the hay day of capitalism was right after the new deal, and that is all that can ever be expected of it from the perspective of the general public.
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There’s not many that would describe the Lib Dems as a viable party, although I suppose you can count the SNP now
“Labels are what keep people in Florida from drinking Windex”
_______ Silvio
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I was expecting this one
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Sure. My main point is disagreeing that the country has been drifting overall from the left, and becoming less left, or perhaps to be clear less progressive.
This has been true in some areas, but not true in others. And from what I can see the overall trend has been more towards progress.
And yes, there is also some conservative resistance to this. Always has been too. But in the main what I see is a desire on the part of the majority of Americans to progress - to have a more kind and more equal nation and government that works better for the poor and middle class.
This can of course also have it’s moving backwards phases. Reagan and Bush 1 were 3 steps backward; Bill Clinton was about 5 forward. Then Bush II was three backwards, and Obama was another 5 forward. And here we are now, dealing with what I think (and also hope) is a one-term backwards steps that’s almost a last gasp of mainstream conservatism.
We’ll see how that goes.
Which is an economic model/position that though it isn’t by its nature political, has its roots both in conservative thought and conservative politics. Neo-liberals are not a kind of liberal. The use of the word for the economic term is both a deliberate attempt to obscure the approach’s roots. And based in a much older definition of liberal from economics (rather than politics). It basically means the same as Laissez-faire.
Like it or not the term liberal generally refers to those political ideas associated with the left. As well as the movements of the last few centuries that brought us things like human and civil rights, a broad rather than exclusive franchise, secularism etc.
These people are balking against two things. First the narrower use of the term. In particular countries. Derived from particular political parties. To refer to much more specific ideas. Depending on where you are “liberal” may not mean liberal. It may mean a person associated with the party labeled as the liberal party. And the specific policies and ideas associated with that party. ETA: Which may not be particularly liberal in any other sense of the word
Second is the ongoing, clearly successful, concerted effort by the right in many nations to turn liberal into a dirty word. They don’t even address the underlying ideas behind liberalism. Simply fling “liberal” around like its inherently bad and understood by everyone as such.
It’s the same effect we see with those studies where huge numbers of women don’t identify as feminist, and criticize feminism based on its demonised image. While simultaneously holding views that are base, inherent, and definitional to feminism.
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