US: What is liberalism

[ahasverus]

Again and again I see you Americans say:
"oh you're against the war ,you're a Liberal"
Now what is liberalism to you?

Where I come from, liberalism is a political system that says "as little government as possible" aka you're taxes only pays for police and army if it's perfect.
What the Republicans stands for in my understanding.

But you Americans use it almost as a synonym for socialism(european style) aka heavy centralized government that is pacifistic? with high taxes to pay for free education, hospitals and unemployment etc etc.

In Denmark we have a Liberal-Conservative government which is to the right and as the head-opposition we have the Socialdemocracy which is to the left. A more rightwinged party is supporting the government and pretty much anything left of the government is supporting the Socialdemocracy.

Now why is there that difference between US and EU-definition?
Or I have misunderstood something?

[Juggernaut]

They're referring to social liberals

[Dinner]

Liberals in America ussually think of the governemnt as the solution to problems while conservatives often think of government as the problem. For instance if both a conservative and a liberal are trying to think of ways to redevelop an inner city slum the liberal will call on the government to spend large amounts of money to improve the neighborhood while the conservative will demand tax cuts to encourage privite investors to put their money into making the neighborhood better.

The truth is you need a little of both approaches but I'd have to agree that it is ussually better to convince someone else to spend their money then to spend vast amounts of scarious public money fixing every problem.

[Spiffor]

To the Yanks, "liberal" somehow means "left-wing", and conservative means "right-wing". Liberals in US definition are first defenders of freedom in the moralistic / religious domain. But the meaning has evolved to include mild social-democrats and pacifists too.

When someone is too social-democrat in the US, he becomes immediately dubbed a "socialist" or a "communist". When someone is against capitalism, he is dubbed "un-American"

[Dinner]

Hmmm, there aren't to many right wing pacifists. The Pacifists tend to bunch up in the Democratic (left of center) party.

[Japher]

Liberalism = Sava

Oerdin has is it the way I see it

Same to Spiffor

[Shi Huangdi]

Re: US: What is liberalism

Originally posted by ahasverus
Again and again I see you Americans say:
"oh you're against the war ,you're a Liberal"
Now what is liberalism to you?

Where I come from, liberalism is a political system that says "as little government as possible" aka you're taxes only pays for police and army if it's perfect.
What the Republicans stands for in my understanding.

But you Americans use it almost as a synonym for socialism(european style) aka heavy centralized government that is pacifistic? with high taxes to pay for free education, hospitals and unemployment etc etc.

In Denmark we have a Liberal-Conservative government which is to the right and as the head-opposition we have the Socialdemocracy which is to the left. A more rightwinged party is supporting the government and pretty much anything left of the government is supporting the Socialdemocracy.

Now why is there that difference between US and EU-definition?
Or I have misunderstood something?

What you seem to call liberalism, we call libertarianism in the USA

[Stefu]

Well, basically, in the 1700s, two strains of liberalism were born. There was the classical liberalism of Locke and later a bunch of other thinkers mainly in the British isles, and there was the social liberalism originating with Roussau and Voltaire and working on from there. Oddly, while the ideas of classical liberalism took off the most in America and those of social liberalism in Europe, today liberalism means classical liberalism in Europe and social liberalism in America. Biggest reason is probably that socialism mostly absorbed the social liberal thought in Europe, while Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s cause liberalism to become the word to mean the American center-left.

What you describe as perfect liberalism is known as libertarianism in America (there are smaller libertarian contigents around the world, but they are, um, smaller). It's a political movement with a support of perhaps 3-5% in real world and 30-50% in the Internet. This means you'll soon meet the libertarians. This generally shocks us innocent Europeans and leads to big big quote-fest debates, because freedom means the freedom to dissect the hell out of your post and cause the scroll bar grow smaller and smaller. Usually, the classical liberals weren't willing to go as far as libertarians, supporting at least some sort of government aid for desperately poor and often some other regulations that libertarians hold as evidence of TEH SOCIALIST MENACE.

America's Republicans can't really be said to stand for much of a smaller government today, considering how much Bush has increased the size of the government. They're conservatives, though their conservatism's been influenced by classical liberalism.

[Urban Ranger]

@ Stefu. Good post too.

[Spiffor]

Shi :
Actually, in Europe (where I live at least), liberalism is only an economic doctrine. As such, Reagan and Thatcher were the most prominent liberals the world has ever known, closely followed by Pinochet.

[Dinner]

Something tells me Reagon wouldn't like being called a liberal.

[ahasverus]

Just a little off-topic but here in Europe the governments gets a kick out privatizing a lot of services that before was handled by the state among other things the postal services.

Is the postal services in the US private or state?
And are they gonna privatize it if state?

[Buck Birdseed]

Of course, Denmark is the country where the Liberals have travelled futherst from radicalism- in most european countries they've ended up somewhere uncomfortably squeezed between Social Democrats and (former or current) Conservatives. Denmark must be one of the few countries where the main right-wing party is called "The Left"... Of course, there's Jamaica whose conservative party is called "Labour", but let's not go into that.

[Buck Birdseed]

Stefu: You missed the bit about how classical liberals in Europe reinvented themselves (after american economist Friedman and likewise american philosopher Nozick) as "Neo-Liberals" in the seventies and eighties, a term which basically means "cold, calculating economist bastards" in normal wording.

[Dinner]

The U.S. Postal Service is state owned and by quirk of fate the constitution actually requires the state to continue serving that function. Still in the 1970's the Republicans passed a reform measure where the U.S.P.S. had to operate without any public money but forbid them to raise rates without express congressional approval. Since they couldn't raise rates they had to push for greater efficiency and now the Post Office is the most efficient part of the U.S. government.