I used to think only the Rush Limbaughs demonize the Democrats by placing adjectives before liberal and by using the word liberal itself to insinuate negative associations. I can understand his listeners sneering at the mention of the word. Now, the link to the RNC website calls John Edwards:
“… an unaccomplished liberal”
In that phrase, is the word “liberal” meant to be derogatory too? I have a feeling it is. I am surprised at how liberal is openly used as a slur. I can’t imagine a Dem calling someone a “conservative” with derogatory overtones in the mainstream media. “right-wing”, yes, but just “conservative”, no. But, Republicans just have to use the phrase “liberal” and that’s enough of a smear…
How did this strange hypocrisy start? As a result, are politicians now more afraid to call themselves “liberal”? Kerry’s been talking a lot about “conservative” values recently!
This has been going on for a long time – I’m surprised that you’ve just noticed it. I’m sure it dates back at least to the heyday of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. Gingrich issued a list of positive and negative “buzz words” that his folks shopuld use whenever they could, and I suispect “liberal” was on it. Certainly the connotation of “easily giving away” associated with the word “liberal” helped them associate it with the idea of people very willing to give away your tax dollars, whether that’s the case or not.
There’s even been a considerable liberal backlash, in the forms of books and columns, defending the use of the term. I think Robert Reich’s current book has it in the subtitle.
But it’s to no avail… in my opinion. The Right has managed to associate the term “liberal” with free spending habits, and it’s going to be tough to shake that image. And politics is image more than substance. If it costs votes somewhere, Liberals would be wise to avoid the term, regardless of how historically defensible it may be.
That’s exactly the reason I took on the name. Liberalism champions the rights of individuals to be free from the tyanny of oppressive government. It recognizes the sacred right of every individual to give or withold their consent, and to pursue their own happiness in their own way so long as they do not infringe on the equal rights of others. Liberalism and liberty have the same etymology, from the Latin: liber — freedom. I became tired of a great word being used as a slur, and tired of its appropriation by centrists. I have given my word to say nothing derogatory about centrists, and so I won’t.
This is perhaps how it started, but it changed over the years where the liberals now want to restrict rights, property, firearms, school vouchers, etc. So they are self hypocritical and have actually caused the slur themselves.
Not really. Liberals realize that the only way to ensure the rights of all Americans (as opposed only those who have lots of money) is to have the government intervene.
The slur arose because liberals had a tendency to spend money beyond their means and cause budget deficits. Nowadays, of course, it’s the conservatives who think wild government spending it a great idea, as long as it’s used to kill people.
This is an interesting question. A “vast right-wing conspiracy” maybe?
I’m not sure when it happened, or even how, but “liberal” is a definate slur these days. I have always considered myself liberal but wouldn’t care to be called a liberal. Liberals have been defined as horrible creatures that want to tax me into oblivion, take away any firearms I might have, legislate what I teach my child, and generally intrude government supervision as far into my private life as possible. Liberals also have a reputation (IMHO) for moral relativism that bothers people.
Many conservatives are just as guilty of these things but somehow they didn’t get stuck with the reputation. Are they smarter? Or do they just have better PR crews?
You’re not going back far enough. “Liberal” became a perjorative in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and the primary reason was crime. In New York City, where I grew up, blue collar New Yorkers who’d never have dreamed of voting for a Republican (FDR was a god to blue collar New Yorkers) began voting for people like Richard Nixon because they were angry and frustrated about rising crime rates and the utterly ineffectual responses offered by liberal mayors like John Lindsay.
He’s all but forgotten today, but NOBODY did more to turn “liberal” into a dirty word than Judge Bruce Wright, a black liberal who made headlines every other day for turning accused felons loose with no bail.
There were other issues at play, too- but nothing turned New Yorkers against traditional liberalism as much as the perception that liberals were not only soft on crime, but actually sympathetic to criminals.
I’d put it nationally with Reagan’s first campaign, in 1980, where he essentially ran against everything the government had done domestically from the New Deal on. That set the stage for massive losses by liberal Congressmen in 1984, and the infamous GHW Bush campaign in 1988.
I think it really goes back to at least Agnew in '68 when he started clamoring that the press had a “liberal bias” against him and Nixon. The News Twisters, by Edith Efron continued that assault in '71. Reagan capitalized on that “backlash movement”.
You completely miss the point of Lib argument. He’s saying that the sort of people who want to restrict personal liberty are, in fact, not liberals, even if that’s what they call themselves.
Of course, nowdays most intellectual historians and political scientists draw a distinction between “liberal” (in the modern, Democratic party sense) and “classical liberal,” which is Lib’s type of liberal. I’m not sure i see too much of a problem with this; it’s just another evolution in usage.
Perhaps you could explain what it means to be “self hypocritical.”
I thought hypocrisy was, by definition, something related to one’s own thoughts and behavior.
Is there such a thing as “other hypocrticial”? Can i be hypocritical for, or on behalf of, someone else?
I’d have to agree with ElvisL1ves. Between FDR and Reagan, there were numerous attempts to make “liberal” a dirty word, but they never stuck until Reagan. IIRC, it was initially usually modified with “tax and spend,” but after a while the modifier was dropped, and is only used now for emphasis.
“Conservative” was largely a nasty word in the 60s. It was generally much better to be a “moderate Republican” back then. Again, I think you have to credit the Reaganites for rescuing that term from the garbage pile where Barry Goldwater had left it.
Ironically, in historical terms a conservative is one who wants to preserve the ideals of liberal government. Things sure get turned around. This is what you get when you let Reagan and Gingrich get to do the work of Webster (Noah, not Daniel).
Liberalism is only a slur to its enemies. I consider it a badge of honor. I believe that government is NOT the enemy and can be a partner in creating positive change. The old smear of “tax and spend liberal” may have had some merit in the pre-Reagan days, but now the “borrow and spend” neocons have made us liberals look like pikers in terms of running up the national debt. If wanting to keep the public money in the public schools is liberal and if wanting sensible limits on fireams is liberal, then I call myself liberal with pride.
I always viewed “liberal” and “conservative” as opposing ideologies that the two main political parties represent. That they are reasonable labels for the core constituents of the two parties:
liberal = leaning socialist/socially liberal
conservative=leaning capitalist/socially conservative
That is, the word “liberal” in the modern context only partially refers to classical liberalism much the same way the word “conservative” only partially refers to the fiscal conservative movement.
I hope I’m correct so far.
If yes, this is why I thought it bizarre for a Republican politician to call someone a liberal and have that pass as an insult.
“You, sir, are a liberal”
“Duh”
It’s like insulting your legitimate political opponent just by calling his/her name.
Sure, I can understand how the Rush Limbaughs can view “liberal” itself as a slur… but for a mainstream politician to get away with it, it implies that a lot of centrists perceive the word to be an insult as well. That’s pretty good politically for the Republicans! Your work is half-done with little effort.
From the answers thus far, I gather the positive/negative connotations of conservative and liberal changes with the political climate. If the word liberal is perceived as a slur even by the non-hardcore conservatives, this implies the conservatives are winning politically and vice versa. Fair enough assessment?
Finally, it looks like the word liberal was first tainted in 60s but fully exploited by Reagan. Is that the consensus?
The conservative media, I say. Not only do they get to bash liberals and distort the news with impunity, they can smear their journalistic foes as part of the “liberal media” and accuse them of using tactics that they themselves use.
Well, the only news I’m aware of that makes a point of being conservative is Fox, and nobody believes those guys. Well, hardly anyone. I always figure that if both the liberals AND the conservatives are complaining about a news source then it is probably OK.
This attitude, in my opinion, leads to extremely simplistic media analysis.
It’s nowhere near enough to say that liberals and conservatives both criticize a given news outlet, so that outlet must be balanced. You need to look at what criticisms are being made by each side; whether each side is addressing the same or different aspects of the journalistic process; and whether each side’s criticisms have any basis in fact or are simply an attempt to obfuscate.
For example, one of the big catchwords of media criticism over the past decade or so has been “balance,” the idea that media outlets should balance their guests to take account of a wide political spectrum. Seems like a reasonable request, on its face. But there are a bunch of problems associeted with it.
Firstly, the loudest complaints about balance are made by conservatives whenever a station–especially one like NPR–has guests that could be considered vaguelky liberal. But there is often a deafening silence regarding the issue of balance on stations where the guests are predominantly conservative.
Furthermore, and this applies to both ends of the political spectrum, the acceptable range of opinion on many media outlets is actually rather narrow, and precludes participation by those with anything except a fairly limited concenption of how to frame the issues. Sure, it can be argued that media outlets with limited time and space can only showcase so many different points of view, but the end result is that some arguments never even get aired, and the public gets a distorted sense of the possibilities.
