# When did the conservative label become hijacked by liberals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212 "2004-02-26T01:23:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/21 "2004-02-27T00:28:47Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] In terms of social liberalism/conservatism, though, the United States is definitely skewed to the right relative to the rest of the world – and in that light, it seems to me that calling the status quo in the United States as “way too far left-leaning” is taking a myopic view of the matter. [QUOTE] It’s way too far left leaning from most conservatives’ perspectives, though, and Western Europe is seen as even worse. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/22 "2004-02-27T00:49:53Z")
Milton Friedman addressed this issue in his 1962 book called Capitalism and Freedom. I reccomend it. He decides that he is a classic liberal. His definition of liberalism is about the doctrines pertaining to free people. He uses liberal in th sense of liberty. > [@](#): > > **Because of the corruption of the term liberalism, the views that formerly went under the name that are now often labelled conservatism.** I couldn’t find a copy of the essay that I’m talking about on line. I found several reviews of it, including this one: > [@](#): > > \*\*[Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman\*\*](http://www.tamucc.edu/~whatley/PADM5302/theo42c.htm) > > “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” **Friedman argues that neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society** (Theodoulou, p.372). “What your country can do for you,” implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward; “what you can do for your country” casts government as a sort-of deity to which citizens should be compelled to blindly worship. According to Friedman, the free man would rather ask “What can I and my compatriots do through government” to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? Competitive capitalism and a government with limited and decentralized power provide part of the answer. > > Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the **great threat to freedom is the concentration of power** (Theodoulou, p. 373). Friedman argues that economic freedom is a necessary—though not sufficient—condition for political freedom. > > **Friedman concludes the introduction to Capitalism and Freedom by choosing “liberalism” as the “rightful and proper” label for his political and economic viewpoint.** An emphatic distinction is made between classical liberalism, which fits his work, and the current usage of the political label. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, **the intellectual movement that went under the name of liberalism emphasized freedom as the ultimate goal and the individual as the ultimate entity in society.** It supported laissez faire economic policy, free trade abroad, reduction in the arbitrary power of the state and protection of civil freedoms (Theodoulou, p.375). > > Fearful of centralized power, nineteenth-century liberals favored political decentralization whereas modern-day liberals favor centralized government. **Our Founding Fathers were Liberals. The Conservative thing to do would be to stick with Liberalism.** ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/23 "2004-02-27T08:11:19Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > It’s way too far left leaning from most conservatives’ perspectives, though, and Western Europe is seen as even worse. Yes, well, if everything looks like “too far left leaning” from where you’re sitting, maybe it’s time to reconsider whether you’re really in the mainstream middle or not. Just IMO, but when you’re closer ideologically to the Taliban than to most of the rest of the planet, it’s time to reconsider your position… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/24 "2004-02-27T12:58:59Z")
Liberals do the following: Increase federal spending as much as they can. Increase federal debt as much as they can. Extend the power of the federal government. Trample on states’ rights. Bush and company are liberals. ---
**Author:** ![Uncivil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ccd318/32.png) [@Uncivil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncivil)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/25 "2004-02-27T15:32:58Z")
> [@Dogface](#): > > Liberals do the following: > Increase federal spending as much as they can. > Increase federal debt as much as they can. > Extend the power of the federal government. > Trample on states’ rights. > > Bush and company are liberals. By that reasoning, since Bush has two arms, two legs and a red arse he is also a Baboon. 😉 Really having trouble with the concept of Bush as a liberal, my poor brain just can’t cope with it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/26 "2004-02-27T16:02:40Z")
Well we liberals come in all sorts of flavors too. For example, I am for a balanced budget. For government staying out of our private lives. For limiting the power of the Federal government. But for investments in social, healthcare, and educational infrastructures even if I need to pay taxes to do it. I believe that the right investments here are cost effective in a moderate time-frame. And an ethical obligation of living together in one society. Bush is a lousy conservative by if you care about anything Dogface lists, but he’s obviously no liberal either. A Big Business lapdog? Sure. A deficit spender? The worst. A creator of Bigger and more intrusive Gubbermint? Without doubt. But Religious Right, Pro Big Business, and Foreign Policy Conservatives do not define those issues as important. And that is who he panders to, whatever he really believes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/27 "2004-02-27T20:58:30Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Religous conservatives want a small government because it is less threatening to their values. Decentralizers or Federalists want a smaller government because state governments are less threatening and more responsive. No, **puddleglum,** what religious conservatives want is for government, big or small, federal or state, to **support** their values. And I don’t think it’s appropriate to use the word “federalist” as a synonym for “decentralist.” Alexander Hamilton’s original Federalist Party in American politics was the centralist, big-and-strong-national-government party – as opposed to Thomas Jefferson’s decentralist Democratic-Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/28 "2004-02-27T21:04:45Z")
> [@Dogface](#): > > Liberals do the following: > Increase federal spending as much as they can. > Increase federal debt as much as they can. > Extend the power of the federal government. > Trample on states’ rights. > > Bush and company are liberals. So if Bush is a “liberal,” and Kerry, Edwards, etc., are “liberals” too, who do you plan to vote for in November? ---
**Author:** ![Skott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Skott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skott)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/29 "2004-02-27T23:16:12Z")
I read a very simple test as to determining political leaning a while ago (somewhat similar to the [Nolan chart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart)): - If you want the government to have greater control over business and less control over morals, then you’re liberal. - If you want the government to have greater control over morals and less control over business, then you’re conservative. \* It’s very difficult with these defintions to say that Bush is liberal: He defintely has tried (and succeeded) to increase control over morality in the country (using terrorism as an excuse) and has repealed several laws that constrained businesses. He may have done some traditionally liberal things, but that does not a liberal make 🙂 - With government having less control over both being libertarian, and government having more control over both being socialist. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/30 "2004-02-27T23:58:34Z")
Conservatism is more complicated than that. I have always been an extreme fiscal conservative, and an extreme social liberal. I am opposed to the Department of Education, and Human Services and Labor, the Patriot Act, and pretty much everything else that doesn’t involve protecting the borders and delivering the mail, and I’m not so sure about the mail. I also think that if gay people want to get married, that’s great. I’m for the legalization of drugs, not just marijuana, but all drugs, I think subsidies to corporations are just as wrong as subsidies to individuals, maybe more so because of the greater monies involved. It bothers me that some of the same people who complain about the “welfare queens” think it’s not a problem if the Coast Guard tows their disabled yacht in. “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).” Walt Whitman. In short, I’m like everyone else. I am not a discrete entity, I exist on a continuum. It’s often been a problem for me on election day, because I am usually torn between the fiscal conservative and the social liberal. This election, no problem. President George W. Bush is neither one. I don’t know if the Democratic nominee will be one or the other, but if he or she is either, it’s one out of two, and that’s where my vote is going. Failing that, I’ll stay home before I vote for President Bush again. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/31 "2004-02-28T00:01:25Z")
> [@Bill Door](#): > > Conservatism is more complicated than that. I have always been an extreme fiscal conservative, and an extreme social liberal. Then you’re a libertarian. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/32 "2004-02-28T00:18:01Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Then you’re a libertarian. If you don’t think I learned something from my vote for Ed Clark in 1980, you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/33 "2004-02-28T00:47:31Z")
> [@Bill Door](#): > > If you don’t think I learned something from my vote for Ed Clark in 1980, you’re wrong. I didn’t mean you had to _vote_ for (big-L) Libertarians; there are libertarian Republicans and Democrats. But if you’re socially liberal and fiscally conservative, “libertarian” describes your beliefs much better than “conservative”. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/34 "2004-02-28T00:57:10Z")
Technically I’m an anarchist, but anarchy is such an unstable form of government. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/35 "2004-02-28T01:16:11Z")
I’m afraid I’m unable to post anything lenghty and so must break my replies into paragraphs. My apologies for any inconvenience. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And I don’t think it’s appropriate to use the word “federalist” as a synonym for “decentralist.” Alexander Hamilton’s original Federalist Party in American politics was the centralist, big-and-strong-national-government party – as opposed to Thomas Jefferson’s decentralist Democratic-Republicans. It wasn’t **puddleglum** that misused the term but rather Hamilton and his allies. The “Federalists” chose this description during the contest over the ratification of the Constitution because federalism was popular. They weren’t federalists, they were nationalists. It was their opponents, the “Antifederalists”, who were the real federalists. Surely we shouldn’t confuse the meaning of a term today simply because of an old political ploy. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/36 "2004-02-28T01:20:10Z")
While we are on the topic, despite the carelessness of entirely too many historians referring to Jefferson and his allies as “Democratic-Republicans” is anachronistic. There were Democratic-Republican Clubs that sprang up with the revolutionary fervor of the French Revolution but the Terror soon discredited them and the “Jacobin Clubs” melted away. Lets remember that the term “democracy” was still practically an epithet amongst the upper classes back then. Jefferson and his associates were known as the Republicans and the term “Democratic-Republican Party” came into vogue briefly a generation later along with Andrew Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/37 "2004-02-28T01:22:42Z")
And further, neither of these groups constituted a political party as we understand the term today. The word “party” was itself derogatory. The politics of the day was still premodern. It was believed that there was one single public interest and that anyone who banded together into a party was doing so for selfish purposes. Neither Hamilton and his Federalists nor Jefferson and his Republicans were willing to admit that they actually were in an organized group. Each accused the other side of being a party but thought of themselves as merely an _ad hoc_ collection of statesmen who happened to be working together to defeat an insidious party. The politics of the time is sometimes refered to as “The paranoid style”. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/38 "2004-02-28T01:25:40Z")
For a fuller understanding of these matters I heartily recommend Joanne Freeman’s _Affairs of Honor; National Politics in the New Republic_. Its most poignant moment for me is the confrontation between Jefferson and an aspiring historian. The historian asks for access to Jefferson’s papers with the intention of writing a nonpartisan history and Jefferson visibly blanches. The thought of what would happen to his reputation if posterity were allowed an unobscured view of his party building activities leaves Jefferson unable to speak. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/39 "2004-02-28T01:31:11Z")
> [@Bill Door](#): > > Technically I’m an anarchist, but anarchy is such an unstable form of government. That’s good! I wasn’t sure if you were kidding or serious. Can you clarify? **SimonX** : Any chance the essay you are looking for is on [this site?](http://www.ideachannel.com/Friedman.htm) I’ve found it to be a good web resource for his writings. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212/40 "2004-02-28T02:12:21Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > That’s good! I wasn’t sure if you were kidding or serious. Can you clarify? I kind of wish I knew. For a time, in my youth, I was a Randite. Then I realized that unless one left society completely and live in Galt’s Gulch a benefit was derived from living in society. There is a certain standard of living one could expect to achieve if you were living naked in the woods. Anything above that standard of living is a benefit which accrues to you by virtue of living in this society. Your highways are improved by the engineers who lived before you, to whom you owe a debt, and the goods which are transported over them have their value enhanced by them. The same applies to your medical care, your literature, your physics, chemistry, everything. I could be an anarchist if it were not for the fact that those anarchists I have met expected to derive the benefits of society without repaying the debt. Anarchy devolves into the worst kind of social darwinism, where all take and none return, and collapse ensues. While the selfish gene has an advantage in some evolutionary pathways, I feel that my descendants have the best chance of preserving my genes in the manner to which they have become accustomed in a more altruistic society, or one which depends on enlightened self interest. Sure, I could live naked in the woods, but nasty, brutish, short and all that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-conservative-label-become-hijacked-by-liberals/231212.md?page=3)