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  • There's another reason why "liberal" is a dirty word: because it has less specific, technical, historical, meaning. Conservative means favoring small government, deregulation, civil liberties, etc. Liberal means ... having long hair and smoking weed. And liberal changes so much over time: prohibition was "liberal."

    And it's part of why liberals have taken to calling themselves progressives, because it was the term used in 1912, when T.R. ran as the Progressives candidate, and Wilson beat T.R. and Taft on
    • I'm not sure that "conservative" is as well defined as you say, though I agree it's better defined than liberal. Certainly libertarians use it the way you suggest (they seem to think it's synonymous with "libertarian"), but Republicans in general seem to stray a bit -- especially with regard to civil liberties not related to the 2nd amendment -- and think the word has something to do with "preserving America as a Christian nation" and opposing "the gay agenda", as well as keeping those damn hippies from smo
      • Well, it was well-defined up until the 80s, when Reagan suddenly made it popular to be a conservative. Progressives had a similar problem, where the term got diluted, and subsequently fell out of fashion. Real conservatives -- like William F. Buckley et al at National Review -- support marijuana legalization. :-)