Everything wrong with 'Liberalism' today.
(Started as a response to a friend concerning something he was talking about and ended up as a post, hence it starts out like I'm already talking to somebody)
Their entire movement is so inconsistent that not even their name is consistent with what it claims to be! 'Liberal' implies something of 'Freedom'. The original 'liberal thinkers' are now known as 'Classical Liberals' which really are nothing different than today's Libertarians.
In many ways people like Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, as well as those from the schools of Free Market Austrian Economics were true 'liberal thinkers', believing in the smallest and most limited and restricted forms of government they thought possible. And rightly so since government is not only the thing that cancels out what it means to be 'Free', but also the natural enemy and killer of humanity's Liberties!
But to call oneself a 'Liberal' today while being for ever more government intervention into our lives and the economy (which is a huge aspect of our own lives and inescapably annexed to us) is completely inconsistent! Many are just too fooled because they do not know any better and like the way the word sounds!
Yes I'm so 'liberal'. So liberal in fact that if you don't think like me I'll accuse you of 'hate speech' and 'racism', and ask for you to be silenced.
I'm so 'liberal' that I'm completely ignorant of the history of governments and how once given so much trust and power have countless times been guilty of attempting to enslave their own populations after stealing everything from them and leaving them broke and starving, so I'll continue asking for evermore controls to be given to the reigns of government!
I'm so 'liberal', that I'll stand here and hold signs and scream that "governments and groups of people have no right telling me what to do with my life and the choices I make", and then turn around and advocate the government being able to take from your life to give to those I believe should receive! Because I'm so 'liberal' I can say when government has no right to impose itself on me, but will gladly see that same entity trample upon your own rights to Freedom of course!
I'm so 'liberal', that I want to see your rights and ability to defend your own Life and destiny placed into the hands of the greatest threat to humanity that has ever existed: the political state! Surely there can be no errors in those writing the rules also being the only ones capable of wielding the threat and force of a gun!
'Liberal' is for those who understand what things like 'Freedom' and 'Liberty' mean! But the word was hijacked by the big-government 'progressives' long ago; those who needed another way to dupe an entire population into believing that the state and people in political power should be looked to as our saviors!
What we know as 'Liberals' today are not 'liberal' at all. They are 'statists' or as my good buddy Gary likes to call them, 'coercionists' (because they believe in government via force and 'coercion' in order to see their ideals enforced and imposed over all others)
No I do not hate you if you consider yourself to be 'liberal'. I just believe the movement that you've been suckered into following has you completely duped. And I 'hate' everything it stands for, because it's always in favor of expanding government and its reaches into our lives! You've likely just been fooled by the packaging which sells itself as 'so tolerant and for those in need'. Really it's just statism through and through!