I Am A Liberal Essay

“The dirtiest word in the American political lexicon these days is ‘liberal.’” These words from Roger Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times (Cohen), made this statement in the early 2000’s, defining liberal as politicians’ worst insult. A word often used today simply to mean easygoing can also be used as an harsh critique. The word liberal can be used for numerous purposes, and this flexibility can allow new meanings to develop rapidly. Liberal has gone from meaning free-minded or generous to meaning wasteful, from meaning espousing radical social policies to just being immoral or insufficiently strict (Liberal). Today, this negative meaning is waning, and Democrats are increasingly willing to identify themselves as liberal (Tharoor).
These changes are explainable through the mood of the times, which was rife with intellectuals who came to chafe under the restrictions imposed by traditional rules, religion, and hereditary leaders. In that era, these individuals came to use liberal to describe the changes they wished, which were in conflict with the traditions of the day. This made liberal, which was used as an insult for those who lacked restraint, something enviable to those it would be used on. Thus, these people used it to describe their ideas, which defied the current social order. This trend caused the meaning to shift from theological uses to political ones (Harper). These Enlightenment intellectuals were different liberals than the ones we know today. These classical liberals, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, supported rights and freedoms for the public with little government intervention into the public's lives. These men used such phrases as liberal system to describe a system of economics and governing that incorporates as little government restraint as possible. By these means, perfect liberty could be established through this ‘liberal’ system (Klein). Such a use of liberal appears quite natural, but it would soon gain another