How has the term "liberal" come to be used so often as a pejorative?

Question

Rockandroll asks a good question: he/she raises the relevant issue of the word "liberal" often being used pejoratively. What are your understandings and perspectives on how a word with a positive semantic came to be used as a term of opprobrium?

Answer 1

Two reasons.

First, the liberals allowed it. By being too tolerant, to nice, to willing to allow the other side to have their opinion. And by backing down so many times that they lost credibility.

Second, because it's easier to attack the messenger than the message. By making the work itself have a bad connotation, anything that was proposed in the name of liberal ideas could be attacked in one consistent structured campaign.

And if there is one thing conservatives are good at, its providing structure and consistency.

Answer 2

Because the term was bastadized by illogical, whacked-out people devoid of reality.......which, in term, caused the "adjective" to became a noun. Hence, a pejorative was born.

Liberal (the adjective) can be good -- while the liberal (the noun) has become a direct threat to this great country of ours, and has no real idea of the real world. Not all liberals are bad or scary -- just the collective whole.

Liberals are good at creating parks, museums, and other needed touchy-feely things -- as long as they aren't running the country, running the military or trying to keep America secure.

Want to weaken our enemies? Export liberalism now! Give those countries the same disadvantage we have

Sorry if you don't like the answer, but be careful what you ask for -- you will get it.

Answer 3

In the beginning there was to be free markets, individual liberty and a reduced role of government. That was when being a liberal was good.

Take that to today and what do you have from liberals, tightly government controlled markets, an ever expanding nanny state and even freedom of speech attacked in the form of political correctness and multiculturalism.

Americans see their liberties being reduced by an oppressive government, their money and property taken and so on.

The better question is when did the socialists in America hijack the democratic party and turn liberal into a pejorative.

Answer 4

That's an excellent question. By today's definitions, the founding fathers of this country were all very libertarian and moderately liberal. They believed in placing individual rights and freedoms above the needs of the state (read the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights). Somewhere along the line -- during the Reagan years -- the Republican party lost touch with both our nation's roots and their own conservative roots. They spend more money than Democrats ever did (all borrowed of course), but instead of putting it into social programs to help less fortunate individuals, they want to use most of it to support the state and the military-industrial complex. They give tax breaks to the rich and resist any attempt to raise the minimum wage to keep laborers out of poverty. In short, they put the state and big business ahead of the individual, which is the essence of fascism. To keep this going, they have to convince gullible voters that "liberal" and "moderate" are both dirty words and liberals are not to be trusted. As coragryph said, it's easier to attack the messenger than the messge. They also want us to believe that there's no such thing as too far to the right. See my question on the extreme right and the responses here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aj5GV7Rm2cAkSTYsX0ahiybsy6IX?qid=20060901090440AAzLioa

Answer 5

i'm a Republican who takes position to have a liberal view on immigration. in case you want human beings tocontinual the speed decrease and not in any respect 5 to 10 mph over, you need to implement that instant - no longer unexpectedly turn round and retroactively hand out thousands of tickets and droop everybody's license for what we've all been doing for a lengthy time period. that is an unwritten settlement that even with the reality that technically unlawful, the police officials are going to allow you get away with going somewhat over the speed decrease. we were lax on imposing unlawful immigration and appeared any incorrect way. that is a lot more convenient to exhibit human beings away on the border or deport them once their visa expires than to throw them in a overseas u . s . when they have been right here for most, many years and equipped a existence right here. ultimately, we prefer to guard the border and to be certain who's right here. in the journey that they don't seem to be criminals, i don't have a challenge with a pathway to citizenship - and that i have no prefer to squeeze those human beings like many different conservatives seem to experience is critical. so a ways as "jumping the line", the problem there is that there is a line in any respect. Our criminal immigration equipment is so screwed up that that is backing up those who ought to be able to enter and make a contribution to the country. All of it really is basically context... to respond to your question, I nevertheless don't have a challenge with the time period. The "unlawful" in "unlawful immigrant" denotes status - an same way we've "unmarried human beings" and "married human beings". that is a factually precise ongoing status. The time period has no longer some thing to do with race or racism. There are white unlawful immigrants too. How is the framing incorrect? basically because i'm no longer large on punishment for against the law we weren't appropriately imposing would not recommend they don't seem to be ultimately to blame and to blame for his or her own moves. so a ways as employers, in the previous many have not prevalent (or truly frankly tried no longer to draw close) no matter if their workers were unlawful or no longer. For those you are able to instruct knowingly employed "unlawful immigrants", I even haven't any difficulty calling them "unlawful employers" both. pass ahead and upload that to the lexicon.

Answer 6

For years the Democrats controlled Congress, and all the elitist Republicans could do was seethe about it. So they sniped and insulted and made "liberal" a dirty word. But even when they figured how to manipulate the lower class to vote against their own interests and for the GOP, they still retained the habit of maligning Liberals because they grew addicted to their own hate. And now, with the Republicans ahvin been given a monopoly of power and having failed at it, and with them afraid of losing that power, the hate-mongering and character assassination has been stepped up. It's a measure of their fear of losing power, which they richly deserve to have happen.

Answer 7

Read some of David Horowitz's works. As a former leftist and a pivotal figure in the very heart of the movement, he sheds a lot of light on the meager 'liberal' mind.

Answer 8

It's a long-term re-marketing of the term that has its roots probably in the Reagan gubernatorial administration when there was so much campus unrest in Berkeley etc. Reagan brought his disdain for civil unrest into his presidential administation & equated civil unrest with "liberal". It was a classic marketing strategy to secure office.

Answer 9

Desperately making up lies and conspiracy Theories about the President doesn't help their image at all. Also mindlessly opposing war even if we could help other people around the world and free them from their fascist oppressors just looks selfish.

Answer 10

The republican has taken over a few choice words and have (bent) them to fit their needs...such as but not limited to..fear,patriotism,terrorist,liberal media,and their personal favorite Liberty.