What is the difference between a liberal and a progressive?

Question

This is not a joke. What is the difference? Is it just the name liberal has developed negative image? Or is there a real difference?

Answer 1

I don't know if there is really a difference at all. Traditionally, a liberal is a person who wants drastic changes to the system, good or bad, and a conservative is a person who wants to preserve the best qualities of a system and not change them.

In reality there are few people who are so totally polarized that they are totally one or the other. Most of us are a blending of the two, or moderates to one degree or another.

I think a progressive is essentially a person who would like to be seen as a moderate but who is more liberal than moderate and just doesn't want to be called a liberal.

If that confused you, that is what a liberal who calls himself or herself a progressive is trying to do!

Answer 2

Mikhail Gorbachev, who should know them when he sees them, recently warned about a "resurgence of Stalinism" in Russia and Eastern Europe. The history of Communist crimes was being erased, he said. Well, he was right.

But resurgent Stalinism is not limited to those countries. It's in the US and all over the world, as David Horowitz, another former radical, continues to document in great detail. The Boomer Left is simply filled to the gills with those who used to be called Commies, but who are now "progressives."

During the heroic period of American liberals, the Communists were thrown out of the Labor movement, and to some extent out of academia. They came back with the Boomer Left, inspired by the call to conduct a "Long March through the institutions." That call came from Gramsci, who was, you guessed it, a famous Communist Party hack in Italy. (The Long March he referenced was Mao Zedong's mytholigized march to power in China, which led to, oh, at least 40 million deaths.) The Boomer Lefties who are now getting old simply stacked all the American institutions they could, from the schools to the courts. (See Hillary's youthful infatuation with Saul Alinsky.)

And yes, they are not patriotic, because they are internationalists. That means they want to submerge this country under the control of a Left-ruled imperium. They say it out loud, when they don't think you're listening.

So the bright line that was once drawn between democratic liberals and totalitarian Communists has simply been erased. Today, The New York Times routinely gives extravagant obits to deep-ruby Reds who have sadly passed away, without making a distinction between Stalinists and other shades. So here's a proposal. Let's allow the Left to rant about Neo-Cons; but conservatives will be allowed to call the "new" Left exactly what it is: The Neo-Commies.

Fair's fair. Words mean things. These folks crawling all over Moveon.org and other Soros fronts are not "Marxists" or "Progressives," "Radicals" -- or especially "Liberals" in any real meaning of the word. They are Neo-Commies.

Answer 3

A progressive is someone who has constructive suggestions towards how to achieve a desirable goal, then actually does it. A liberal is simply a progressive wannabe with neither the brains nor the gumption to back it up.

Answer 4

I don't think there is a difference really. Progress is always led by liberalism.

Answer 5

About 3 IQ points, you see the average Liberal has an IQ of a tomato, so just imagine a tomato with the IQ of 3

Answer 6

It's better to be progressive. Liberal means you have to love Hillary and her socialist policies.