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Do You Use the Term "Liberal" as an Insult?

Do You Use the Term "Liberal" as an Insult?

  • I am a conservative and I do

    Votes: 3 6.3%

  • I am a conservative and I do not

    Votes: 5 10.4%

  • I am a liberal and I do

    Votes: 1 2.1%

  • I am a liberal and I do not

    Votes: 17 35.4%

  • I am a libertarian and I do

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I am a libertarian and I do not

    Votes: 3 6.3%

  • I am a centrist/moderate and I do

    Votes: 1 2.1%

  • I am a centrist/moderate and I do not

    Votes: 4 8.3%

  • I fit some other category and I do

    Votes: 4 8.3%

  • I fit some other category and I do not

    Votes: 10 20.8%
  • Total voters
    48
Dutch said:
You left out leftists/socialists/communists/national socialists. Is it possible to find one term an honorific and not it's related terms? ;)
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National socialism is a far right ideology.

but I use leftist to denote the dogmatic portion of the left that does not adhere to liberal values, and I do use it with disdain. They are just the lock-step fundamentalists of the left. I usually do not use the term socialist and communists are usually just silly kids, most of whom haven't started shaving yet.
 
Gardener said:
National socialism is a far right ideology.

but I use leftist to denote the dogmatic portion of the left that does not adhere to liberal values, and I do use it with disdain. They are just the lock-step fundamentalists of the left. I usually do not use the term socialist and communists are usually just silly kids, most of whom haven't started shaving yet.
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Most people would agree with you. However, I tend to take a different view. In it's day national socialism was called "the third way" meaning it was an attempt to provide an alternative to socialism/communism and classical liberalism. Classical liberalism being the idea of a small relatively weak federal government and great liberties for it's inhabitants and socialism/communism which advocated a large powerful central government and greatly diminished personal liberties accorded it's citizens. In practice national socialism shared much more in common with the socialistic/communistic model in that it had a very intrusive government and greatly dimished liberties for it's citizens. If you viewed these types of governments on a continuim I find little about national socialism....right winged.

As for the kids, you may have a point. One that could just describe my son. ;)
 
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I don’t insult anyone either, but if I was going to, “liberal” might be one of those dirty words I threw at them, yeah.
 
Goshin said:
I am relatively conservative on many, but not all, issues.

I use it to identify positions or individuals that I consider "liberal". Since I oppose the majority of liberal-agenda-items, this identifying descriptor is, to me, a negative. As in, "Obama is too liberal."

OTOH, I don't think I've ever flung it around as an overt insult, as if it were a substitute for "dirty rotten scoundrel". I don't consider liberals to be bad people, just somewhat misguided or mistaken.

On the other, other hand, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have been so mis-used and mis-defined in recent decades that they've become relatively meaningless. Then there's the issue that Europeans and most of the world don't mean the same thing by "liberal" or "conservative" as we in the States do. This is one of the reasons why my lean label is "independent": I don't want people mistakenly assuming where I stand on the basis of an ill-defined label.
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Zyphlin said:
Greatly depends what you mean by "insult".

Do you mean insult as something along the lines of "jackass", "jerk" or "bafoon"? Then no. I'm not going to randomly call my friend who just stole a slice of my pizza "You damn liberal". I'm not going to get heated on the basektball court and heckle the other player going "you're nothing but a liberal".

Do you mean insult in such a fashion that its used as a negative trait? IE, "I dislike Obama, he's too Liberal" or "We get along great even though he's a liberal". Then yeah, I've used it as that. Just like I've used "Dallas Fan" as an insult, or "evangelical, or something else as an insult. Not necessarily suggesting that the thing in question is somehow inherently bad or insulting, but that its something that is negative compared to my point of view so is something I view as such.

I don't see anything wrong with the second one, its a typical and common thing amongst humans and far from something limited to conservatives.
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These two quotes sum me up nicely.

I don't use the word liberal as an attack or an insult, but I openly acknowledge that I disagree with a lot of liberal ideas or positions.

I know I have called people liberal or left wing hacks, but the insult there is hack, not liberal or left wing. I get along fine with a number of liberal posters here. I can accept that people disagree with me, but the ones who are blindly unthinking in their positions (and this goes for right wingers too) annoy me to no end.
 
I'm a "miscellaneous other" and I use it as a psuedo-insult when a conservative supports policies that are based on the principles they would decry as "liberalism" if the issue it supported was one they disagreed with. And then, it's usually going to be a hyper-partisan. I wouldn't call Zyphilin or Goshin a liberal, for example.

Technically, I'm not actually using it as an insult because I don't think this description is an insult in and of itself, but because of their own irrational distaste for the principles they claim to despise, they will often see it as one.
 
"Liberal" is used to insult as much as "NeoCon" is used to insult. The problem is that usually the people using the terms to insult are too ignorant to understand what it is that pisses them off.

When it comes to "Liberal," we are a liberal nation. It is the essence of our identity. It defines our liberty, freedoms, and social prescriptions. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all liberals and want nothing less for our children. I guess no one ever thinks about the world liberty.

When it comes to "NeoCon," people want it to be a war mongering term despite the fact that neither Rumsfeld nor Cheney were NeoCons. The NeoCons were former Democrats who became discouraged with Carter's hypocritical Democrats and defected into the Republican Party with Reagan and believe in democracy as a universal prescription for two reasons: 1) It's the universal dream of individuals to be free and to have the opportunity to feed family and (2) It encourages America's stability and power base.

The insult that people should be using is "leftist." They are decrepit. It was not always so. In the beginning, the workers of the world were screwed in factories and such. Marx wrote about and called his impractical utopian dream "commuinism." Eventually the workers banded together (unions) to defy authority and the capitalistic greed of the few. Along the way the Democratic Party of the U.S. assumed to champion social injustices and this also meant the mistreatment of blue collar workers. Well, the workers won. Across the world, Socialist Parties such as the National Socialist German Workers' Party would emerge, and the Arm and Sickle was placed on a flag, etc. Add in Mao's China and the global leftists radicalized. Leftists became the national and free world enemy over the decades in the form of communism and nazism. In the meantime, the Democratic Party needed a new social injustice to champion, because their international theme had changed, so they turned their attentions towards internal racial injustice and eventually merely internal bickering. Seen weak on communism and terrorism, today Democrats seek to champion immigration, homosexual awareness, and campaign for minority votes (not so much their rights). The "Global Left" (of which plenty of Americans are apart of) have designed a world where they can't be fullfilled unless America is to be blamed. They will preach on their great care for humanitarian chores, but when it comes down to it, they are the most hypocritical people on earth. No humanitarian event on earth matters unless they can show how America caused it, because they certainly remain quiet until American boots hit the ground. No genocide matters unless America gets involved so that they can nitpick imperfections (Rwanda and Sudan seemed to slip their attentions). No Leftist cares about a people's suffering (despite their country causing it) until America goes in to deal with it and then the focus is on nitpicking American efforts. Honestly, do any of the European/American leftist commentators speak of the attrocities around the globe unless America is on the scene?

The leftists have come a long way since seeking a fairshake for workers. They are elitists/intellectuals that unwittingly developed their dreams into machines of slaughter and oppression and now seek to redefine themselves as false humanitarians at America's expense. Many simply seek to explain away their own culture's stagnation as a product of American "imperialism" and use our imperfections to legitimize himself. A "leftist" is not a "liberal."

Of course, that's just me.
 
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People use liberal as an insult because they forget what that word really means... But that is what happens when politicians and TV pundits twist words. When people call me a liberal I just say thank you.
 
Dutch said:
You left out leftists/socialists/communists/national socialists. Is it possible to find one term an honorific and not it's related terms? ;)
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Except they're no more related terms than "conservative" and "fascist". Just saying.
 
Dutch said:
Most people would agree with you. However, I tend to take a different view. In it's day national socialism was called "the third way" meaning it was an attempt to provide an alternative to socialism/communism and classical liberalism. Classical liberalism being the idea of a small relatively weak federal government and great liberties for it's inhabitants and socialism/communism which advocated a large powerful central government and greatly diminished personal liberties accorded it's citizens. In practice national socialism shared much more in common with the socialistic/communistic model in that it had a very intrusive government and greatly dimished liberties for it's citizens. If you viewed these types of governments on a continuim I find little about national socialism....right winged.

As for the kids, you may have a point. One that could just describe my son. ;)
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I have to disagree. The "third way" they referred to wasn't classical liberalism. It was European Conservatism, which was essentially monarchism. You have to remember, Italy still had a king, and Germany had had a Kaiser until WWI. Classical liberalism wasn't enough of a force in inter-war Europe to really be considered. You had conservatives supporting old dogs like Bismark, and you had communists who all but wanted to join Russia. Those were the two sides Fascism was between.
 
bigrobmjca said:
Liberals are so open-minded their brains fell out.
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Ah. A partisan hack who demonstrates clearly what he is. The idiocy of your post exposes you so easily.
 
I suspect someone has been messing with the poll. There are a lot of people claiming not to use it as an insult in their posts, but voting to say that they do use it as such. What's that about?

I don't btw, and do get annoyed when anyone uses 'liberal' as short-hand for left-wing. To me 'liberal' means exactly the same thing as 'centrist', neither meaning leftist, neither an insult.
 
Andalublue said:
I suspect someone has been messing with the poll. There are a lot of people claiming not to use it as an insult in their posts, but voting to say that they do use it as such. What's that about?

I don't btw, and do get annoyed when anyone uses 'liberal' as short-hand for left-wing. To me 'liberal' means exactly the same thing as 'centrist', neither meaning leftist, neither an insult.
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Of course people are messing with the poll. Most likely extreme conservatives, as usual. 23 votes for "I am a liberal and I do". Only one of them an actual DP member (spud as a joke). All the others were faked.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Of course people are messing with the poll. Most likely extreme conservatives, as usual. 23 votes for "I am a liberal and I do". Only one of them an actual DP member (spud as a joke). All the others were faked.
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How do they do that? No I'm not seeking to do the same, but how is it possible, for example, for someone else to vote on Redress's behalf? That's very worrying.
 
Andalublue said:
How do they do that? No I'm not seeking to do the same, but how is it possible, for example, for someone else to vote on Redress's behalf? That's very worrying.
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No one can vote on another member's behalf. HOW they rig polls is not important. They do it, most often in GM threads.
 
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