The L-word
 

Why is the word 'liberal' such a dirty word here? Whenever I use the word to describe myself or some of my views people seem to think I'm some sort of degenerate.
As an experiment, I've decided to describe myself as a registered sex-offender. I'm pretty sure I won't get nearly as many dirty looks as I have previously.

Re: The L-word
 

It is used as an insult. for some reason The american right want you to believe that being an open minded progressive is a bad thing for some reason.

Re: The L-word
 

not to mention a nationalised healthcare is verging on communism :D

Re: The L-word
 

Its a bad thing for the Christain Rightwing

Re: The L-word
 

Oh shut up you liberals! :D

Re: The L-word
 

but I will accept there are some nutters on the left, the extreme left.
however the left is all "lumped together" by the one word.

loonie left.
you could be moderate left, but once you're labelled as a liberal you're a loonie.

believe in pro-choice? - loonie
believe in universal healthcare? - loonie
vote democrat? - loonie.
anti war? - loonie


seems to me, anyone left of God fearing neocon ideology is "liberal"

Re: The L-word
 

You can thank Reagan for this, he was highly successful in demonizing liberalism during his presidency.

Prior to Reagan, the Republican party often struggled in US Congressional elections, often dominated by the Democrats, but Reagan helped to move swing voters to the GOP, plus facilitated the growth of the Christian Right and the conversion of Southern "Dixiecrats" (conservative southerners who had affiliated with the Democrats because Abraham Lincoln was a Republican) to the Republican side. He accomplished this by associating the economic melaise of the seventies and the rise of the counter culture, feminism, civil rights strife, etc. with a decline in moral values, religion and decency (which the Republicans naturally possessed and the Democrats did not.)

Another factor was Reagan's affiliation of the "fairness doctrine" in broadcasting. Prior to Reagan, TV and radio stations were required to provide opposing points of view -- this was seen as being part of the public service obligations that ran with their broadcast licenses -- but Reagan eliminated this requirement, which gave birth to the creation of conservative talk radio programming without any fairness requirement, permitting this Evil Liberalism rhetoric to be propogated free of any rebuttal.

Thanks to this, Reagan's legacy has strongly shaped the course of modern American politics, where party associations have become more about cultural identity than about political affiliation, per se. What you're left with is a segment of the population that earnestly believes that lying about a blowjob is actually more important than was lying about a war.