Liberal a Dirty Word

I had two very interesting political conversations this past week. They weren't interesting due to the content, as that was boilerplate political conversation.

The first person was a self proclaimed liberal I work with, with whom I've had many, many political debates with. We were discussing whatever, probably something involving Bush getting up on the wrong side of the bed and causing a natural disaster as a result or something. It was a bunch of yadda yadda yadda except for one key factor: my buddy now calls himself a conservative. He's not, he makes Howard Dean look moderate, but he got very upset when I used the term liberal and explained that he's a conservative. A few months ago, he was proud to be a liberal.

The other conversation was with another coworker whom the first sent after me by letting him know I don't hate everything about Bush. He explained that he was a conservative and that, as a conservative, he hates everything about Bush and that I, too, should hate everything about Bush if I claim to be a conservative. I mentioned the problems I have with some of Bush's policies, but stated that otherwise I think he's doing fine. My new friend, obviously, disagreed. We started getting into the nitty-gritty on individual policies and general ideologies, and I felt like I was talking to RANT. He was very educated on the issues, his ideas were pretty closely in line with RANT's, but he called himself a conservative and even made liberal jokes.

Now, I don't typically talk politics outside of ATS, so my knowledge base on this issue is very limited. However, has anyone else noticed an embarrassment in some liberals in admitting they're liberal? I used to feel that way telling people I was a conservative when I first started turning rather right wing, but now, I really don't give a krump what others think of me, especially if it's based on a title, so the embarrassment is gone. Is the term "liberal" becoming as dirty as "conservative" has been in the past?

The word liberal has been used as an insult far far longer than anyone's been using conservative as an insult. Its onyl relatively recently that the term conservative has been poo poo'd upon, and even then people often just use neo-con. "Republican" used to be used as an insult, but that was mostly in the 80's, to the point that is was hysterical to think of a group called 'young republicans'. Now republican has become alright, mainly as the right has become even more entangled with the religious right.

But 'liberal's been a dirty word for a damned long time.

Which is nuts, because America is a liberal society and government. It lets the public carry guns. Thats pretty darned Liberal, in the real sense. Often by 'liberal' whats mean is 'progressive socialist' and the like.

It's strange how liberal and conservative mean different things, depending on where you live.

Example: The USA was founded through revolution, and that was pretty darn liberal. I've never heard anyone from the US say that was a bad idea.

junglejake not everyone fits neatly on the politic spectrum including me. It is possible that you witnessed what I oconsider to be the growing divide of the right wing political spectrum. I think this can be best in the USA.
What about the person that wants brder controll, lower taxs for all, less government spending and the right to live there life how they choose.
Well its fine if your a Libertarian but if your consiance wont let you support the Libertarian platform and you dislike the politics of the left you are right royaly screwed.

To be fair here in NZ we are yet to see the divided of the right it may come but so far with expection of a minorty politics and reglion have remained seprate.