Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The term 'liberal' has evolved, and come to mean something quite different, especially in the U.S., than it meant 50 years ago. The hallmarks of liberalism used to be freedom of expression, genuine tolerance of dissent, personal autonomy, and a belief that progress is best achieved by inviting diverse and competing arguments to the table and employing reason and empiricism to sift good ideas from bad.
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Unless you were poor, had a vagina, or weren't white. If we're going to speak genuinely about classical liberals then let's speak genuinely about them, and it's the modern left that deserves credit for actually forcing classical liberalism to live up to it's lofty ideals. You can argue that modern left has gone too far, but let's not act like the fathers of liberalism were beacons of open discourse and dissent.