First of all, Peter, go take a cold shower. I figured it might be long overdue to start one of these threads so we don't keep polluting the actual political threads.
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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Every non-liberal state has also encountered those issues. After all, human history is little more than a register of the follies and misfortunes of mankind. Slavery, conquest, subjugation, ruthless exploitation of people and resources - all universal practices carried out since the dawn of our species in every corner of the planet.
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Sure, but different theories can share similar traits or outcomes can they not?
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Still, liberal democracy is also responsible for outlawing slavery. For the emancipation of women from the shackles of tradition. For universal suffrage. For the right to own property without some lord confiscating it whenever it pleased him. To make a speech or write a book that criticizes the powerful. Global free markets have lifted a billion people out of dire poverty in the last 20 years alone. Progressivism itself is a child of the Western Enlightenment. There's a reason Greenpeace, gay rights, and feminism started in the liberal West and not in China, Egypt, or India.
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Again that's kind of ignoring the influence of other theories had on liberalism. The emancipation of women, IMO, has its roots in Marxism and existentialism more than it does in classical liberalism. I personally disagree with Corsi that you can completely separate doctrine from action. If traditional liberals preached equality and tolerance but practiced the opposite, I don't think you can say unmitigated equality and tolerance were traditional liberal principles.