When "Liberal" ceases to mean liberal...

Longrider rightly laments the corruption of some key political terms. Like the word "liberal":

All of which is all very well, but what about legitimate words that have been thoroughly corrupted to the point where their accurate and original meaning is lost entirely? “Liberal” being one such. Many of those who write for and comment upon the Groan’s CiF call themselves liberals, yet their expressed opinions are decidedly illiberal, indeed, positively authoritarian.

Quite. To take another example of the corruption of the word liberal, we just need to take a look at the website Liberal Conspiracy. Any truly liberal opinions expressed by the writers of that website are the exception rather than the rule. In fact, the only way in which it could be a liberal conspiracy us if the authors are conspiring against liberalism.

And it bothers me - it really does. My blogging moniker involves the word "Libertarian", but in reality I feel far more comfortable describing myself as a liberal. Yet that word now encompasses everything from Barack Obama to Simon Hughes, and leaves precious little room for the genuinely liberal (the likes of J S Mill, for example) within it.

Which is the hideous irony, really. We end up with "liberals" who actually care little, if at all, for genuine freedom.