Another question for the right and left

I cannot help it if Europeans cannot use the proper terminology.

Having fought and won our Revolution before any of you Europeans were even thinking about any of yours, Americans were never a good fit on the European political spectrum. What would have been a liberal in Europe would have been a conservative in America and what Europeans know as reactionaries has never really existed in America or the U.K. Europeans have a history of taking it for granted that the King is supreme. That's never worked (at least for any length of time) in Anglo-American settings.

Well, besides that you've certainly the right to delete the foundation of the Swiss Federation and the French Revolution from your history book you've got the same right to neglect the history of liberalism.

I could imagine, however, that the Liberal International is indeed an European invention.

I haven't said anything about removing your revolutions from the history books. I am merely pointing out that certain issues were already settled in America long before they were even issues in Europe. Our respective political spectra had different incubators and so it is only natural that they are not identical.



Liberals in America, i.e., members of the Democrat Party, are not in favor of the free market in that they favor government regulation in excess.

Liberals in America don't always support free (international) trade in that they usually support tariffs and import quotas designed to subsidize American labor unions that cannot otherwise compete with imported products made by cheap labor in other countries. However, trade protectionism used to be a conservative policy in America as a means of promoting the establishment of American industries and some far right/libertarian 3rd parties still advocate protectionist trade policies for the sake of labor. As a conservative myself I have no problem with free trade as long as it is fair trade. I would gladly accept restrictions on Chinese imports because I don't want our trade policy to enrich a country that is hostile to America.

Furthermore, liberals in America usually promote tolerance, equality of opportunity and social justice by empowering the government oppress anyone who doesn't agree with them. They don't realize that something like affirmative action is simply reverse discrimination. They don't realize how things like telling Christians they cannot practice their faith in public places, lest some non-Christians feel uncomfortable, is not in itself a form of religious oppression.

The first democracy in - more or less - modern times was the Swiss Federation.
Besides that, the Dithmarschen Republic (1227-1559) was only a mini-state, but this peasant republic had their own institutions, their own written constitution, and successfully defended their political independence against the forces of Holstein, the combined powers of Schleswig and Holstein, and the united kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.




What you (most Americans call 'Lieberals, that is.

(No US party is listed as Full Members, and/or Observer Members and/or Individual Members in the Liberal Internationl; with the Socialist International [worldwide organisation of socialist, social democratic and labour parties] you find the Democratic Socialists of America, DSA as Full Member and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, NDI as Associated Organisation [link]

I am not in favor of strict democracy- a position supported by most of the delegates to the U.S. Constitutional Convention- whom history remembers mostly as conservatives. Democracy can hardly work in a society that has a large population or covers a large geographic area. Thus the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy.

England is has never been a republic (except maybe during the Commonwealth) because it has inherited public offices. But at the same time these hereditary office holders have never been allowed to govern against the will of the governed for any extended length of time. America's political institutions are based on Britain's history of constitutional monarchy- not any European attempt at democracy.