Is it 'modern liberalism' that contemporary liberals are being associated with?

[Atheist Dick]

Or is it the 'classical liberalism' model that contemporary liberals are associated with?

I would think classical liberalism is the model contemporary conservatives are trying to preserve.

[grandma zaza]

I could not agree with you more.

Today's Liberals are not yesterdays. That is for sure.

[roostershine]

I've never heard people distinguish modern and classical liberalism.

If modern liberalism means liberals abandoning the working poor and allowing anything to be corrupted for God's golden rule for bringing order to the world: Private Profit; then I would say yes.

"Modern" liberals of today and the past 20 years want to be associated with that. Yes.

[The Sharper edge]

neo-liberalism is the problem, classical liberalism is the one that had merit, you need only look at the UK parlaiment to see it is all liberal. Just different kinds.

[Edmon Rueger]

Oligarchical collectivism I would call it.

[Ronald Reagan]

Traditional conservative beliefs:
Strong centralized government
Opposition to free trade
Opposition to free speech, and right to bear arms.
One religious doctrine, intolerance towards all other beliefs.
A system of heir achy.

Modern liberal beliefs:
Strong centralized government
Opposition to free trade
Opposition to free speech (hate speech legislation) and right to bear arms (gun control)
One doctrine: atheism over religious tolerance.
Abolition of heir achy, equality instead.

Conservative and liberal mean the opposite!

[hollowcherry288]

"modern liberalism" and "contemporary liberalism" are the same thing. ML and CL want more gun control, less freedom, more taxes and higher taxes on productive people, more envirnmental regulation, etc. classical liberalism supports the united states constitution 100% of the time; i.e. no IRS, no HUD, no EPA, etc. Keep in mind that neither of today's "conservatives" or "liberals" come close to being a classical liberal.

[tribeca_belle]

I am not a fan of labels. Liberals today are addressing the current issues and applying enlightened attitudes as well as vision in trying to resolve problems and advocate policies. Classical liberalism is not relevant if it does comport with those ideals. It would be nothing more than an historical footnote.

[Satellite]

What conservatives are you talking about? Do you mean libertarians?

Conservatives certainly are not advocates of classical liberalism. They might think they are, but they're pretty much only in favour of a free-market because they're told it's the patriotic thing to do.

From what I've seen in the US, American conservatives are very much in favour of freedom of religion (protesting any mosque built within 10 blocks of ground zero), freedom of the press (calling for Julian Assange to be assassinated), civil liberty (they were widely supportive of the patriotic act when Obama was president, and they opposed prisoners at Guantanamo from coming to the US for trial) and they're certainly not in favour of limited government. They may be for less social programs, less corporate regulations, but they're also in favour of pushing their social/religious agenda, such as banning everything that they feel contradicts the bible.

Contemporary American conservatism isn't anything like classical liberalism, they'd still hate classical liberalism. They might be in favour of the time period as they always glorify the past, but they certainly wouldn't be in favour of classical liberalism. Classical Liberalism isn't much different from Social Liberalism. The only real difference is economic. Social Liberalism purport Keynesian economics, which was the mainstay among the Western powers from the 1940s to 1970s. Classical Liberalism advocated Monetarism which was practiced from the late 19th century up until the Great Depression (which is when it fell out of favour).

Folks, you need to learn your history. You should also know that the Republican party isn't pro-free-market. The Republican party practices Crony Capitalism. The Republican party in their relationship with big business uses their political pull to give government subsidies (corporate welfare) to conglomerates like Exxon Mobile to make them even more profitable, as well as pushing for less regulations, specific regulations on major corporations. Small businesses get no favours from the Republican party.