I wish people would stop using the word “liberal” to describe socialist/redistributionist/Marxist/fascist/Keynesian policies, ESPECIALLY IN EUROPE, where “liberal” has retained its classical meaning. “Socialism” suffered in the latest European elections. Liberalism is a term in dire need of rescue from the socialists and greens.
Another pet peeve is linking parties like the BNP with the “far right” (in the American sense especially). The BNP is a “conservative party” only in a very archaic sense (conservative like the way the Taliban is conservative). The BNP is pro-welfare, pro-NHS, pro Keynesian/Marxist in all economic matters, protectionist (again anti-liberal, in the classical sense), and harbor vile racism (identity politics). They are neither “progressive” nor conservative in the American sense. They are regressive and anti-individual (antithetical to liberty in most ways) AND they hate America.
I agree with you on both senses, M203M4 (does the name have anything to do with the grenade launcher?).
Having read and re-read Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny,” I know exactly what you are talking about.
If people had your awareness about the fact that conservatives today are actually “classical liberals” while liberals are actually “socialists,” I would have used my language differently.
I tried following the article to state my view of the “rightwing” stuff - a ploy to paint conservatives as racists or nutjobs who would be avoided by any decent electorate. And I tried to turn that MSM rhetoric around on them.
What WE want is conservative principles - principles which have the virtue of being ethical and which have the virtue of actually WORKING - to return as the standard of this country.