Liberal v Conservative:
Liberal is derived from the Latin word "liber" meaning free. It is an adjective, such as is in the oft used term "liberal arts college." Liberally is the adverb from of liberal, such as the directions on packages that say "sprinkle liberally with water," meaning without undue restraint or freely with as much as you chose. "To liberate" is the verb form of liberal, meaning to free, as in to liberate captives. There is no noun form except one which has been fabricated for politically fraudulent purposes over the centuries.
From the mid-14th century, liberal meant "generous," and also "nobly born, noble, free;" from the late 14th century it meant "selfless, magnanimous, admirable;" from the early 15th century, it meant in a bad sense "extravagant, unrestrained." It comes from 12th century the Old French word "liberal," meaning "befitting free people; noble, generous; willing, zealous;" and that came directly from Latin "liberalis" meaning "noble, gracious, munificent, generous," or literally "of freedom, pertaining to or befitting a free person," which came from "liber" meaning "free, unrestricted, unimpeded;" or in a bad sense "unbridled, unchecked, or licentious."
It began purely with no reference to politic or political opinions, but it was gradually perverted to mean "tending in favor of freedom and democracy," as it dates from around 1801 coming from the French word libéral. In English the label at first was applied by opponents (often in the French form and with suggestions of foreign lawlessness) to the party more favorable to individual political freedoms. But also, especially in U.S. politics, it then tended to mean "favorable to government action to effect social change." That usage seemed at times to draw more from the religious sense, which dates from 1823, of being "free from prejudices that were in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions" and thus open to new ideas and plans for reform.
American writer Guy Emerson, wrote the following defining idea of what a liberal is in "The New Frontier" in 1920:
"This is the attitude of mind which has come to be known as liberal. It implies vigorous convictions, tolerance for the opinions of others, and a persistent desire for sound progress. It is a method of approach which has played a notable and constructive part in our history, and which merits a thorough trial today in the attack on our absorbingly interesting American task."
It is clearly a word that has been perverted from its original meaning of freedom to promote socialist, progressive, and even Marxist Communist agendas. Take a word meaning freedom and gradually change it into meaning "favorable to government action to effect social change," which is government force and control, the reverse of freedom. Emerson's words, "persistent desire for sound progress," clearly indicated the hidden, but persuasive, introduction of a radical agenda of progressive ideology in the USA.
Indeed, it has so progressed as an ideology. In the sociopolitical sense as meaning "favoring reform and radically liberal," it emerged in various British contexts from the 1880s. In the U.S. it was active as a movement in the 1890s and a generation thereafter, and by the year 2000 it was the name used again from time to time by most recently some more liberal Democrats and other social activists.
Now to the term conservative:
Conserve is the verb only meaning to protect, preserve, and retain so as to be available for either current or future use. It is seen in the warning, "you must conserve your resources." Conservatively is the adverb form of that verb, meaning to do something carefully, as in using words conservatively.
It derives from the late 14th century, from the 9th century Old French word "conserver." The French comes from the Latin "conservare" meaning "to keep, preserve, keep intact, guard," and that from "com," the intensive prefix, plus "servare" meaning to "keep watch, maintain," the root of which is "ser" meaning "to protect."
The most important thing humans have to protect is freedom of choice, i.e., the freedom of conscience to believe what you chose and to take whatever action in accordance with it you so chose. It is using the free will with which we are created that keeps us from being prisoners of our device. With free will we may make mistakes or not as our choices determine their effects.
We must liberally chose to conserve our freedom for our free will to remain unimpaired. By not doing that, we become robots simply following the dictates of others.
The two words, liberal and conservative, have the same objective, enhancing freedom by protecting, preserving, and retaining it. They are not in an opposition to one another.
However, "liberal" and "conservative," the Newspeak-created noun forms of the words, only signify false ideologies. These newly created terms were crafted and promoted into an acceptance of their presumed opposition, which had to have been a political perversion to make them appear to be one.
Those who promote such falsities are neither liberals nor conservatives, but, instead, tricksters creating by division intentionally fraudulent misuses of words for their own purpose of controlling masses of people who do not know better.
Left and right, directional terms, as in turning left or turning right at an intersection, have been equally drafted into the service of the fraudsters. Equating the "Left" as being "liberal" and the "Right" as "conservative" simply removes the obvious lack of conflict in the real meanings of those underlying words. It hides a real conflict with the truth that the words present when used by political ideologues.
The left and right side of the aisle, as used in descriptions of US Congressional "liberal" and "conservative" factions, are terms that derived from the French Parliament of long ago when there was but a single aisle and opposing political parties clustered on one side or the other of it.
In the political sense, "the democratic or liberal party" arose from the custom of assigning those members of a legislative body to the left side of a chamber. This usage is first attested in English in 1837 by Carlyle in reference to the French Revolution. It is a probable loan-translation from 1791 of the French word "la gauche," said to have originated during the seating of the French National Assembly in 1789 in which the nobility took the seats on the President's right and left the Third Estate to sit on the left.
In the U.S. Congress' capital building, there are two aisles, not just one, and seating is not segregated by faction. Thus the terms left and right side of the aisle cannot be made applicable to ideological disagreements in Congress.
Words have meaning when they are understood to have roots that in their derivations must be consistent to be true. Free does not suddenly or even gradually come to mean not free. Good does not mean bad, and bad cannot come to mean good, as it now has in common parlance.
If words are fraudulently redefined by scurrilous politicians and their supporting factions using Newspeak to divide and conquer public opinion and destroy freedom's liberal conservation, those who do not notice that are going to be the first victims of their own ignorance.
The perversion of these terms has always had its disastrous effects on the thinking of people, just as their misdirection has been intentionally crafted to have.
This commentary of mine has been written in disgust and dismay that it has occurred with such prevalence in current political commentaries, discussions, debates, and even in outright arguments, which can never be resolved with these terms incorrectly defined for fraudulent purposes.
Credits: The definitions and origins of these words have been found at http://www.etymonline.com.
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