Liberalism and liberalism

First of all, I am glad that you brought this up Tim; it is a great point for discourse.
You bring up an interesting and important point in contemporary American politics: Americans (well westerners really) throw around the terms conservative and liberal like they are synonymous with political parties. Well I am here to tell you that modern day Democratic and Republican parties are so far separated from traditional liberal and conservative ideologies that it is not even worth talking about. Yet I digress. We have to be careful however of talking about Liberalism like it is associated with liberal politics. Liberalism has its foundations in the idea of liberty, freedom, and a free market economy. A Liberal democracy is what America is, yet is vastly different from a liberal party (or what many incorrectly compare to the democratic party). Tim you are right that America has its foundations in Liberal ideals. But that is Liberal in the democratic sense. If we are talking about political ideologies than we are talking about a completely different beast.

A two party system is a core fundamental of American Liberal democracy. For example political differences, close elections and nasty political campaigns, are not a recent thing in American history. The press has just made it a recent thing. In the election of 1796, John Adams beat Thomas Jefferson by just 3 electoral votes, and in 1800 it was the famous tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The funny thing was that the runner up in the election became the Vice President. So often you had a President and a Vice President that did not get along. Adams and Jefferson went months without speaking. In fact if we’re speaking strictly politically, the liberal ideals that many speak of that this country was founded on I would argue were as much traditional conservative ideals as they were traditional liberal ideals. While the American Revolution was about change and the rights of individuals (considered to be liberal ideals), it was mostly about the advancement of freedom (both individually from government and economic), which is a more traditional conservative ideology. However both encompass a Liberal democracy. The real issue (as you hit on Tim) is that Americans have no idea what liberalism or conservatism mean anymore. They are just ideals that are thrown into the pathetic pot of contemporary American politics. The days of John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke are long gone, and that is really sad. We just have to be careful that Liberalism and liberalism are not made out to be the same thing.