RE: comment "May I dare to disagree?"

Submitted by Benjamín Muñoz Mateu (Spain), Feb 27, 2005 at 17:19

Just a short clarification on "Liberals",

QUOTE
It is also true that European socialists and liberals excuse anti-Semitism, and shame on them for that. Anti-Semitism is horrible and disgusting.
END QUOTE

Mr. Johanson, you are confusing here Anglo or Socialist Liberals (of Anglo tradition: UK and USA), with Classical or Conservative Liberals (all Continental Europe, also Central and South America) who precede the English denomination, at least, by half a century (Cadiz, Spain, Constitution of 1812), being the first to use it for a political movement. Both political denominations sharing the same name have opposite political ideologies. Yes, quite a mess.

European Liberals are Conservative ("right-wing") and its ideology pivots around the limitation of State power. When European leftists want to insult someone as "a Conservative reactionary" they like to use the term Neoliberal. European Liberals take their denomination from the aforementioned Spanish Constitution, but they are ideological heirs of ,
< These Late Scholastics observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value--all reasons Joseph Schumpeter celebrated them as the first real economists.>>
[ The Austrian School, http://www.mises.org/austrian.asp ]

You find Conservative Liberals in every single European country except in the UK.

Anglo Liberals (UK and USA, "left-wing") find their roots in the Socialism of John Stuart Mills (basically an economy of worker-owned cooperatives) and crystallize as a leftist movement of Liberal denomination with John Maynard Keynes' economic theories on Welfare State, seeking to advance such leftist mantras as "egalitarianism" and "social justice."

European Liberals ARE NOT anti-Semitic by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you find anti-Semitic Mr. Daniel Pipes himself, who graciously shares with us his splendid articles not only in this website but also in Classical Liberal orientated websites like http://www.libertaddigital.com : Spanish Liberals thinktank, Conservative and proud friends of Israel.

Thank you for your attention, I hope I clarified a bit the ideological bipolarity of the Liberal denomination:
- Classical or Conservative Liberals (Europe, Central and South America)
- Anglo or Socialist Liberals (UK and the USA).

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