So, it's little wonder liberals have completely lost sight of their own tradition and their own history of philosophy and politics.
Somebody: I feel like part of the problem is that we're using two different definitions of liberalism. Sometimes it seems as if we're talking broadly about classical liberalism, in which case everybody from Adam Smith to Friedrich Hayek is a liberal.
On the other hand, we have the 20th century American tradition of liberalism, which is a distinct subspecies of classical liberalism, which modifies the older tradition in part out of a response to working class demands, and in part simply in response to the changes brought about by modern society. I mean, we can either differentiate between these two definitions of liberalism or not, but it's clear to me that self-identified liberals, especially amongst the public, subscribe to the latter political philosophy. In other words, liberals *don't* believe in money as equivalent to freedom of speech or to corporations having the full array of human rights. And truthfully, it's hard to argue that liberalism is much more amorphous a concept than socialism, or for that matter, fascism. These are all abstractions, and should be used merely as a form of useful short-hand.