Unfortunate connection between liberty, liberation, and liberalism

 

Of course, right off, it might be simple to just not connect these three concepts, and then

have done with it.  Sadly, they all root from the same stem, liber.

It would have been nice, if at the founding of this country, the founders had developed

a device which would distinguish between liberal and conservative. Perhaps they did,

and I just don't know about it.  It would make life so much simpler for us today, in

trying to figure out who is " truly " conservative and who is " truly " liberal. Anyway,

moving on ...

So, this idea of liberty is pretty central to the whole notion of the United States, as

we have this important line: Liberty and justice for all.   The individual who came up

with that line, might have been in some rare mood, but there you have it and it

stuck over the years.  So, what is this liberty ?  Well, mostly you would think

that it has to do with some impediment or oppression or simply difficulty which

prevents you from achieving your goals, from which you require to be separated in order 

for you to achieve those goals or needs, those things which you are trying to achieve

in and from your life.  That does seem to encompass a lot of this notion of

liberty.  

So now of course you have liberation, which once you have achieved liberty, you

would expect you might not need any further liberation.   But, it just might occur that on achieving

your initial objective, you might find that you need to go further ( or furthur ).  Anyway,

in that case you might require this liberation to get there.  Now, you have  new objectives,

and as a result you might have new difficulties or impediments to confront, and as

a result you require this " process " to move the ball forward.

So finally liberalism.  Some people might reject liberalism, out of hand, as simply being

a form of immorality.  This might be because the spirit ( so to speak ) that animates this

liberal tendency is, the willingness to embraces a variety of perspectives, and some how

find a path a head toward some destination.  This might be considered immoral because

there does not seem to be any particular " bed rock " principal on which various 

different concepts can be judged, sort of like the North Star.   Hence if that

perspective , ie. liberalism, is connected to or identified with, well then, 

if it does not include immorality directly, you're bound to arrive there sooner or

later because of the lack of that " true ", North Star, by which you can be guided.

Hence, you find a " true " conservative to set you straight on your path.

Well, now, we certainly do have a mess.  Sorting it all, would probably take a bit

of time,, because we have all these interconnecting ideas, which seems to blend

into some kind of vague, abstract construction, and sadly those founding fathers

did not develop that simple device or tool which would accurately allow us to

make clear distinctions between liberal and conservative.  But I think that

we might be able to conclude that the liberal is not going very far without the

conservative.  Likewise, the conservative would, in fact, be effectively - un-employed

without the liberal.  

In the end, I suspect the liberals are really conservatives, and like wise the conservatives

are truly liberals.  Of course, that would be very difficult to prove, but it's mostly

just a suspicion, and you are  very " free ", to make up your own mind on this

topic.