Those of us who used to call ourselves "liberals" thought we were liberal because we believed in the right of minorities, and that the ultimate minority is the individual. We then discovered that many so-called "liberals" were really people who love authority and trust government implicitely, as long as they can elect people who share their vision of How The World Should Be. Once it was called socialism, now it's "communitarianism," but the tune never changes: if it doesn't involve the pelvis, individual freedom is the one thing they are most consistently and predictably opposed to.

In any other era...

...we would identify such people as authoritarian right-wingers. It's strange that in 20th Century America (and mostly only in America, by the way) that such people have perversely been labeled "liberals." Such are the twisted pathways of the English language.

In a recent bookn a couple of typical leftist academics pretty much lay the Left's mentality bare: the whole idea of personal property, in their view, is and should be seen as groundless. Society is all about government, and that government be democratic is all that makes a society just. As Stephen Moore notes in this recent column, in a perverse way it's refreshing to hear some of them finally just admit it.

In the Left's view, "freedom" isn't about how we live our lives, earn our daily bread, or choose what we do with our leftover bread. It's about how many of us voted in the last election--and not much else.

Ultimately, though, even labels like "Left" and "Right" are questionable. I think Robert Heinlein's character Lazarus Long said it best in Time Enough for Love:

Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

It just happens that, at this moment in history, most of today's surly curmudgeons vote Republican. Like most other real liberals do. :-)