I am a liberal

There, I said it.
Actually, I am an American conservative, which is the same as being a liberal in classical, old world politics.
I find it amusing how Americans have confused the political terms “liberal” and “conservative” to represent left and right politics, respectively.
A fundamental definition of “conservative” refers to the traditional way of doing things. This would mean advocating for a monarchy and state-run economy in the Old World East and West.
To be an Old World liberal, however, would mean embracing new revolutionary ideas that promote freedom and liberty for the common folks; in particular, a republican democracy and free-market capitalism.
In the United States—the western New World—“conservative” still means the traditional way of doing things. But our “traditional” politics is really new, revolutionary and “liberal” to the rest of the world.
Oddly enough, the so-called “liberal” in this country has much less in common with America’s traditional political foundations, and more in common with old world classical conservatism.
The modern, so-called liberal movement in America has been known as “progressivism” since the beginning of the Twentieth Century. While it sounds new and forward thinking, progressivism is actually moving backward toward the kind of authoritarian governments and state-run economies that dominated Europe and Asia for centuries up until the modern era.
An authoritarian government is one in which the state—and not the people—has the highest governing authority. Governments of this kind often, but not always, rule without the consent of the governed and operate independent of the people, making decisions on their behalf. Progressives have succeeded in transforming both state and federal governments into autonomous engines capable of operating independent of the peoples’ consent. Appointed and unelected bureaucrats run governments like a corporation or business, collecting and spending money without regard or respect for the people. Our elected leadership acts and makes decisions on implied, rather than explicit consent of the electorate; meaning that because it has been elected, then it assumes it is given leverage to govern its own way. This is a form of authoritarianism: Government acting independent of the people.
American progressives promote this kind of government, because it appears to them to be the surest, fastest and most direct way to achieve their economic and social egalitarian objectives. It is the shortest distance between two points: Closing the gap between what progressives perceive to be economic disparity under free-market capitalism and the socioeconomic justice of egalitarianism, or socialism.
In truth, a pure authoritarian government can’t exist in the United States without throwing out the Constitution entirely, because our nation’s foremost legal document and authority provides laws on what the government cannot do.
Authoritarian governments are limitless in their powers and have no overriding or controlling legal authority.
But American progressives have created a hybrid form of authoritarianism using a democratic republic as a smoke screen to hide its true objectives of a state run country in which the government ensures social and economic equality for all.
The truth is that there is nothing “liberal” at all about American progressivism. It is, in fact, regressive to the revolutionary principles upon which our nation was founded.
Progressivism seeks to make all individuals economically and socially equal through government policy. The principles of the American Revolution, by contrast, put the power of equality, fairness and justice into the hands of the individual instead of the state. Our founders believed that all the laws of men, all the edicts of government could not guarantee equality among men; that equality came from the charity of men’s hearts, and such charity was willfully, not forcefully, given. Their concept of freedom and liberty was based upon the notion that individual responsibility replaced and, in fact, transcended government as the final authority on behavior and action. They believed individuals could and should police themselves rather than appoint a government to do it for them. This philosophy was applied both socially and economically.
Progressives, on the other hand, place no such trust in the individual to do the right thing. Rather, their faith is invested in government to instigate and carry out social and economic policies designed to compel equality among the populace. It is truly an authoritarian, rather than liberal way of thinking.
How can egalitarianism via government compulsion be considered progressive, especially in the United States of America? In the old world, governments handled issues of social and economic injustice; not the individual. But the American Revolution changed all of that, putting the power into the hands of the individual to change not only his destiny, but to affect and influence the destiny of others. Equality and justice were entrusted to the individual, rather than government to carry out and preserve.
The fundamental principle behind American conservatism is the preservation of the principles of the American Revolution. Conservative Americans want to maintain the founding values of equality and justice through liberty, freedom, opportunity for the individual, and by the grace of God; not by the good graces of government.
I don’t get how progressives can rightly claim that conservatives cling to an old fashioned way of thinking when American conservatism is actually quite new and revolutionary compared to the politics of the world. If any form of political thought is old and outdated, it sounds more like progressivism than conservatism to me.
As such, I can no longer in good conscience refer to left-wing progressives as “liberals,” because they really aren’t liberal. Rather, they are socialists who believe in government egalitarianism; not in the individual. From now on, so-called liberal progressives will be referred by me as leftists, because that is the essence of what they are and what they believe. If they were real liberals, they would support liberty for the individual above granting more power to the state.