Both Liberal and Conservative are really loaded words. Not necessarily loaded in the emotional sense (although they are often that), but just in terms of being

Both Liberal and Conservative are really loaded words. Not necessarily loaded in the emotional sense (although they are often that), but just in terms of being used with very different definitions in very different places. I listened to an audiobook or a lecture series a few years ago that discussed the idea of Liberalism that I found very interesting. Rather than dealing with any of the modern senses of the terms Conservative or Liberal, it dealt with the sea change in types of governance that occurred at the end of the Enlightenment with the rise of the United States and the French Revolution. It takes a bit of doing for modern people to even conceive of what the actual argument was at the time. To really understand that both the rulers and the citizenry viewed rulers as fundamentally Better People in some way (often granted by God) is a mindset that modern people just aren't accustomed to. They read 'all men are created equal' and they don't realize what it's even talking about. The idea that citizens who are being ruled should have some say in how they are ruled was the essence of Liberalism in that time. It was a revolutionary idea and seen as stupid by many. Thomas Payne's 'Common Sense' was published at a time when the phrase 'common sense' was a perjorative. It referred to the 'sense' of commoners, implying that it was worthless and senseless. Commoners simply weren't built to be able to understand notions of governance or to be able to wield power without self destruction. Just as racism and sexism proposed that there were "different kinds" of people who inherently bore different capabilities, setting one group or another apart and making them unsuited to certain pursuits, Conservatism held that the divide between ruler and ruled was of this nature as well. A natural fact, emerging either from direct divine edict or carried in bloodlines, that made it ludicrous to even suggest that perhaps the peasant should have something like a 'vote.' Liberalism won quite conclusively. After the American Revolution and French Revolution, revolutions flourished all over the world. While Ancient Greece debuted democracy, it had died out for a long while and at the time every single nation on the planet was ruled by a Conservative government built around the idea of inherent superiority of the rulers. I can't imagine what it must have been like to live in those time periods, growing up knowing to your bones that you're simply a follower and a subject, liable to be called upon to have your concerns or life spent by the crown for their own purposes, and knowing that you simply weren't capable of questioning their motives or techniques. And then, that some people emerged who made arguments about the philosophical basis of government which was able to persuade this population to rise up and kill their own country so that they might build one of their own based upon this utterly heretical notion that there really aren't any Special People born to rule... it's dizzying to consider. Those that remain dedicated to an idea of a return to this sort of Conservatism, and there are some, walk in step with eugenicists and should be feared.