While nothing lately has made me "doubt the basic tenets of liberalism," quite a bit of public speech has made me doubt that the given speaker understands said

While nothing lately has made me "doubt the basic tenets of liberalism," quite a bit of public speech has made me doubt that the given speaker understands said tenets. Not necessarily this writer, but then again he doesn't state them either, so there is at least room for doubt. "There oughtta be a law" that anybody who uses the word 'liberal' or 'conservative' must take a quick detour to define what they mean by that. Suddenly we would all know what we were talking about. I think it would be eye-opening. Deception thrives in an environment of code-words, shorthand and oversimplification. That's what Newspeak was supposed to be all about, right?