Liberals

>whigs
>200yrs ago
>not knowing what conservatism is

spot the pol-sci major

Makes sense because I'm center right libertarian (purple square) and I've been told I'm "smart."

...

Probably, smarter people tend to be pussies and that's the defining feature of liberals

youtube.com/watch?v=m6rvqWxPCcE
The truth has been spoken

Anyone lib here?

ok actual question. What were the major pillars of liberalism in the napoleonic/metternich era?

apparently conservatism at the time was just anything that kept the stability of the state. what about liberalism at that time?

All i know is it gave rise to nationalism somehow. which sounds like the antithesis of liberalism in the modern age.

Boo-fucking-hoo, right wingers have been abusing the word socialism to mean anything they don't like. Just blame Americans for being americans

iirc, the napoleonic era was the tail-end of the french revolution, mainly interested as a project with secularization of the state, the expansion of private property rights and abolition of monarchy.
this may seem to be a weakening of state, but really it only enforces the necessity of state, at least in it's respective historical moment.
it should also be pointed out that the final stages of liberal revolution overlapped with napoleon's triumphs and france, being beset on
all sides, needing to strongly unify as a state with cohesive principles against other powers.

modern liberalism, or neoliberalism as some prefer, though has more to do with the rise of private enterprise superseding the state in many respects as a cultural and structural force,
the globalism resultant from people following the flow of capital and borders/sovereignty meaning less and less with information technology, general
popularity of western culture and availability of transport.

The major pillars of liberalism were Representaion in Government and Equality Under the Law. Representaion was having a say in your government, and not a token concession France gave to commoners before the French Revolution. Voting rights were still restricted to people who owned enough property or wealth. Equality under the law meant you didn't get special privileges for being a noble or a clergyman, there wasn't a set of laws for nobles and one for commoners, just one set set of laws that applied to everybody. All citizens of a state would be subject to one code of laws.

Classical liberalism:
>natural rights (life, liberty, property)
>social contract/night watchman state (small-ish government)
>representation in government
basically transition from the ancien-regime monarchies into modern democracies. Eg: French revolution, American revolution

Social liberalism (evolved ca. 1900s)
>natural rights now partially guaranteed by state (eg single payer healthcare to protect the right to life)
>foundation of modern centre-left liberalism
>often conflated with Socialism but it maintains property rights a lot more
evolved later as an answer to Socialism and Marxism that still held up Liberal principles. Eg: UK Liberal Party's 'People's Budget' of 1911

Libertarianism (ca. mid 20th century):
>property is everything
>Non-aggression principle
>minuscule government
Eg: Hayek, Freedman. Oh and also they hate other sects of libertarianism almost as much as the statists.

Neoliberalism (ca. late 20th century):
>descendant of social liberalism
>internationalist, pro-globalisation
>maintains some re-distributive attitudes - focusing on providing opportunity
>increased co-operation between government and market (such as Private Finance Initiatives)
Eg: New Labour party under Blair (Labour leadership was socialist in name only by 1994 after the collapse of the post-war consensus and have only really returned to socialism under Corbyn)

>Are "liberals" (i know there are many kinds of liberalism)
Then why won't you state what kind of fucking liberal you mean?

Is that JonTron?

Seriously though it all depends on how you operationally define "liberal" or "conservative" these words can have a thousand different connotations depending on the context.

If you mean by conservative bible thumping simpleton and liberal dildo waving es jay dubbyas then I would place them in a similar intelligence range.

But if you mean by conservative a billionaire CEO tycoon of a mining conglomerate or by liberal a pioneering academic and theoretician then that could mean something else entirely.

>calling neoliberals libertarians and contemporary american democrats neoliberals
Americans are wierd