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Notes -
The most common (and therefore correct, at least in American English) meaning of "liberal" in the US context is as a slur used by both the right and the left against the centre-left. Occasionally this extends to using "liberalism" to mean "whatever the US centre-left does". This is also slur-adjacent - the American centre-left generally call their own ideology "Progressivism" because their political tradition (with some degree of continuity in institutions, personnel and practice) goes back to the early 20th century capital-P Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt and Bob La Follette. There is a similar but different use of "liberal" and "liberalism" in British English (in this case not a slur - it is what we call ourselves) to describe the political tradition which runs through the British Liberal Party (1859-1988) and its predecessors and successors and their international imitators - there is a similar degree of continuity in institutions, personnel and practice that begins with John Locke advising William III and runs through to Earl Russel negotiating the Whig-Peelite merger and on to Nick Clegg and Justin Trudeau doing the things they do.
But @OracleOutlook, and the Economist (which he cites supporting it) and Marc Barnes (which he cites opposing it) are using "liberalism" in an even broader sense (which, for the avoidance of doubt, is also correct in both British and American English) - to refer to a whole panoply of mutually sympathetic political traditions based on ethical individualism, limited government, respect for a private sphere than includes religious belief, etc. All of British liberalism, American "liberalism"/Progressivism, Reagan/Thatcher conservatism, technocratic-elitist "One Nation"/"Rockefeller Republican" conservatism, and Cato Institute-style libertarianism* can trace their political traditions back to John Locke, and occasionally do so with pride. This is the background that mainstream political actors in the Anglosphere can not notice in the same way that fish don't notice that water is wet. (Many leftists, including the British Labour party, are swimming in the same water). Increasingly, it is the water that everyone is swimming in because the British won the 19th century and the Americans won the 20th.
But big-tent liberalism is not actually universal, even if it is foundational to Universal Culture. All the sub-varieties of liberalism would look at online sports betting and see "This is probably a vice, but that is a comment about private morality, not political morality. It may be so harmful that we need to ban it, but it should be legal by default because you only harm yourself." Most would cite to John Stuart Mill for justification. But a fascist, a communist, a Catholic integralist, a Christian fundamentalist, a Muslim fundamentalist, a Confucian, or a Lee Kwan Yew style technocratic-elitist would all ban it without a second thought, with "It's a vice." being sufficient justification.
* The brand of libertarianism being pushed by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and such-like is arguably not part of big-tent liberalism for reasons that this post is too short to discuss in detail.
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