what is a liberal?

[historian]

Whenever a repuke begins to froth at the mouth and accuse liberals of everything i ask them to define liberal. Most of them choke on the answer or come up with crap such as "they take away from the rich to give to the poor and they want to take away our guns."
How on earth is it possible to have a sensible conversation with a repuke? It isn't because their ignorance is only superseded by their insecurity and desperate attempt to hang on to the old (like Linus's blanket).

[Posteritatis]

1. Most of them define it as "anything I don't like"

I'm not quite confident that I can say I'm not sometimes guilty of the same thing in the other direction, though. I dunno; political ideologies are slippery things.

[nxylas]

4. Exactly. I'd be interested to hear people's definition of a conservative here

As a test to see whether we're guilty of the same thing.

[muntrv]

2. A patriot.

[rosesaylavee]

3. If you are a conservative or a neocon,

a liberal is someone to hate. Someone who represents Other. Someone who belongs to a group that held onto Congress for decades prior to 1996 and Newt Gingrich's Contract "on" America.