. . . muttered the ogre

About a decade ago, someone or other wrote in The Nation advocating that the Left reclaim the word populist. I was tempted to send a letter asking whether, in that case, we individualists could have liberal back.

The Economist, in its current issue, makes a similar plea for liberal, remarking:

“Liberal” is a term of contempt in much of Europe as well – even though, strangely enough, it usually denotes the opposite tendency. Rather than being keen on taxes and public spending, European liberals are often derided (notably in France) for seeking minimal government – in fact, for denying that government has any useful role at all, aside from pruning vital regulation and subverting the norms of decency that impede the poor from being ground down. Thus, in continental Europe, as in the United States, liberalism is also regarded as a perversion, a pathology: there is consistency in that respect, even though the sickness takes such different forms.