Cato Institute: Robert A. Levy: 'The Differences Among Liberals, Conservatives and Libertarians'

Source:The Cato Institute- Robert A. Levy.

"Libertarians are neither conservative nor liberal. Cato Institute chairman Robert A. Levy explained the differences at Cato University on July 31, 2012." 

From The Cato Institute

My response to Robert Levy is essentially this: it depends on what you mean by Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian. 

According to Wikipedia: "Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.[1][2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, private property and a market economy." 

According to Wikipedia: "Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional social institutions and practices.[1][2] The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the status quo of the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as organized religion, parliamentary government, and property rights.[3] Conservatives tend to favor institutions and practices that guarantee stability and evolved gradually.[2] Adherents of conservatism often oppose progressivism and seek a return to traditional values." 

According to Wikipedia: "Libertarianism (from French: libertaire, "libertarian"; from Latin: libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value.[1] Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's violation of individual liberties; emphasizing free association, freedom of choice, individualism and voluntary association.[2] Libertarians often share a skepticism of authority and state power, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems." 

From Wikipedia 

Now, according to Robert Levy, what he calls liberal, is what the rest of the developed world calls social democrat or socialist: someone whose essentially always trying to advance the size of the national state to benefit the populist as a whole, even if that means limiting or subtracting individual freedom and choice. 

And also according to Robert Levy, what he calls conservative, is what the rest of the world would call a religious conservative or religious democrat, in some places like Turkey, perhaps a theocrat: someone who believes in a real amount of economic freedom and even property rights, as long as what people are doing with that freedom is inline with the religious democrats idea of personal morality. But the religious democrat is not big on personal freedom and autonomy and believes the state should be used to sanction people who make even personal choices that violates the religious democrat's idea of personal morality. Even if no one is actually hurt by the personal choices that individuals make. 

My idea of what it means to be a Liberal (which I'm proud to be) is inline with Wikipedia's. The reason why we have terms like Liberal and Socialist, is those two political factions are actually different from each other ideologically. They might share the same goals and values, but differ greatly on the role of government in society. 

I also share Wikipedia's notion of what it means to be a Conservative. The only thing that I would add to it is that Conservatives believes in conserving. And when you are talking about government and politics, that means conserving the U.S. Constitution and the in individual rights that come with it, as well as our form of limited government. Not blowing up the U.S. Constitution to either meet short-term political objectives, or to impose some religious philosophy on the rest of the country.