People who still believe in politics in the US tend to attach themselves to "liberal" or "conservative" and use the other one as a pejorative. Neither term has a very well defined meaning, other than for a few select issues like, say, gay marriage.
> Neither term has a very well defined meaning, other than for a few select issues like, say, gay marriage.
Not really. I'm conservative in that I don't think that being radical will ever help your cause (see the French Revolution). I'm liberal in that I think people should be able to do whatever the hell they want with their lives (i.e., classical liberalism. It follows that I don't support excessive government interference, regulation, or social programs, so I wouldn't go on about being liberal, as that's what the U.S. Democrats have used to describe their platform (which isn't liberal in the traditional sense).
For the record, the government doesn't need to regulate marriage whatsoever. Obviously they want to know for tax purposes, but they shouldn't care about the genders of the people involved. Churches can say whatever they want about marriage, I don't really care, and I don't think gay people do either.
Note that in each of your uses of the terms L & C, you had to qualify them with a specific context. In each of those contexts, there's someone else who might use the term differently but sensibly. E.g., "radical conservatism", "contemporary liberalism".
My point being that the terms L & C are not by themselves sufficient to communicate intelligently, so when you hear them used without supporting context, the speaker is often not working from a solid logical basis.
Because the progressives won with FDR. Both parties are socialist now. Both are in favor of expanding the reach of the state in the market. We gave away the cake long ago and argue over the crumbs.
