Another dictionary definition - :

liberal a. & n. 1.directed to general enlargement of mind, not professional or technical;generous, open-handed, not sparing of; ample, abundant; not rigorous or literal; open-minded, candid, unprejudiced; (pol) favourable to democratic reforms & abolition of prejudice; cf. Liberal Conservative - a member of the Conservative party not ill disposed to reforms...[ME, f. OF f. L liberalis - free man.)

Sounds pretty good to me. "liberal" is a good word for a lot of very good things. I can't think of another word that adequately replaces it those kinds of meanings. To try to turn it into a word of abuse is a kind of linguistic vandalism.

People often talk with regret about the way in which the word "gay" has been appropriated for a new meaning in a way that robbed the language of a word that was had an important role already (and a very handy rhyme). But at least there was a reasonable excuse for this - a group of people under attack who felt they needed a label for themselves that wasn't an insult.

The way that "liberal" has been degraded into an insult doesn't have this excuse. And in fact I think it is something which should be repugnant to anybody with a conservative temperament. Fortunately it hasn't really caught on as an insult too widely outside the confines of the USA.

Moreover, as I said in an earlier post, it appears that where the word is used in this way, there is a spin-off into other contexts, so that it is seen an somehow inconsistent for someone to be both liberal and conservative at the same time. And most unfortunately there are people who describe themselves as "conservative" who seem to take pride in that.

Using capital letters at least reduces the damage a little. I am sure that everybody would find it disturbing if people started to use the term "democrat" and "democratic" in the same kind of way.

My understanding is that most Republicans in the USA would be insulted to be told they were not democratic; and I would hope that most of them would feel equally insulted to be told that they could not be termed "liberal".