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my etymological argument: the root of the term liberal (not in the modern sense)

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zachor_ve_kavod:
Believe it or not, liberalism did not always mean what it does today.  It was once an ideology that upheld the belief that a human being should be free to live his life according to his principles, free from tyranny, free from persecution.  It was this principle that guided the founding fathers of America. 

Sadly, the term liberalism has been hijacked by a bunch of thoughtless ideologues who are guided by the most intolerant of principles.  A liberal who espouses the virtues of islam is not a liberal truly, but a knave.  Even worse, these people claim to be tolerant, overlooking that what they are being most tolerant of is intolerance.

I am very interested in etymology (the origin of words).  I find it interesting to see what the original meaning of a word is, because it gives me a deeper understanding of the concept.  This evening, after the sun had set, I was thinking about the origin of the term liberal.  Immediately, I considered that "liberal" is similar to the word "liberate" and that the term has to do with freedom.  When I looked it up in the online etymology dictionary, that is the origin of the term.  Liberalism, at one time, meant freedom.

However, when I though about this some more, it occurred to me that the root of the word liberalism, which is "liber", is the Latin word for book.  So I wondered, what could the word "book" have to do with the word "freedom", and do they perhaps both relate to the word "liberalism"?  I believe that they do.

My logic is that since a book contains information, and information is knowledge, then knowledge is an essential aspect to freedom.  Think about this for a moment.  How can a person be truly free if he is ignorant?  Let me make this less abstract.  How can an American truly be a free citizen, if he is ignorant of his rights and responsibilities?  I don't think he can.

So I conclude that knowledge is essential to freedom and that it is both freedom and knowledge that are essential to liberalism, (at least as liberalism once was).

Ulli:
liber=free and liber=book are really the same words. Plus liber can be used also as noun. It has then the meaning "freeman"

liber=book meant originally bast that lies under the bark of the trees. The ancient Romans used it for writing. So it became later the word for book.

Of course I agree, that liberalism in the original meaning is a great thing. Imo western civilisation had it's greatest time under the rule of real liberalism in the 18th and 19th century specially in the USA, the Netherlands and Great Britain.

I am a big fan of original liberalism in the spirit of Adam Smith.

 :)

Dr. Dan:
That's why i consider myself to be a liberal in the non-modern sense...

What might be good for one isn't necessarily good for everyone.  And what might have been right for us yesterday doesn't mean it will be right for us today.  HOWEVER, what might have been right for us yesterday, might be right for us tomorrow (that's my conservative side).

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