Source:The American Mind– political scientist and historian Professor Walter Russell Mead, about American liberalism.

“American Mind host Charles R. Kesler interviews Professor Walter Russell Mead of Bard College about the history of American liberalism. This is the first interview in a four-part series.”

From The American Mind

I like how Walter Mead put it about liberalism that there have been different stages of liberalism, but I would put it differently. And that the Liberals that Mead was talking before America and the Federal Republic was put together with its federal system and the Liberals are of the eighteenth century were the real Liberals in America.

Mead used the term real liberalism, I’ve used that myself as well, but I tend to use the term real liberals instead. I don’t buy the notion that if you call yourself a Liberal, Conservative or whatever, than that is what you are. That if you want to be part of those clubs, there are certain values you have to believe in and practice.

I think Walter Mead would agree with this as well, that people who are called Liberals in Europe, are called Conservatives (meaning Classical and Constitutional Conservatives) in America. Liberals in Europe care considered Center-Right, not Center-Left or left-wing, as they tend to be viewed in America. And that’s the liberalism I believe in as a Liberal myself.

I’m not some left-wing hippie that believes America is the real evil empire, who is looking to tear down the American form of government and society and replace it with some type of socialist state. Which is how so-called Liberals are viewed today, because that’s how the so-called mainstream media views Liberals and liberalism. As well leftists who would be viewed as Socialists. or Social Democrats, Communists even, everywhere else in the developed world, but who call themselves Liberals in America.