Liberalism

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Liberalism

The philosophy that one ought to be able to do what one would like provided it does not hurt another person. It was conceived in the 19th century primarily as an economic and social philosophy espousing religious liberty, the free market, and capitalism. In the 20th century, it became associated with the left, especially in the United States, due to a concern for social justice. As a result, a liberal tends to favor regulation of private enterprise. However, adherents to what is sometimes called "19th-century liberalism" or "European liberalism" are presumably more amenable to the free market.

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Certainly, the fundamental disjuncture of the current economic crisis opens a new space in which liberal thinkers' market scepticism and proposals for state intervention will be more readily listened to.

How Obama won

While there are the more reformist liberal thinkers who will regard all these sentences as extremely substantial (some killers are released after serving less than half the supposedly average 20-year 'life' term), there are others who think the stipulated punishments are only just beginning to fit the crime, and that the minimum jail terms should be much longer.

Time for review of sentencing

One of the great political ironies of the past few decades is that the Christian Right has been much more successful than its political rivals at fulfilling liberal thinkers' hopes for American democracy.

In praise of the values voter: political scientists and liberal reformers once clamored for more ideological fervor in American politics. Now they want to push highly charged moral issues to the sidelines, But what is the purpose of politics if not to address fundamental moral questions?

INTERESTING TIMES...Soho House, Handsworth, home of Matthew Boulton (right), played host to the Lunar Society, a group of liberal thinkers who were opposed to the slave trade.

What's On: A look at city history is free for all; Days Out

Unfortunately, when other liberal thinkers have grappled with the relationship between liberty and other political values, they have sometimes come away from their attempts with a weaker commitment to liberty.

The era of big government never ended: taking stock of the challenges to freedom

Again, we need to examine much more closely what modern liberal thinkers mean by "freedom of religious belief".

The uneasy alliance: liberalism, conservatism and religious belief

Thus the discussions about the role of the state and about communal property, both within Russkii vestnik and between it and Atenei, another mid-19th-century liberal publication, most probably reflected the initial process of differentiation among liberal thinkers. The spread of ideas about the state's hegemonic role in the historical process and the utility of maintaining the communal obshchina order in the countryside reflect the diverse character of early Russian liberalism.

Was there an "early Russian liberalism"? Perspectives from Russian and Anglo-American historiography

Liberal thinkers, in attacking what they see as the intolerance of religious or non-Western beliefs, argue that only a secular worldview, inherited from the Enlightenment is able to provide a means of rational co-existence between cultures today.

Playing the dane: the language of freedom has been harnessed to legitimise the war on terror

In addition, if students had been asked to read the writings of classical liberal thinkers such as John Locke, Adam Smith and John S.

'Liberal' and 'conservative' misunderstood

Donskis (political science and philosophy, Vytautas Magnus U., Lithuania) analyzes his country's emergence from two totalitarian regimes, and responses to the challenging times by three prominent liberal thinkers: Vytautas Kavolis, Alesandras Shtromas, and Tomas Venclova.

Loyalty, dissent, and betrayal; modern Lithuania and East-Cental European moral imagination

Chappell argues that liberal thinkers such as Dewey were in search of a civic faith that would guide the nation.

A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow

If liberal thinkers currently fret about the rebirth of American Imperialism as the world is slowly globalised under the cultural and economic shadow of the Stars and Stripes, maybe those inside the music industry should be equally concerned by the colonisation currently been carried out by the N*E*R*Ds.