Our perceptions of liberalism

[Snowguy716]

A liberal in Europe would by no means be right-leaning in the American sense. Right wingers in America approve of massive budget deficits, a bloated military budget, and high taxes to pay for it while supporting church-values put into law and forced upon everyone.

That is about as opposite as you can get from a classical liberal. The Democrats are much closer to a classical liberal in this day and age than the current Republicans.

[Spartan]

A true conservative and a true republican would advocate the same thing. Nobody would try to argue that the bunch that is in there now represents those values.