I would say that “liberal” is a substantive position and that therefore liberal positions can be popular or not, but are still liberal. Hence, there is no contradiction between a position being “liberal” and “moderate”, nor “conservative” and “moderate”. In fact, in the birds-eye view, the biggest political conflict since the industrial revolution has been between lassier-faire and socialism, and “liberalism” in its modern (post-FDR) meaning is, indeed, the moderate position between these two extremes, at least as far as economic issues is concerned.

While I’d agree to the last, with certain reservations, you’ve left no room for being a ‘moderate’ as a substantive position in the same way you allow this for ‘liberal’. That is, you seem to be denying the premise that such a beast can even exist. Is this the case? And if so, I’m afraid that a lot ‘liberals’ disagree with you on that one.

To use one of your own examples: the legitimacy of interracial marriage is a liberal position because liberal values support said legitimacy; this was true when such marriage was extremely unpopular and remains true now that it is accepted.

Really? And the opposition to slavery is also a ‘liberal’ position as well? This seem to be yet another instance of thinking that if A implies B, then if B happens, A is lurking around somewhere. Iow, the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Otherwise, the liberalism would not be an attribute of the idea, but of its popular acceptance, which leaves the category “liberal” without substantive content. The category “moderate”, “mainstream”, “extremist”, or “centrist”, by contrast, are without substantive content, because ideas do or do not fall into these categories based on their popular acceptance.

BINGO! You are committing the fallacy of the excluded middle. No, ‘moderate’ is not defined by ‘popular acceptance’, and ‘popular acceptance’ alone. You seem to be under the misapprehension that people consult some internal theory of political ideology before arriving at a position. Accept for the ideologues (there’s a reason we use that word), they tend not to.

Most people get where they’re at because of their rough and ready estimations of ‘what works’. They’re against defanging the FDA, say, not on the basis of any ‘liberal’ philosophizing, but because they believe as a pragmatic fact that what went before was undesirable. They don’t think anyone should be allowed to sell ‘diet pills’ which are capsules of tapeworm heads.

That’s not consulting some sort of ‘liberal’ philosophy, whatever you may think.

How many times can you not get it? In the real world, the entire left half of the political spectrum is not defined as ‘liberal’.

Excuse me, but this seems to be your position. There is a vast class of people who already call themselves ‘moderates’. So what are they in your estimation then? Burnt toast? Are they not allowed to call themselves moderates? Do you deny them the legitimacy of their own labels?

It doesn’t matter about specific policy differences – in fact, trying to talk in terms of those shows what a narrow ideological window you’re seeing the world through.

You’re making very little sense here. In fact, it is just to the extent that they have those differences in specific policy that cause people to label themselves according to some affiliation. They seldom say “I am a conservative, so I oppose gun control.” No, they usually reason that because of certain positions, they must be liberal/moderate/conservative.

Really, outside of a rather small circle, very few people engage in abstract political theorizing.

There are such things as ‘political ideologies’, of which at least three – anarchism, socialism and social democracy – sit well to the left of any meaningful description of an ideology called ‘liberalism’ that anyone [besides you and Republican hacks] would recognise. I and other people are telling you this because it’s a fact, not because we’re deluded. Buy a poli-sci textbook or something, if you don’t trust what wikipedia tells you.

Oddly enough, there was a letter last week in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from a gentleman who averred that, as a liberal, as a patriotic liberal, the oil companies should be nationalized. Oh, I suppose you’ve given yourself some wiggle room with ‘meaningful description’; by using that you can simply claim that those who fall outside your designated ranges aren’t part of this ‘meaningful description’. And to a certain extent, I’d agree(I used to be a Democrat, until the Democratic party left me, with that minority appeasement stuff and desegregation and Women’s Lib.) But I’ve met too many sincere ‘liberals’ who do talk in just that fashion for them simply to be dismissed as not fitting into an accepted category.

“The category “moderate”, “mainstream”, “extremist”, or “centrist”, by contrast, are without substantive content, because ideas do or do not fall into these categories based on their popular acceptance”

I actually think the discussion of the hippies is more interesting than this meta business, but I think that discussion may have already petered out.

It’s a (not “the”) moderate position between these two extremes. It’s fundamentally based on the laissez-faire ideology; it represents an attempt to preserve as much laissez-faireism as possible by compromising with its socia1ist antithesis; it gravitates, it’s biased towards laissez-faireism. Not that anything’s wrong with that, it’s just that it’s an important fact.

America is the one country on Earth where all your dreams can be realized.

It’s all fine as long as unions, healthcare, public transportation, housing, childcare, vacations, pensions, infrastructure are never mentioned.

Then we had 30 years of “identity politics.”—Plus ca change.

I would say that “liberal” is a substantive position and that therefore liberal positions can be popular or not, but are still liberal. Hence, there is no contradiction between a position being “liberal” and “moderate”, nor “conservative” and “moderate”. In fact, in the birds-eye view, the biggest political conflict since the industrial revolution has been between lassier-faire and socialism, and “liberalism” in its modern (post-FDR) meaning is, indeed, the moderate position between these two extremes, at least as far as economic issues is concerned.

To use one of your own examples: the legitimacy of interracial marriage is a liberal position because liberal values support said legitimacy; this was true when such marriage was extremely unpopular and remains true now that it is accepted. Otherwise, the liberalism would not be an attribute of the idea, but of its popular acceptance, which leaves the category “liberal” without substantive content. The category “moderate”, “mainstream”, “extremist”, or “centrist”, by contrast, are without substantive content, because ideas do or do not fall into these categories based on their popular acceptance. At one time, interracial marriage was an extremist position; now, it is mainstream. It was and is a liberal position, however. Only in a theoretical sense is it “moderate”, though, since the third position it would be moderating is not significantly expressed. In other words, one could see simple acceptance of interracial marriage as a midpoint between government a) censuring such and b) incentivizing it. However, no one actually advocates b, so there is nothing to “moderate”.