> I've tried googling but can't find anything related to a right-left-liberal distinction.
America is the only country in which "liberal" is thought have any relationship to "left." In Australia, the right-wing party is called the Liberal Party.
"Liberals" are free market advocates who support change through competition and a hands off approach by government. "Conservatives" prefer the government support of firm moral values and established traditional institutions.
Somehow the US thinks that "liberal" means having a concerned look on your face, and that it's somehow related to communism, which takes the exact opposite position on the liberal's only defining belief. Communism shares so much more with conservatism, starting with an absolute belief in the importance of morality and institutions. Communism's major difference from conservatism is that it believes that the traditional institutions were created and controlled by a small group of inbred people for a small group of inbred people (which is undeniable, but also when conservatives get off the bus.)
> America is the only country in which "liberal" is thought have any relationship to "left."
That's simply not true. Because "liberal" is a word that means many different things in many different countries, it's a famously malleable term.
For example, Wikipedia says (emphasis mine):
> The definition of liberal party is highly debatable... This is a broad political current, including left-wing, centrist and right-wing elements. All liberal parties emphasise individual rights, but they differ in their opinion on an active role for the state. This list includes parties of different character, ranging from classical liberalism to social liberalism, conservative liberalism to national liberalism... [1]
Indeed, a quick search for the term "left" on that page shows that "liberal" is used to describe leftist parties in the Bahamas, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Croatia, and North Macedonia at least. It's not just an American thing.
America is the only country in which "liberal" is thought have any relationship to "left." In Australia, the right-wing party is called the Liberal Party.
"Liberals" are free market advocates who support change through competition and a hands off approach by government. "Conservatives" prefer the government support of firm moral values and established traditional institutions.
Somehow the US thinks that "liberal" means having a concerned look on your face, and that it's somehow related to communism, which takes the exact opposite position on the liberal's only defining belief. Communism shares so much more with conservatism, starting with an absolute belief in the importance of morality and institutions. Communism's major difference from conservatism is that it believes that the traditional institutions were created and controlled by a small group of inbred people for a small group of inbred people (which is undeniable, but also when conservatives get off the bus.)