Template talk:Liberalism US

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This is the talk page for the {{Liberalism US}} sidebar and {{Liberalism US footer}} templates. Changes to one template should be reflected in the other as well. If your message only relates to one of the templates, please specify sidebar or footer.

Henry Clay

Where is the evidence that Clay was liberal, or conservative, for that matter? I find it hard to see evidence of him as ideological. He strikes me as a man whose primary goal was to "get things done" to use the old cliche, and he did not address major concerns of either ideology at the time. 108.18.179.237 (talk) 01:13, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

You are correct that Clay does not belong here. He was part of the conservative whig party Island Pelican (talk) 05:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 January 2022

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I am submitting an edit request on this page because there were two individuals with the last name "Murray". Their first names are not mentioned and to avoid confusion, may I please have editing access to add their first names for complete transparency. XFacorsuperfan15 (talk) 21:59, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. I see only one "Murray" in this template. Please be more clear about the change that you would like to see. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:31, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Rename template to "Classical liberalism (US)"?

Seems sensible. Biohistorian15 (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Large scale overhaul

Hi everyone,

I've been a longtime editor over at the sister template for US Conservatism, and so I thought I would share some of the great work we've done over there with my edits on this template. I've done the following:

- The Intellectuals list here was bloated and full of figures who objectively are not intellectuals: Coretta Scott King, Al Sharpton, Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, etc. I have moved figures who are not intellectuals to two new and better categories, "Activists" and "Commentators."

- I have removed several figures from the politicians list who are little-known and not historically relevant, because as-is the pols list was insanely bloated.

- I have created a commentators section from scratch.

- I have added important figures who were missing to the relevant categories.

- I have largely removed "classical liberals" who are better accounted for on the US Libertarianism template. For better or worse, in the United States, "liberalism" signifies a left of center tradition that includes a large swath of social democrats and is by and large hostile to libertarianism or "classical liberalism." While classical liberals may insist on saying that they are the "true liberals," the fact of the matter is that their insistence is at odds with the standard usage of that term in the context of American politics. Some figures who would fit in both categories are kept if they antedate the divide (such as Thomas Jefferson), but including Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, or other such figures in a list dominated by people like John Rawls, FDR, Nancy Pelosi, and so forth... well, the absurdity should speak for itself. In brief, the template should strive to communicate to the reader the main lines of the tradition of American liberalism. "Classical liberals," for the better part of a century, have played little role in that tradition, and are better accounted for in the libertarianism and conservatism templates.

Cheers, and I look forward to seeing how this template gets improved going forward! I would suggest future editors pay especial attention to enlarging the thinktanks, media, and literature lists. I won't be closely monitoring the page, as I'm busy on tasks related to my own passion of conservatism, but I wish you all the best. GreenLoeb (talk) 05:59, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Damn, scratch that, I just noticed there's a separate modern liberalism in the US template that looks near identical. I'm leaving my edits, but feel free to manually revert.

One problem with @Biohistorian15's suggestion that this be changed to a "Classical liberalism in the US" template is that, even before my edits, the list was already dominated by modern/progressive liberals, not classical liberals (I mean, no one in their right mind would call Al Sharpton a classical liberal). The Modern liberalism template is in general in better shape than this one, though it needs edits too. It frankly seems like a mistake and a confusing duplication that both templates were allowed to exist concurrently. I would be hypothetically in favor of converting this solely to a "Classical liberalism in the US" template, but there are two things worth noting with that:

1. It would require a complete bottom-up overhaul of the presently existing template, which seemingly was created to reflect modern liberalism, given its inclusion of mostly progressive liberal figures.
2. It would need to have its appearance modified, as currently it resembles the "Modern liberalism in the US" template far too closely.
3. We would need to make sure that even having a "Classical liberalism" template would make sense in the first place, because frankly I think any figure included therein would likewise be included in the Libertarianism template, and we don't want to just reproduce the problem of having two templates that form a Venn diagram which is merely a complete and single circle. In any case, in the US, classical liberalism and libertarianism are effectively synonymous.

GreenLoeb (talk) 06:11, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Excellent points. There was a similar problem with Template:Libertarianism US, which included many left-libertarian anarchists. I think that @Biohistorian15 cleaned it up though.

I propose requesting deletion of this template. Any left-liberal elements should be incorporated into Template:Modern liberalism US while any right-liberal elements be added to Template:Libertarianism US. Those are two widely different ideologies and we need to keep them separate. Trakking (talk) 09:49, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Seems like the best solution for now. Biohistorian15 (talk) 10:07, 3 August 2024 (UTC)