I always thought that being "liberal" was a good thing. If you get a "liberal" serving of ice cream, you'll get three scoops, not just one. If the teacher is a "liberal"grader, you'll get an A. Liberal is expansive, generous, inclusive, freely sharing its toys. Conservative is restrictive, stingy, exclusive, unwilling to share because there isn't enough to go around.
But when I was teaching in Ohio, I found students using "liberal" as a slur. A "liberal" serving of ice cream meant that you give away all of it, leaving none for yourself. "He's a liberal grader" means "He gives everybody As even if they deserve Fs."
The Progressive Liberal, Daniel Harnsberger, is a wrestling villain from Richmond, Virginia. He enters wearing a Hillary Clinton t-shirt and yells "Impeach Trump!", to the boos and jeers of the audience. Strangely, Harnsberger actually is a liberal in real life; he imagines that he's the only Democrat in professional wrestling.
Back in frontier days, everybody has to help each other. Being stingy meant starving to death. So "liberal" was a valued character trait, and it gave its name to two towns in the U.S. Oddly, they are both in red states.
Liberal, Kansas, founded in 1872, was named after S, S, Roger's habit of giving water freely to travelers, a "liberal" generosity. Today there are 20,000 people. Sights include an aircraft museum and Dorothy Gale's house from
The Wizard of Oz.
Liberal is very conservative, by the way. It was dry until 1996. It has voted Republican in all presidential races since World War II, and it has Republican senators and representatives.
Liberal High School's team is the Redskins, with war paint and a tomahawk. Not very liberal of them.
Yes, I checked. No gay student group.
Seward County Community College is also in Liberal, Kansas. Its team is called the Saints. It has 20 clubs, including Campus Messengers for Christ and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, but no gay student group, naturally.
Liberal, Missouri was founded by George Walser in 1880 as a haven for atheists and freethinkers, as a town "without a priest, preacher, church, saloon, Jesus, God, hell, or devil."
Instead of church, they had "Sunday Morning Instruction School," where kids learned science, and evening lectures on philosophy in the "Mental Liberty Hall." There was also a Free Thought University.
Today there are 750 people in town. There are Bible, Christian, Baptist, and United Methodist Churches, and a high school, but the nearest restaurant is 10 miles away, in Mulberry. The aggressively conservative townsfolk, who vote Republican as a matter of God and country, are embarrassed by the name. Wouldn't you be, if you lived in Homophobia, California?
The high school (Go Bulldogs!) has about 100 students (31 in the senior class). Surprisingly, they offer baseball, basketball, volleyball, track, and wrestling. No gay groups, of course.
I couldn't find any beefcake photos, but I did find this photo of a Liberal Bulldog cross-country player being cruised by Ronald McDonald.
