> People talk about “liberalism” as if it’s just another word for capitalism, or libertarianism, or vague center-left-Democratic Clintonism. Liberalism is none of these things. Liberalism is a technology for preventing civil war. It was forged in the fires of Hell – the horrors of the endless seventeenth century religious wars. For a hundred years, Europe tore itself apart in some of the most brutal ways imaginable – until finally, from the burning wreckage, we drew forth this amazing piece of alien machinery. A machine that, when tuned just right, let people live together peacefully without doing the “kill people for being Protestant” thing. Popular historical strategies for dealing with differences have included: brutally enforced conformity, brutally efficient genocide, and making sure to keep the alien machine tuned really really carefully.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/21/against-murderism/

it's a terrible shame we seem to be forgetting this as liberalism simply becomes a tribe

the most important methodology of Liberalism is the cultural norm and moral importance of unfettered freedom of speech, expression, and association. The moral and normative importance of free speech cannot be understated. Losing this as a norm has eviscerated the left leaving them as noxious authoritarians sliding down the slope to Mao-ism.