Isn't "liberal" often used as an insult in the US by the likes of Ann Coulter and other far-right xenophobic conservatives?

I think the confusion is that the term is used for all sorts of things like economic liberals (neo-liberal de-regulators), social liberals (into multi-culturalism and identity politics) and Ayn Randian sea-steaders and techno-utopians, which is where classical liberals often seem to end up on a diet of extreme capitalism and sociopathy?

In Europe, left libertarianism is very much a thing, as identity politics and re-distributive economic socialism often find common ground in empathy for those who are disadvantaged in different ways. The right to exploit others does not trump the right to not be exploited, unless I am badly mis-remembering John Stuart Mill?

Recent trend is to try and brand certain types of conservatism as "classical liberalism".

Don't really know why, but it's what they seem to want to do.

The term was invented by anarcho-communists and co-opted by the right:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology

The question I was replying to was specifically about the US. From the same Wikipedia article:

> The term libertarianism was first used in the U.S. as a synonym for classic liberalism in May 1955 by writer Dean Russell, a colleague of Leonard Read and a classic liberal himself.

What precedes that paragraph is mainly about the French word "libertaire" which is not the French translation for "libertarian" but does shares a root with it (liberty).

Interestingly, the French Wikipedia article[0] claims that the word "libertarian" was coined specifically to distinguish classical liberals from modern liberals in the US.

In the US at least, libertarians very rarely identify with the "left" label.

[0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianisme

You stated that left-libertarianism was an oxymoron, which is untrue and historically inaccurate, even within the US context. The sources in the the Wikipedia etymology section point this out if you need further reference:

Colin Ward (2004), Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 62.

"For a century, anarchists have used the word 'libertarian' as a synonym for 'anarchist', both as a noun and an adjective. The celebrated anarchist journal Le Libertaire was founded in 1896. However, much more recently the word has been appropriated by various American free-market philosophers."

No one’s denying that it’s modern connotations hem toward the right-wing cooption that that took place in the 1950s. Their project was to dress up reactionary ideology as radicalism and was undeniably successful.

Another great late 19th century American libertarianism was Benjamin Tucker who advocated for a form of anarchist socialism called mutualism in his periodical "Liberty". In the past decade there has been a bit of a revival of many left-libertarain anarchist schools of thought in America.

The "oxymoron" bit was my own opinion, I just can't make sense of the term. I understand that some people use it. I lost you at the last sentence though, it's sounds a bit too much like a conspiracy theory. I'll stick with the more simple explanation given in the French Wikipedia article.

I imagine the downvotes are out of disbelief, but this is not really disputed (it's worth clicking the link).

And also avoid things like entries in the Oxford English Dictionary to prevent becoming similarly enraged.

Perhaps for the better, as it's hardly a subject that does any good when driven by emotional impulses.