Arthur,

Interesting piece. I agree that liberal is not the opposite of conservative, but I am not sure that I can get on board with your reasoning. Utilizing dated, static, traditional definitions for these terms ignores the larger social and historical context from which they come. For example, I agree that conservatism is about protecting the status quo and not about religion or free markets. The problem with defining it as merely protecting the status quo is that the status quo is not static. The modern American conservative movement is built on the idea of protecting the status quo as it existed in pre-WWII America. As William F. Buckley Jr. once wrote, “A conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling stop!” In this context we see that American conservatism is not actually about maintaining our current, 2017 status quo, but instead a regressive movement seeking to relive the good ol’ days where white men enjoyed a firm grip on power and were not forced to compete for jobs, power, or influence with women, minorities, and foreigners. Likewise, liberalism today likely better fits under the dictionary definition of progressivism, but is likely best described as humanistic pluralism. At bottom, it really does not matter what we call these movements. What is far more important is recognizing that these are all artificial constructs that do not reflect the reality on the ground. Instead these labels are used as weapons to divide us. To put us on opposite sides of a great number of political issues even if we only really disagree on a single point. I believe that the sooner we recognize this and reject these false labels, the sooner we will be able to bring our country back together again.