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Vladimir_M comments on Is That Your True Rejection? by Eliezer Yudkowsky @ Cato Unbound - Less Wrong
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Ok, I better understand your objection now. I'm not sure that I see, however, why this objection wouldn't apply equally well to Eliezer and Michael Shermer (or anyone else) using the term "libertarian" to describe their views. (I take "libertarian" to mean "in favor of more liberty," more or less)
I have no idea what kind of libertarian Shermer is, but I know for sure that there are some kinds of libertarians who would take issue with the sort of libertarianism from Eliezer's self-description. Promoting the "wrong" kind of libertarianism in front of people who belong to either kind is not at all unlikely to lead to bitter and mind-killing ideological disputes.
The important difference however is that Eliezer's article presents his views in a reasonably non-confrontational way, whereas the article you linked is straight-out ideological warfare. The latter is much more likely to induce mind-killing.
I sense that I again did a poor job conveying something here, so let me try again. I am not arguing whether or not self-described libertarians of differing stripes would deny each other the libertarian label if they could -- I'm well aware how bitter the disagreements between beltway "cosmotarians" and Mises types get.
Rather, what I am saying is that I think anyone of any political leaning has a valid objection to self-described libertarians using that moniker, because the label itself is an applause light (it's not really functioning as one in the current US political context, but that is because it is already serving as a tribal marker).
It's somewhat similar to the annoying tendency in the US to refer to politically active people with puritanical sexual mores as "values voters", as if it were not the case that everyone believes their vote is an expression of their values.
I see what you mean. People don't care much about etymology when it comes to ideological labels. Once a word becomes a standard designation for a party, ideology, or movement, few people ever stop to think where that name came from or what meanings it has otherwise. (Though of course there are bitter disputes if multiple groups lay claim to the same label as their primary identification.)
Also, ideological labels that are great applause lights for (practically) everyone lose this characterisic when they're used as designatons for concrete political/ideological groups. (A mention of the Democratic Party, for example, is hardly an applause light for anyone except its most passionate partisans, even though the general meaning of this adjective is possibly the greatest universal applause ligth of all nowadays.)
Do you think this applies even more so to people using "liberal" as their moniker?
My understanding is that application of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" to politics dates to revolutionary France and has more to do with attitudes regarding the pace of social change.