[Brutha]

I wasn't defending liberalism by any means. What I would really like is a party which stood for both economic liberty as well as social liberty. With the conservatives, you generally get the economic side (the current US administration not withstanding) and with the liberals, you get the social side.

All those labels get confusing.
Milton Friedman self labeled himself as liberal.

I like to see when people keep it real and not party affiliated.

In addition conservative isn't a party label but a label for certain political ideas.

You can have people in the Republican party how aren't necessarly conservative and you can have conversative thing tanks that are actors on their own and don't act only through a given party.

If you throw around those labels to much it's gets confusing. In a election you can vote either Democrat or Republican not liberal or conservative.

Then you have intellectuals that produce ideas. Milton Friedman is one of them.

A lot of the time certain ideas can also be shared by both parties.

You don't have that clear "government" line. Where you have the evil government on one side and the people on the other. In democracys you have a lot of different actors.
Some act based on some political idea. Some act based on their own self interests.

Fiscal liberalism lead to things like the Washington consensus. Especially people like Milten Friedman are supporters of the Washington consensus.
You have a lot of people with money who profit from Washington consensus style politics.
Naomi Klein argues that people used shock ideas to push those policies where those policys are unpopular.

Not exactly Banking but Naomi on Oil: Naomi Klein Outfoxes Fox