When Did 'Liberal' Become a Dirty Word?

Am I missing something? At some point in this life of 36 years did I somehow manage to miss the moment that believing in equality among people who are biologically identical save for the colour of their skin, their sex organs and their sexual preferences became somehow evil in comparison to the mindless bigotry that the right (sometimes brazenly) espouses? What happened? At what point did 'liberal' become a dirty word? 

In the US, the so-called Tea Party held their first big conference in the US, and it seems like this damage to the perfectly good idea of being liberal was done across the pond first by the increasingly histrionic paranoid racist right-wing fucknuts who don't believe the Republicans go far enough. Among the wonders bounded around by these scary people (who each paid over $500 a ticket, to keep a certain class of people out, let's not forget) during this conference were truly terrifying; apparently Obama only won the election because the US no longer has a civics literacy test - a test that was deemed illegal in 1965 because in the Southern States blacks were not allowed to attend the same schools as good ole white children, and then had to pass a literacy test in order to be able to vote, thus disallowing them the ability to vote. In other words, because they allow blacks to vote, we now have Obama. Doesn't matter that Obama's support came from most of the US on the grounds of policy and from a hell of a lot of white people, to this bunch of foaming racists it's all just a part of an evil liberal conspiracy to destroy the purity of the United States ("if 30% of the population were Hispanic, we wouldn't be America any more"). 

Another corking soundbite from the convention was this; "the Blues beat the Reds and they came back Green...(environmentalism is) the greatest threat to America now and in the future". Right. So people not wanting to toast the planet and destroy the ecology that allows us to survive here is somehow just communism under another guise? Do these people ever listen to the words that spit forth from their snarling mouths? Even the most basic logic and facts would overcome that argument. Oh but wait. Here comes a prick at the convention wearing a t-shirt that says "Annoy a liberal - use facts and logic" - these cunts wouldn't know what facts and logic where if they broke into their house with the words "Facts" and "Logic" painted on their bodies in luminous paint and proceeded to alternately punch the aforementioned cunt, repeating the words "Facts" and "Logic" with each blow. Facts, logic and the Far Right are not easy bedfellows. Most of the people I know who are left or liberal or both have reached their positions from a combination of respect for the actual facts and the understanding of logic. I'd love to see one of these teabaggers try to use 'Facts and logic' to defend their brainless brand of racism against the usual array of weaponry (ie, facts and logic) that the average liberal can bring to bear.

It's scary to watch Fox News clips with people like the bizarre madman Glenn Beck and the shouty, bag-faced cuntiferousness that is Bill O'Reilly, and these loud-mouthed retards have a mainstream media platform from which to denounce the evils of liberalism, pausing only long enough for the cameraman to wipe the flecks of spittle from the camera lens. I am convinced that Glenn Beck in particular spends most of his life in a special rubber-walled room, heavily sedated until he is due to go on air, at which point the production team pump him up with a cocktail of amphetamines and crack to the point where his already considerable schizo paranoia achieves a kind of paranoid singularity which then begins to suck in the rest of what is left of his mind, leaving nothing but a faintly glowing event horizon of screams, wuffles and crying about how much he loves his country. The fact that this concentrated beam of fact-free insanity is directed into millions of US homes every week is just frightening and not a little sick. How is it that in the 21st century such fabricated, jingoistic bullshit is actually lapped up by people? Is it because of a lack of good political education? I think everyone should have to study sociology before they leave school - the Far Right loves the ignorance of the masses, because it is a void into which they can ejaculate their propoganda, distortions and prejudices.

It makes me angry that 'liberal' is used as an insult. The very definition of the word from the Free Dictionary is as follows;

a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.

Only in the insanity of the Far Right does this word become an insult.