What I've learned from vgchartz

[Kantor]

Mr Khan said:

Kantor said:
The word "fan" is fine, it's just a description. "Fanboy" is an insult.

Just like "liberal/conservative" are fine, but "libtard/conservatard" are not.

And I don't think anyone honestly knows what the word liberal means anymore because it's changed so much over the last couple of centuries. I suppose I'm a Peelite liberal but most American liberals don't know who Robert Peel is, and if they did they would disagree with him on everything.

Because liberal and conservative are defined by the era in which they lived. Liberals fight to advance and conservatives to retain, but advance towards what and retain what are the questions. Few enough conservatives in countries are advocates of absolute monarchies anymore, for instance, while liberals fought for free trade and industrialization when those were the radical new things.

Well I can see that definition of conservative being sensible, but not that definition of liberal. Liberal can only possibly mean desiring freedom. Gun control is certainly not a liberal position. And American conservatives certainly don't just want to maintain the status quo.

Indeed, it's difficult to think of a word that would describe each side, since neither side actually has any consistent ideology tying them together. I suppose Democrats could be contentists, meaning they want to maximise contentment, but Republicans... nothing. The same people who want a free market want the state to be able to police morality in a context where nobody is harmed.