Liberalism from the very beginning presented itself as the champion of liberty, pluralism, tolerance, and diversity, and the enemy of discrimination, intolerance, and exclusion. This etymological trick—the root libertas is Latin for “freedom”—works perfectly. Encyclopedias, handbooks, and political and historical treatises take it for granted that liberalism and freedom go hand in hand. Even our everyday language reflects this assumption. When someone says that a person takes “a liberal approach” or that a law has been “liberalized,” he is taken to indicate an expansion of freedom—despite the fact that the “liberal” West is increasingly homogeneous, characterized by the groupthink of mass culture, and dominated by a technocratic elite.
But reality does not matter. All actions described in liberal jargon are automatically understood as promoting freedom and overcoming discrimination. No matter how brutal the actions are, no matter how much they violate consciences, hinder free inquiry and free debate, and humiliate people, they are proclaimed to serve the cause of freedom.