Ian Dunt

So for instance, if you have a right-wing view – and there are right-wing liberals, right?

You can think, well, what is the freedom of the individual?

Freedom of the individual is that I don't get taxed, right?

The government doesn't get to take my money.

And a left-wing view on that is, well, actually we do have to interfere in individuals' property rights because that's how, for instance, we create good education, good health outcomes.

And that means that people have the capacity to become autonomous thinking adults and that expands human freedom and individual freedom.

If people are dying of preventable diseases for lack of health care, then that seems like a really pretty draconian restriction on their personal freedom.

That's the left-wing view of liberalism.

Those schools are just as old as each other.

You can see both of them in Adam Smith, in John Locke.

They both go back about 400 years.

Neither one of them is more legitimate than the other.

And so what you see internationally is that countries just embrace different values.

aspects of that idea of liberalism.

So if you're in the US, classically, if you say I'm a liberal, they'll think that you're very left wing.

If you're in France, you say I'm a liberal, they'll think you're very, very right wing, it just means you're sort of Anglo Saxon economic model.

In Australia, there's the shadowing by virtue of the party.

And in the UK, it exists in this mercurial zone, where it's used much more broadly, and I think more accurately.

But nevertheless, I mean, I read like two summers ago, I read two books on trans issues, one by very pro trans writer, and one by very anti trans writer.

And both of them said that liberals were the enemy and the problem.