The term "sublation" refers to the process of turning a word into its opposite.

The term "Republican" and "liberal" used to be synonyms. Both ideas trace back to the Roman Republic. So the terms had a common meaning based on ancient ideas.

The US Founders had a liberal arts education. They applied the liberal arts to the question of liberty. The founders developed a Constitutionally limited government with a relatively free people.

The US Founders were liberals. Abraham Lincoln was a liberal Republican as well.

Back in Europe one finds numerous liberals including Bastiat, Hayek and Von Mises.

The sublation of the term "liberal" is tricky.

In England, people used the term "liberal" to describe the American experiment rather than "Republican." They did this because the term "Republican" hinted at removing the king ... Republicanism was considered treason.

You may recall that the people who leveled their muskets at the US Founders were called Tories.

The Tories supported King George III.

King George III survived the revolution. In the 1830s the people in England were demanding election reform. The Tories were depending on election districts called "rotten borroughs" for their majority in Parliament. Some of the rotten districts had only a dozen or so voters.

At the time, the king appointed the Prime Minister.

The people of England demanded redistricting. Parliament demanded the right to select the Prime Minister.

King William and the Tories realized that they were facing an existential threat.

So King William IV, the youngest son of King George III, appointed Sir Robert Peele as Prime Minister and set Peele to creating a new ruling coalition.

Sir Robert Peele drew upon the populist rhetoric that Napoleon used to restore the crown in France.

Peele then rebranded the Tory Party as the "Conservative Party." This created the ideology that we call "conservatism."

Members of the Conservative Party still call themselves Tories.

Conervatives use free market rhetoric and appeals to constitiional order to support a class society.

The Conservative tradition is amazing. The words that fly from the lips of Sean Hannity are almost the same as Sir Robert Peele.

The Tories (aka Conservatives) saw Republicanism and Liberalism as the greatest threat to the crown.

Conservatives set in on a 200 year tradition of projecting every negative image possible onto the term "liberal."

The sublation of "liberal" was not a simple matter of Marxists capturing a term. Conservatives worked with Marxists in the project of destroying the term "liberal."

Anyway, the Conservative hatred of the term "liberal" traces to the decision of the US founders to rebel against King George III.

It is the crazyest thing ever.

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