The opposite of libertarian political ideology is not left or liberal, it's authoritarian.

[Uncle Joe]

226. When you cede words you cede power. Here in the U.S. the word "liberal" has been demonized

by the Republicans and their authoritarian corporate media mouthpiece.

The virtuous word "liberal" was ceded by the Democratic Party; running away from intead of defending it, they effectively slid over to the authoritarian side of the quadrant and no one was happier than the Republican Party, because the Republicans were masters at being authoritarian.

As a result U.S. political thought has been trapped in to a binary way of thinking with the only distinction being which party can be more authoritarian.

The Democratic Party must not only defend liberalism but also fight against the right wing's attempt at defining civil/social libertarianism as being equivalent to or dependent on economic libertarianism.

The only way to do that is to take ownership of the word because the dynamic of liberty vs authority is very real.

Libertarian and libertarian are two different words, the former being a political party which espouses econonmic libertarianism and the latter which firmly believes in civil/social liberties.

If the Democratic Party cedes "liberty" as well as "liberal," authoritarian will be the only political quadrant left standing.

I agree with much of your last paragraph with one major caveat.

One of the problems of the post-Reagan/Thatcher era is indeed that the Right have come to equate social and economic libertarianism ('the freer the markets, the freer the people') while the centre and left have come to dissociate social and economic progressivism ('I'm a social liberal but a fiscal conservative'). In fact, in my view, both are false. Social liberalism and libertarianism are not the opposite of economic protection; they are not even independent of it. Some degree of economic protection - one can argue about how much, perhaps- is essential for social liberalism and civil liberties, if we are not to restrict the latter to those above a certain income. The threat of extreme poverty and destitution is just as oppressive as the threat of legal punishment; being left to freeze and starve in the streets is as bad or worse than being put in prison. In the libertarian free-market dream/nightmare, the authoritarianism of the state is replaced by the authoritarianism of the boss, or of the owners of the basic resources. The boss has the unfettered right to fire people; the person with food or healthcare to sell has the right to deny it to those who can't pay as much as they want, while the person who needs it has no other resources. Just as authoritarian as a dictatorship, except that the dictators are the rich/tough/lucky individuals and groups who have gained personal power (in many cases, corporations; in many other, and sometimes the same, cases, real criminals and gang-leaders and their associates), rather than the government.

Every dictator of note throughout history, to my knowledge, and they are countless, have been authoritarian and tens if not hundreds of millions of people have either starved or been executed by these ruthless regimes.