What's the difference between a "liberal" and a "leftist," if there is one...

[patrice]

25. That's good. But what are the differentiating traits? I suggest they have

something to do with inclusion:

Since "Left" puts itself on somekind of POLITICAL continuum with Right, there are things that Left only indirectly shares with Right, if only as the negation of something that is Right.

Liberals, oth, have an essential trait that has something to do with freedom, libertas, which is a human trait, not a political one and which at minimum implies that free people who have freely come to self-identify as Right or Conservative have a right to do so, as long as they are authentically free, since freedom is an essence of Liberality.

Thus, Liberals contain "the seed of their own destruction" since their requirement that they must include in order to be Liberal makes them also vulnerable to including Leftists, Rightists, Libertarians, Conservatives, and all others who might not actually be free enough to be inclusive themselves and, in the case of Conservatives especially, there is a trait for EXCLUSION.

To me Liberals are much more about freedom than any of the others, so yes, all Liberals are Leftists, but not all Leftists are Liberals.