| That's one way of looking at it. I personally think political ideologies are just less complete than their self perception. Liberalism, as a political/historical phenomenon just is what it is. It recognised certain things as "rights of man." Some evolved, others got added. Mostly though, what they invented then is what liberalism is today. Much of liberalism was related to politics of the day. Monarchism, clericalism, etc. Freedom of religion, association, speech and such were issues of the day. Feminism's boom years were still hundreds of years away. I can't really think of any (old) liberals who even talked about women's issues. It's not necessarily a question of opposing rights. It's about what rights you recognise or don't. In Scotland, the "right to roam" exists... which allows you to access private property like farms. In the US, "gun rights" exist. You could theoretically have any political rights in your version of liberalism. It just happens to have happened, that liberalism converged on a certain set of rights early on and stuck with that. |