Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liberal parties

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was - kept

Liberal parties

At the very least, this needs a rename. It says that the LDP is Japan is not a Liberal party, when its very name is LIBERAL Democratic Party. It's very POV in which parties it chooses to include and exclude. Perhaps a better title would be Parties subscribing to Liberalism Theory. Incidentally, the TALK page seems to think that places outside the US hold the same definition of libertarian as the US does if they are in North America... 132.205.15.42 00:39, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Are you saying that Zhirinovsky's "Liberal Democratic Party" in Russia should be considered "liberal" because of its name, even though it is a right-wing nationalist party that is not "liberal" in any sense? This is the same (bad) logic that has some people arguing that the Nazis should be considered "socialist" because the official name of there party was the German equivalent of "National Socialist". -- Jmabel 01:33, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Well, the Nazi party started out with socialist roots, hence its name. By the very virtue of its name, it is a Socialism Party, even if it didn't have much socialism left in it. (What about the Nazi public works programs? The non-slave programs looks like elements of socialism) It should appear on a list of Socialism Parties, but not on a list of parties subscribing to socialism theory. The capitalization of Liberal parties matters alot, since parties have that name.132.205.15.42 00:29, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If public works are socialist, then Bismarck was a socialist, as was FDR, as was Julius Cæsar. -- Jmabel 03:47, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

More pointedly, Kurt von Schleicher would be a socialist, since he was responsible for the initiating the public works programmes for which the Nazis were given the credit. -- Gregg 22:51, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Keep. Looks to me like a carefully researched and generally excellent article. I have to suspect the anon who added this to VfD of trolling. -- Jmabel 01:35, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)
  • If it's name contains Liberal, it's by definition a Liberal Party. If you exclude a Liberal Party because of ideological reasons, then the article is no longer about Liberal Parties. The article is about Liberalism, so Parties subscribing to Liberalism Theory would be more appropriate, if awkward. It is not about parties belonging to Liberal International, as it itself states so. As an article about Liberal parties, it should *not* exclude parties that do no subscribe to liberalism, if their name is Liberal. The content should appear on another page about liberalism (and socialism) subscribing parties, while this article should discuss the interplay of liberalism with the word Liberal with political parties. 132.205.15.42 02:41, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • If it's name contains Liberal, it's by definition a Liberal Party - please see Liberal Party of Australia -- Chuq 05:13, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • The article doesn't state it is about parties belonging to Liberal International, it states that belonging to Liberal International is a indication that it is a liberal party. Comment to Chuq: I refer to the first remark on the Zhirinovsky party. That is clear enough. --Gangulf 20:59, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Comment: I do think there's a problem here, despite the impressive writing and research that has gone into this article. To accuse the Liberal Party of Australia of not being liberal enough to qualify for the list doesn't sound NPOV at all to me. Admittedly, the Nazis weren't really socialist despite their name, I think that's NPOV enough, but here in Australia at least, to say that the Liberal Party isn't a liberal party is politically charged and POV. No vote as yet. Andrewa 06:30, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what you mean. When I said the Liberal Party wasn't Liberal, that wasn't some personal opinion or interpretation. It's a blatant obvious fact. They are a conservative party. -- Chuq 07:12, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: Personally I agree that the Liberal Party of Australia is poorly named, certainly from an international point of view, but that is not the point. The point is that many others would defend its name. So this blatant obvious fact isn't a fact at all, rather it's a strongly held opinion. Some in Australia talk of big-L Liberal and small-l liberal to distinguish the two, but those with no political axe to grind avoid using even this terminology, and so should we. We should report it certainly. It's a narrow line to walk, and the article talk page doesn't provide a lot of hope. But I'm still not convinced that deletion is the answer either, so still no vote. Andrewa 20:39, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • I have changed the remarks on the Liberal Party of Australia to make it more POV. Some would say it is a liberal party, others would argue it is not. --Gangulf 20:52, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Keep. (That took a while didn't it.) Article is improving, not quite consistent yet but there now seems hope, I might even try to contribute! Deletion was never a good option. Andrewa 20:59, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • That difference between big-L and small-l liberal is the very distinction that the page did not provide because of its name, and one of the reasons behind my listing it, hence the rename good. However there's still the issue between whether classical liberalism is used to categorize being liberal, or whether thoughts that liberal is anti-conservative, and relatedly, conservative is anti-liberal , and hence both are strictly associated with the political right and left (as they are in the US) and not what they can also mean (liberalism, conservatism). A Liberal Party is definitively a Liberal party and should be on Liberal parties, while it would not appear on List of liberal parties if it did not subscribe to some form of liberalism or what is thought to be liberal. 132.205.15.42 00:23, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Comment: Well put, see Talk:List of liberal parties#Big or small l. Andrewa 01:29, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep this page. It doesn't need to be deleted, though it is in need of a good edit. --Martin Wisse 15:46, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Djadek 11:20, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. At best, it's misnamed, at worst, it's unavoidably POV. --Improv 16:26, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I renamed the article into List of liberal parties, to avoid the capital L. -- Gangulf 20:56, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • That is a better name, especially as it avoids the hazardous use of L. 132.205.15.42 00:23, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. It's a thorough and reasoned and NPOV article. The idea that a party is liberal "by definition" just because it uses the word "liberal" in its name is an astonishing claim. Acsenray 18:05, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • It's more astonishing to say that if you're a card carrying Liberal, you are not a Liberal. My claim is that a Liberal party is Liberal just by having it in its name. A party may be liberal without being Liberal and vice versa, the title of the article does not do liberal it does Liberal. The renamed page does not have that problem. 132.205.15.42 00:38, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep Suggestions for a good edit are always welcome, but generally the pros and contras in favour of including are stated with the party name. I will move the page to List of liberal parties, avoiding the capital-L- with liberal in the page name --Gangulf 20:02, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, although there may be some NPOV issues (I know little about politics outside the US) —siroχo 22:46, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

• Delete: I have no problem with the knowledge being displayed here. The problem I have is with that very nasty word, "Liberal," which seems to mean any damn thing. "Liberal" as in "free?" If so, then we get libertarians as liberals. "Liberal" as in "freedom?" "Liberal" as in the Anglo-American tradition of "change?" If so, the Socialists are liberals, but the libertarians are not. This is a word that has been very carefully undermined for the past 50 years. Either we get a list of any party that has "liberal" in its name, or we rename this to "progressive" or "leftist" parties, and then we're in the soup again. It's for that reason that I have to say, delete. Geogre 00:42, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I cannot imagine that anyone would label socialist parties as liberal parties, but there are social democratic parties close to liberalism or parties that seek a synthesis between liberalism and social democracy. Progressive and leftist are in no ways synonimes of liberal, since most parties on the list would be considered centre-right or centre. The list is about parties that adhere more or less to liberal positions as outlined in the article liberalism. Internationally there is political current different from conservatism, social democracy, christian democracy or socialism that bases its policies on individual liberty. It is a heteregenous current, but is is present. The way thatthe parties are listed makes it possible to have short comments why or why not a party is included, or to imply a nuancing remark. --Gangulf 14:06, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I cannot imagine that anyone would label socialist parties as liberal parties. In the United States this is the norm. Progressive and leftist are in no ways synonimes of liberal. In the United States, they are. Taco Deposit | Talk-o Deposit 19:54, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete, for points made already by Geogre. This has come up several times on Categories for deletion, and deletion has occured there as well. -Sean Curtin 02:16, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. As with the above, liberal is a specific political term with an accepted definition that provides a set of characteristics against which candidates for this list can be objectively judged. The parties mentioned, in Japan, Australia and Russia, do not meet those criteria and it is therefore perfectly NPOV to exclude them from the list regardless of the fact that they call themselves Liberal - just as the Nazi party would not be included on a list of socialist parties, and North Korea would not be included on a list of democracies. -- Gregg 22:51, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. --Dittaeva 12:44, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. "Liberal" means too many things to too many people. See my response to Gangulf above for a perfect example of this. Taco Deposit | Talk-o Deposit 19:54, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.