I've recently registered to Facebook and Quora. It exposed me to a lot of political propaganda, mostly USA-centric. Republicans blaming Democrats and vice versa.
Reading this was an amusing and void waste of time, upon I stumbled on "liberal" blaming. I was quite astonished by the statement that liberals want higher taxes. It could be a single case. But then I've met all posts describing liberals as pretty the opposite of liberals.
In Eastern Europe, we distinct 2 types of liberals.
Economical liberals, who want low taxes, especially for the richest (company owners etc.), and minimal state responsibility. They would limit welfare to the minimum, or even obliterate it. The most radical of them would want private schools and health service, some even would privatize police and military forces.
Social liberals are more or less the direct negation of the Church. They want abortion, homosexual marriages, replacing religion in schools with sexual education etc. Their program is constantly changing and seems to be more or lest reactive and event-driven so I have problem to do the precise summary, but they are generally what is 'left' in Europe in all areas except economy.
Generally speaking, the opposition of the economical liberals are socialists, and the opposition of social liberals are fundamentalists.
I don't know how representative for the political discourse in USA is Quora, but those what they describe as liberalism would correspond to the social liberalism, but in economical aspect it would be a socialism.
So my question is, what is meant by "liberalism" in the political debates in USA?