Libertarian researcher/writer Charles Murray wants us to start drawing a distinction between liberals and progressives:

As a libertarian, I am reluctant to give up the word “liberal.” It used to refer to laissez-faire economics and limited government. But since libertarians aren’t ever going to be able to retrieve its original meaning, we should start using “liberal” to designate the good guys on the left, reserving “progressive” for those who are enthusiastic about an unrestrained regulatory state, who think it’s just fine to subordinate the interests of individuals to large social projects, who cheer the president’s abuse of executive power and who have no problem rationalizing the stifling of dissent.

I had just about concluded that I don’t know of many people who could be safely distinguished as “liberals,” versus “progressives.”  After all, when it comes down to a decision, if a person would rather side with those who would blow up our civic system for good intentions rather than those who would preserve the civic system even if they ultimately lose the political debate, then there isn’t much justification for categorizing the person as something other than the first group.  Does a reluctance to persecute your political opponents create a different category of political belief than a simple willingness to do so if that reluctance doesn’t extend to a denunciation of the willing?

It occurred to me, though, that what Murray is describing might be the category whose members mostly would prefer to be called “moderates,” as in my political spectrum:

It could be that Murray is describing people on the Left who still ultimately put their emphasis on the community or collective, and who still look to government as the final arbiter of morality, but who also understand that human nature is such that the world cannot be manhandled onto a path to perfectibility.

I don’t doubt that such people would like to be called “liberal,” if progressives hadn’t sullied the label, but it seems to me a waste of time — at some risk of providing cover for progressives — for folks on the Right to try to salvage the label for them.