That line from The Princess Bride kept coming to mind as I encountered the word “liberal” in major newspapers recently. Consider these examples:

The Washington Post: “MIT’s decision reflected a distressing unwillingness to tolerate views that offend the liberal majority.” The Wall Street Journal: “Ms. Guy, a Democrat whose childhood in Cuba was steeped in ultraliberal politics.…” The New York Times: “Chileans on Sunday elected Gabriel Boric as their next president.… Boric will be the nation’s youngest leader and by far its most liberal since President Salvador Allende.”

Let’s review: Trying to stamp out diversity of opinions, especially in a university, is not a “liberal” idea. It’s a particularly illiberal approach. A country ruled by a dictator at the head of the Communist party-state is not experiencing “ultraliberal politics.” It’s experiencing totalitarianism. And a presidential candidate supported by the Communist Party, who wants to reverse Chile’s marketoriented policies, is unlikely to govern as a liberal.

What a long strange trip it’s been for the word liberal. It originally referred to generosity or to the “liberal arts” that were appropriate for free men in the era of serfdom. Daniel Klein of George Mason University finds that Scottish scholars such as Adam Smith and William Robertson began using it in the 1770s in such terms as “liberal policy,” “liberal ideas,” and “liberal principles.” He also argues that the Scots and the English used the term to refer to our natural rights and liberties, while on the continent of Europe it more often referred to “constitutional reform and political participation.”

The first application of the word liberal to a political group may have been in Spain around 1812, when the representatives of the middle class in the Spanish Cortes, or parliament, came to be called the Liberales. They contended with the Serviles (the servile ones), who represented the nobles and the absolute monarchy. The term Serviles, for those who advocate state power over individuals, unfortunately didn’t stick. But the word liberal, for the defenders of liberty and the rule of law, spread rapidly. The Whig Party in England came to be called the Liberal Party. Today we know the philosophy of John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and John Stuart Mill as liberalism.

That liberalism was, as Britannica defines it, a “political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics.” It’s a philosophy of individual rights, free markets, and limited, constitutional government.

But around 1900 the term liberal underwent a change. Liberalism came to mean a policy of activist government, theoretically to help the poor and the middle class through progressive taxes, transfer programs, and regulation. The economist Joseph Schumpeter noted, “As a supreme, if unintended, compliment, the enemies of private enterprise have thought it wise to appropriate its label.” The old liberalism came to be known as classical liberalism or libertarianism.

Outside the United States, even American journalists understand the traditional meaning of liberal. In 1992 a Washington Post story datelined Moscow reported that “liberal economists have criticized the government for failing to move quickly enough with structural reforms and for allowing money-losing state factories to continue churning out goods that nobody needs.”

In countries around the world liberty and liberalism are threatened by authoritarian populism on both right and left. And here in the United States the Republican Party is increasingly focused on nationalism, protectionism, and using state power to hurt its enemies, while on the left there are increasingly open socialists and an increasing illiberal attitude toward free speech and dissenting ideas. In that environment, as Andy Craig wrote recently at Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org, it makes sense for libertarians to recognize our connections with our “cousins” in the liberal family who “share a commitment to certain fundamental rights—personal, procedural, and political guarantees—which are above and beyond the give and take of more mundane policy agendas.” That might include Buckley-Reagan conservatives, free-speech liberals, and all the people who are fiscally conservative and socially tolerant, who appreciate the benefits of capitalism as well as the benefits of openness and diversity.

“Liberals against illiberalism,” that’s the ticket.