For example, being liberal usually implies greater freedoms, such as being pro-choice. However, it can also be pro-gun ownership, or anti-war, pro-research, etc. To me that's the dichotomy the U.S. is facing is really about the progressives and religeous conservatives duking it out, but (I'd argue) most people are much more moderate.
It's interesting to me that a third party (libertarians, or someone else) can't capture that group. As many liberals differ pretty substantially from the progressives, and concervative minded people just lump liberals and them together because they all identify as Democrats
In fact, I prefer to classify political views differently, by splitting them into two buckets: those who have figured out that every issue needs an actually effective solution, and those who follow their ideologies blindly.
Fortunately in the UK there's another voice at the table in between the extremes. People tend not to vote for them because of fear, and a misunderstanding of the soft power available in politics.
The fundamental problem with the Libertarian ideology is that the emergent outcome is of a fully economically captured state.
If I started a political party and wanted to capture myself. I'd just steal all the good ideas from all the parties.
Personally, I would prioritize extensive political reform and reconstruction, but I fear the level of financial capture and constitution worship in the United States makes thus impossible.
For the most part, my politics are similar to progressives - higher taxes, public healthcare, more expansive welfare (I support UBI), and social justice in general.
The reason why I don't consider myself a progressive is that I feel that the progressive ideology in US has largely abandoned the traditional concept of natural individual rights in pursuit of all these goals. You have people openly claiming that freedom of speech is not worth it if it gets in the way of criminalizing offensive speech, for example. Or how due process is an outdated notion that makes it hard to prosecute sexual harassment properly. Basically, the further left you go with progressives, the more individual rights are sacrificed to collective ones.
That, to me, is the line past which you can no longer meaningfully call yourself a liberal, since liberalism is all about individual rights, ultimately. Where left-wing and right-wing liberals differ is on the matter on how to best maximize those rights, and to what extent government regulation is advantageous or detrimental to that, especially on economic matters.
And, to some extent, on what those rights are, precisely - for example, I don't consider property rights to be fundamental natural rights (but then again, neither did Thomas Jefferson, and he sure wasn't left-wing!). Note, it doesn't mean that property is a bad idea - I think it's a social construct that is broadly useful, it's just not an absolute right (and hence taxation and wealth redistribution is not inherently an infringement on such).
The fair comparison would be to see how they reacted if your roles were reversed: if she worked and you made her lunch.
Conservatives are supposed to be the ones that pressure people into gender roles, and liberals are supposed to be tolerant of all lifestyles. What point would be made if liberals were tolerant of a very, very non-traditional relationship, and our conservative friends were uncomfortable? That both groups have gender roles which they use social pressure to enforce? That the left isn't actually more tolerant than the right? That liberals have enjoyed an undeserved positive stereotype?
That said:
> if my conservative acquaintances are more tolerant of a "left-of-center" arrangement than my liberal acquaintances, why would it be more fair to push the comparison further left?
That isn't a left-of-center arrangement. It's a hundred+ year old conservatives dream (see: traditional family values), of course they're accepting of it.
The point of the opposite scenario is that it's non-traditional, and I GUARANTEE you that the acceptance would be reversed on both counts.
Obviously preferably the acceptance would be there regardless, when both you and your wife's roles are self-chosen, but you must see that it's easy from the outside to suspect that it's formed by traditional gender roles, even if it happens to be unrelated?
In the same way people generalize about a white man with a pacific looking younger wife, or just a younger wife in general, which isn't the same thing people think when they see an older woman with a younger man.
These things could be great, loving relationships, but the generalizations about them are at some point rooted in truth, because of a traditionally asymmetric power dynamic.
I remember very clearly who it was that made my mother miserable for daring to enjoy being a housewife and mother, and it wasn't our conservative friends.
I also remember who made our family miserable for loving and caring for my gay brother as he died of AIDS, and it wasn't our liberal friends.
( http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything... for an excellent essay on the topic. )
Is this the right, or the religious right?