First, Liberalism is not the same as "democracy".

Second, while the political ideals of Liberalism are to provide a better existence for the underclass, Liberalism itself was and is controlled by the middle class.

Third, initially one could say without fear that the beginnings of political liberalism was a movement against the power of the Church.

And, fourth, when those the liberal wing of a political party raise up, economically, these new middle class bourgeoisie inevitably turns conservative.

Democracy is an often misused word. Manent (1995) claims that "Radically depreciating the pretensions to 'virtue' of the nobility, and simultaneously making people 'honest', Machiavelli becomes the first democratic thinker" (Manent 16). And even though this author claims that Machiavelli drew a distinction between the evil in politics and the inherent goodness of people, he never really went so far as to permit these "ordinary" people to assume the powers of The Prince. As one can read the various philosophers, (Hobbes and Rousseau, for example, are more antagonistic or supportive of the Church of their day) there is no one who truly claims that the so-called

"masses" have the power to control a Liberalistic nation. That, one assumes, is left to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, whose "overthrow" theories would put the proletariat in

Burke, Edmund: Reflections on the Revolution in France Indianapolis IN: Hackett Publishing Company (19987)

When the ideas of Liberalism were abandoned in Europe in favor of the "new" nation in the West, the influence of the Church over political thought waned. Eventually, even the Puritans of New England acceded to the political freedoms that their own strict Church had not permitted. The principles of American constitutionalism is a distinct separation of Church and State which Liberals defend strongly, while Conservatives tend to bend the dividing line top this very day ("One nation. Under God"aand the permission of the Ten Commandments on display in an Alabama courtroom).

If we look to the stirrings of American liberalism in the Twentieth Century, the two prime examples- Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, were neither of them born to "the masses". They were patrician in upbringing, but paternalistic in their empathy for the have-nots of America. They both used extensive political clout to create social legislation that had far-reachi