Re: What does liberal mean
What does "liberal" actually mean when used by Americans?
Depends on the American, and on the era. What it meant to some FBI pencil-pusher in 1968 is only distantly related to what it might mean to any random US citizen today.
Broadly it's meant to indicate that someone advocates at least one of a wide range of positions that are seen as being vaguely on what passes for the left in the US. But other people may advocate the same position and be branded differently. For example, reducing mandatory prison sentences is favored by some "liberals" and some "fiscal conservatives".
The US is a big place with a huge range of subcultures. In politics, much of that difference is concealed by the de facto two-party system, which creates all sorts of strange and uneasy bedfellows.
What "liberal" generally does not mean, in the US, is what it means as a term of art in political science - i.e., a broad belief in individual civil rights, freedom, self-determination, and limited interference by government. In terms of the total political spectrum of global modernity, both the US parties are firmly in the liberal camp in this sense. Both also have large contingents in favor of limiting some or other rights, but on the whole they're distinctly liberal. They differ only in the exceptions they favor. But, of course, saying "everyone in the US political mainstream is a liberal" doesn't help when you're trying to stir up antagonism.