why I am a liberal

I'm proud to be a libertarian, but I sure don't love the word.

I will never forgive the left-liberals and neo-liberals for sullying the word I would have been proud to claim in any century previous to the 20th.

Ah, to live in a world where the following passage needed no special links or footnotes of explanation:

Liberalism is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim.

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism

Here's another great one:

The enemies of liberalism have branded it as the party of the special interests of the capitalists. This is characteristic of their mentality. They simply cannot understand a political ideology as anything but the advocacy of certain special privileges opposed to the general welfare.

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism

And here's my whole list of them.

And here's a randomly selected quotation from Mises.

And here's one from Mises.org, also randomly selected:
And here's a whole book of them.