What is Muscular Liberalism not?

In light of Nick Clegg's re-use of the phrase, it's worth clarifying what Muscular Liberalism is and what it emphatically is not. Muscular Liberalism is a political approach - one that is found in all three main political parties in the UK.  We on this site describe a Muscular Liberal as being 'someone who believes in liberal values and believes that those values must be defended and promoted.  Here in the West we benefit from living in liberal cultures which tolerate our differences, accept non-conformity and encourage inquiry and debate.  But too often, that liberalism also makes us soft.  We think that because we tolerate difference we have to tolerate those who violently disagree with our way of life.  We imagine that because we accept non-conformity we have to accept cultures which refuse to conform to our basic standards of decency.  Muscular Liberals know that our free and fair civilisation is fragile and that it requires active defence.  We also know that the best way to defend our values is to spread them.

Muscular Liberals believe in engaging with the world and in arguing passionately for Western, liberal values.  We are opposed to the cultural relativism of the old Left - the idea that we must accept barbaric, oppressive behaviour out of cultural sensitivity.  We are equally opposed to the cynical 'realism' of the old Right - which seeks to describe geopolitics as a constant, amoral battle for supremacy.  For us, foreign policy is about aggressively promoting the shared values of the Western world.  A more open, democratic, liberal world would be safer, more secure and more prosperous for all.  It always serves the West's political, economic and strategic interests to promote those values.  Muscular Liberalism is not new - it traces its heritage through Bush and Blair to Theodore Roosevelt and Lord Palmerston - but it has never been more necessary than in our increasingly fractured and dangerous modern world.'

That's what Muscular Liberalism is.  It is what the Prime Minister outlined in his Munich speech on counter-terrorism, it's what this site argues for day-in-day-out and it is defined by an acute desire to defend our liberalism from its enemies both without and within.

What it is not is Lib Dem Ministers working up the courage to a be a bit more angst-ridden in Cabinet meetings.  It does not mean bringing down key elements of the Government's agenda in order to parade political capital.  It does not mean giving speeches in which you deride the very administration in which you serve.  The Prime Minister's Muscular Liberalism encourages him to challenge extremists; for the Deputy Prime Minister it appears to simply mean challenging the Prime Minister.  This is a vacuous and childish use of a phrase - one that serves to distract from two important facts.  One that this Government is, in fact, shaping up to be fantastically Muscular Liberal in many ways and two, that there are far more important issues facing this country than whether or not Liberal Democrats are feeling overshadowed by their coalition partners.