The following is a message I got from Warren via email:

Hello again! You were recently gracious enough to endorse Liberalism Unrelinquished, a project I’ve been working on with Dan Klein.

I wonder if you’d be willing to help keep the ball rolling by participating in related initiative, #LiberalismDay. Liberalism Day is an internet event aimed at amplifying a simple message: the word “liberal” used to mean something different than it does today.

To participate, all you have to do is write a blog post, tweet, or anything else on or around June 16th that contains the hashtag #LiberalismDay. (The hashtag is what ties everything together in search engines.)

You can add as much or as little nuance as you’d like. You can link to a favorite article (e.g. Milton Friedman’s essay “Liberalism, Old Style”), make a meme, write a blog, or even just tweet about the event to your audience.

From my vantage outside of academic circles, I’d guess that maybe 1% of the population has ever learned that the word “liberal” ever meant something else. I believe if we can boost that fraction a bit, it could spread organically. Merely knowing that 19th century liberalism was more akin to modern libertarianism will help correct a lot of false narratives, e.g. that Lincoln Republicans were really modern Democrats, or that libertarian ideas are a modern invention.

Again, all you have to do to help is plug the event with the hashtag #LiberalismDay and make a comment or share a link on liberalism. Our friend Mike Munger has already chimed in on his blog, and Richard Epstein has offered to rep it on his twitter feed, too. 🙂

Feel free to let me know by email or by leaving a comment on LiberalismDay.com if you plan to participate and I will add a link to your blog or website!

Thanks!

Kevin