It wasn't my comment, but there is more than one meaning for the word liberal. [0] I was going with adjective 2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
I took "more liberal" to mean "more left" as in the political spectrum of Left vs Right, Liberal vs Conservative because that's the only definition that really fits the context of the sentence...
Despite the fact that Liberalism has much more to do with Liberty than liberal use of government, Liberals today certainly want to use the government liberally to make new laws for solving any small discomfort.
Maybe there's partly a cultural difference. Here in the UK, "liberal" mean would still greater freedom of speech even if you meant "liberal" in the political sense. Ironically that's probably one of the core tenants of political liberalism! By the way, the most liberal party here is in the centre politically, so it's very clear here that liberalness is not determined at all by left-rightness.
I don't claim to know as much about the difference between Republicans and Democrats as Americans themselves, but I find it very surprising to think that Democrats would oppose freedom of speech particularly more strongly - I'd actually presume it to be the other way round (maybe based on my own conflation of "liberal" in the US sense and in the original political sense).
With all that said, the way the original commenter referred to liberal as simply meaning "more ... use of law" is pretty hard for me to take seriously. Is apartheid more liberal than racial equality because it requires more laws? Come on. It comes off as an attempt to slander (ironically!) liberalism by claiming any bad law is liberal because liberalism uses laws.
In the US, Democrats/left/liberals are well known for trying to control speech. [0] [1] [2] They are the party of greater government and using law more liberally to control more aspects of society.
Republicans/right/conservatives are the party of small government - hence the word conservative describing them. They favor free markets, which is to say: Don't make too many laws getting in the way of business!
The very meaning of the word Conservatism is "commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation." [3] Less change = less laws. The conservative right weren't the ones behind the Civil Rights movement in the US - that was the liberal left, creating more laws controlling things like school segregation and so forth.
So, I think you can see that "more (vs less) use of law" is absolutely one of the overarching themes at play in our political scene. Even as a complete layman who actively avoids politics I wasn't able to avoid this knowledge. I think you can confirm it with a few quick searches to get a feel for what kinds of things people have said about either party [4] [5] [6].
Those first two sources are obviously biased to an almost comical degree. They're very much of the "those horrible Democrats want to take your freedom of speech" bent. Your third link has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
Yes, conservatives favour smaller government and fewer laws - actually that term means exactly that here in British politics too. But that doesn't mean any extra laws are necessarily liberal. Go back to my example of legislated racism to see that, which is clearly not liberal (in every sense of the word) despite requiring more laws and bigger government. Like the original comment I replied to, your comment and those sources come across a shallow attempt to insult Democrats by saying "look, this bad thing would require a law, and Democrats love laws, therefore they must want this bad thing!".
Maybe in this case my distance, as an outside observer, is actually helpful. I can see pretty clearly that Democrats wanting to limit freedom of speech is a rumour that doesn't reflect what Democrats actually want.
The first 2 links cited incontrovertible evidence, I don't see much comedy in that. The third link shows a law that controls speech, which is exactly how I labeled it in my first sentence.
You're arguing with me because I made a comment that stemmed from my own perception of politics. Now that I've clearly explained the reasoning for my comment, you're contorting yourself to prove that my perception is wrong. In the face of empirical evidence you've given nothing more than your opinion.
> I can see pretty clearly that Democrats wanting to limit freedom of speech is a rumour that doesn't reflect what Democrats actually want.
They want to control speech. I've shown a law, one among many that they've enacted, which proved my point. In response to that you applied some strawman argument about it not being "freedom of speech" when nobody ever said that.
I don't think you're arguing in good faith, so I'm going to end this here.
I took "more liberal" to mean "more left" as in the political spectrum of Left vs Right, Liberal vs Conservative because that's the only definition that really fits the context of the sentence...
Despite the fact that Liberalism has much more to do with Liberty than liberal use of government, Liberals today certainly want to use the government liberally to make new laws for solving any small discomfort.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+liberal