Which is why, I suppose, that the only Core belief of all Liberals is that it is OK to dismember babies in their mother's womb.
Read carefully. The good professor, as befits his station in life, is very scholarly. He has correctly traced the genesis of the usage of 'liberal' in political discourse.
"Liberalism in its noblest, and also in its most essential, sense" is embodied in American conservatism--we are conserving the American Founding, which was liberal in the original (and noble) sense, against assorted socialists. fascists, Marxists and Nietzschians.
Read carefully the program of the baby-murdering 'left' now--it owes more to Nietzsche's romantic anti-Christianity (What is 'multiculturalism' but the romantic exaltation of savage custom? Why do the leftist flakes natter on about 'spirituality', even in some cases proclaiming themselves 'neopagans'?) and his notion of 'transvaluation of values' than to Marx (who would have included 'neopaganism' along with Christianity, and all the religions the multiculturalists support while trampling Christianity, under the heading 'opiate of the masses') and looks more fascist than communist (dirigist through regulation rather than demanding goverment ownership of the economy).