Supe, from my p/o/v it's the libs (and largely academia) that need back-pats in order to get by; and therefore heap them liberally on one another.
I can't gainsay "educated or compassionate" but "circumspect?"
Teasing, just teasing.
As for your first paragraph; I whole heartedly agree that those political labels are especially susceptible to manipulation. I try to use them in a constant fashion, consistent with what I believe to be their classical definitions... even if I'd have to wrestle with a cogent exposition of those definitions. Which is not to say I won't use any or all of those terms ironically. One thing I try very hard to ensure is that I use capital-C Conservative, capital-R Republican, capital-L Liberal and similar terms very specificially distinctly from their lowercase (and often definitionally distant) cousins.
A liberal worldview would like the multi-culti dividends of capitalism. I'm a Conservative and I certainly enjoy such dividends too; but they should not supplant what has been our history, nor derail an incremental, accretive development thereof as we move forward. Conservatives are absolutely NOT anti-change (well some people who are BOTH Conservatives AND total jackasses are anti-change).
Rather than paraphrase and try to act like this was my idea, I'll just quote Disraeli:
In a progressive country, change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in defference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people, or whether it should be carried out in deference to abstract prinxiples and arbitrary and general doctrines.
How I wish I'd said that; but he lived 150 years before me and had a head start.
IMHO, Liberals and Conservatives are virtually equally progressive. But Liberals are (in the classic definition) rational internationalists who worry what the French or the UN would say. Conservatives worry what our forefathers, to whom we owe the heritage that got us this far, would say.
The ironic part of what you say, Supe, is that Socialism does not foster new ideas/theologies/ideologies/etc. It is, in its practical form anyway, very anti-those things b/c they tend to show people there is another way; without "forced" Animal Farm equality. Witness how quickly Socialist states (not nec. Marxist or Communist) have moved (whether in whole or large part) to capitalism once they've had the chance. Capitalism wins whether you're standing there to declare it the winner or not.
Capitalism is a rough, sharp, pointy thing, however... and part of the compassion is to dull the knifedges and put marshmallows on the pointiest bits. (But why does Ruprecht have a cork on his fork?)
JP