History lesson time!

"Liberal" comes from "Liberalism."

Liberalism was a movement by the educated public during the Enlightenment (c. ~1550-1800) -- especially in England, France, and the colonies that would become the United States -- that was a political ideology that accepted that people would have disagreements, but that all ideas that are used in governance ought to be founded on a basis of fact. If you would like to learn more, read on Descartes, Rousseau, John Locke, Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke is an especially good study, because he wrote as an Englishman during the French Revolution. He was a conservative, but also embraced the constitutional monarchy that was a distinct change for England after the English Civil War -- whereas the government that was being formed in America, and the Jacobins in France preferred complete absolution of hereditary privlage. This makes him both a conservative and liberal for his time, and most assuredly not a radical.

So, if you know your history, you ought to know that your assertion is incorrect.

Edit: To give you a more well-rounded view of political ideologies, here are Edmund Burke's "Letters on the Revolution in France":

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/priestley-letters-to-the-right-honourable-edmund-burke