WHY HAS "LIBERAL" BECOME A DIRTY WORD?

In my dictionary the word liberal means "Open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values." I like the word "open." Open, to me, means alive. Open to new ideas, new feelings, new knowledge. Open means you're not stuck, you're free-flowing, if something seems better that what you've been doing, you're willing to try it out. You're open. Openness leads to evolution. Yeah, Mother Nature is a liberal. How do you think we crawled out of the ocean, out into the land, and into the present? Openness. Openness leads to learning, which leads to advancement, which leads to things moving forward. Mistakes are made, that's part of the learning, but being open you learn from those mistakes. Someone who's liberal becomes wiser, more experienced, more open. What's wrong with that?

Conservative on the other hand, according to my dictionary, means, "Holding to traditional values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion." Holding. Not letting go. Stuck in the same place and locking all the doors. Repeating the same things over and over again because it's what you've always done, and, if it's up to you, what you'll always do. Boring. Playing it safe. Frightened of change. Changes makes conservatives nervous that they'll discover something that contradicts their precious traditional values. Conservative thinking is a coffin where the only innovation is the amazing amount of dust it collects. If nature was a conservative we'd still be breathing water.

So, how did liberal become a dirty word, while the word conservative is waved like a flag of honor? Why have the dust-gatherers been allowed to intimidate those in tune with true evolution? Why let the zombies rule the living?