Originally posted by Blakemore
a liberal is someone who is against prohibition of whatever, a leftist wants to distribute money wtvr the **** that is, to people who are either in need or simply don't deserve it.
Disregarding the framing, that is correct in broad terms. Liberalism historically comes back to the thought of John Locke and is represented by the Republican elements during the French Revolution and people like Thomas Jefferson in the United States. It started as a movement primarily against Feudal Aristocracy and oppressive moral teaching of the Churches. So in a sense for individual freedom in that sense. It also generally centered the rights to property and capitalist modes of production. Leftists on the other hand believe that the mechanisms of distribution in capitalism are unjust and rigged in favor of the people that have much already, and think a fundamental change to a more social system is necessary (whether that a more modest step to a social democracy or some form of socialism is contentious within the left, of course).
Nowadays liberalism focuses a lot on global capitalism, through mechanisms like the WTO, coups in inconvenient countries, and things like that. In terms of modern politics, most politicians of both the Democratic and Republican party are liberals, mostly disagreeing in the way that the elite should govern the masses and using social and moral issues (like racism, abortion, patriotism, free speech) as the battle grounds they fight out this disagreement.
Leftists are a relatively insignificant part of American politics, imo to the detriment of American citizens, but Democrats and Republicans have effectively worked together to undermine and destroy any populist organization over the last 100 years.