It may also be far too general of a term to be of value.

This is my main complaint. We humans love putting things in little categories and labels, but if you're using a word that you think means X and everyone else thinks it means Y or Z then suddenly we're all taking at cross purposes and everyone thinks everyone else is chatting shit.

Liberalism is pro-Capitalism, therefore it's right wing.

Liberal means centre-right to right in most of Europe, and right-wing in much of the rest of the world.

I was already contented with the fact that people here were going to circlejerk themselves into this.

Liberalism is an ideology of freedom. Freedom is a matter of circumstances. Being free to exploit others closes down your world thus it is not to be considered liberal. Neither will you be free if you get a cop on every corner or taking away your possessions in the name of equality.

You only really gain freedom through following the intuition on what would open up the world the most for the most people.

For America, the answer is more socialism. But the Democrats and the Republicans are neo-liberals.

Isn't that American "libertarians"?

Hey OP, just in case you didn't gather this from the various other comments, in political science, Liberalism refers to a specific movement (think John Locke, social contract theory, abolishing various aristocratic privilaeges, etc) but can be applied to modern political philosophies too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Liberalism in media terms often means something quite different depending where you are in the world. But, it typically refers to something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism. Pro-market, pro-welfare (to a limited degree), somewhat focused on individual freedoms, etc. It's a wide-ranging term and can cover anything from as far right as America's gov't to as far left as something like Sweden's.

I mean the cops are also doing the bidding of the obviously corrupt minister, with the exception of Kingsley Shaklebolt, who is an undercover agent of Dumbledore.

The entire concept of "fighting dark magicians hurr durr" is never put in the context of how subverted or openly on the side of dark magicians the ministry of magic is. Sometimes it is hinted at, like how Arthur Weasley is dissapointed that the department for the missuse of muggle artifacts is chronically underfunded and wizards that like to play harsh pranks and torture muggles aren't punished properly.

auror = cop but with magic

It really doesn't, especially when it's revealed (Very early on) that magic is literally just saying the right words and waving your wand...

But how can wizards be stronger than other wizards if this is the case? Which the book states that some are....

And there are Wizards said to create new spells all the time as part of their jobs... but... how the fuck does that work if the words and wand movement are all that's important? In most settings where it's via some magic essence combined with force of will, it makes sense how you could conjure up spells... but here it's like somehow being able to create a new console command for a software you can't update or modify...

Plus the scale of what magic can do changes depending on the scene...

Hagrid, a high school dropout with a broken wand concealed inside an umbrella, can effortlessly turn Dudley into a pigboi..... but learning how to take on just one animal shape is super difficult and only a select few called Animgai can do it... Sure....

Oh and an IMPOSTER Mad-Eye Moody casually turning Draco into a full-on ferret despite Animagis being this rare and overly difficult to learn thing is also bullshit.. (neither Moody nor the imposter were an Animagi)

And Hogwarts Legacy just has Animagi as a common enemy type despite them being so rare, but... hey there I can forgive it because without them we wouldn't have good enemy variety (Why are all the creatures in the forbidden forest spiders!??!?!)

Like, what are the rules? Because if Rowling doesn't care, why should I?