Liberal can mean so many different things. I have many opinions that fall into the lib category and yet I piss off many of my lib associates because I have realistic experience and won't buy all the super lib bleeding heart stuff in bulk.
As a military tactic I support taking out asswipe terrorists using drones, even if they surround themselves with collateral innocents. So, can you be liberal and support military tactics?
As a former Air Force comm spy I think Bradley Manning who is sitting in prison for divulging classified material is right where he belongs. All the liberal free-thinkers on the Web consider him some kind of hero.
And Yet, I still consider myself more liberal than conservative. Oh, and I believe in socialism as an economic model. I think a lot of liberals do as well and I think a lot of socialists are also liberal in other opinions. The two are not necessarily synonymous but there is probably a lot of overlap.