Liberal or Copservative? Why must it be only one or the other? Only because our political discourse has been so degraded that things have evolved into a state that neither word carries any sense of it's historical meanings and distinctions.

Playing duplicate bridge with a group of grade school students, my own partner being a delightful 10-year old Irish Dancer with a significant apptitude for the game of bridge, one of the older girls asked, "Why are you playing bridge with us?" To which, I replied, "Because I believe that children are God's most precious gift to humankind." Which ought to have ended the conversation, but, the enquiring one had one more inquiry: "Are you a liberal?" Immediately, I replied, "Yes. A FLAMING liberal," which is really not true at all, I just love children and find their company more gratifying than that of (most, but, surely none of my F/B friends who have not yet defriended me) so-called adults with whom I have contact.

There is a perception that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are mutually exclusive, and this is a terrible shame, because, in a real world inhabited by fleshed and boned human beings (and other breathing creatures), there are good and righteous reasons to want to conserve (hold on to) institutions, beliefs, and myths that help societies to better themselves, while it is equally important to liberate, change, renew, those institutions, beliefs, and myths that put human beings into bondage and keep them impoverished of healthy nutritious food, clean air, unpolluted waters, common spaces, and enough free time (time away from labor) to consider just what it is that the Lord God Almighty wants us to do.