HoustonChronicle.com - Liberals, please embrace the 'L' word again: "Whether John Kerry wins or loses Tuesday, the time has come for you to embark on a new project: taking back the dreaded 'liberal' label."
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I am not sure whether or not Mr. Chester is serious or if he is trying to sabotage the liberals, but I think it is a great idea, but not for his reasons. For liberals to admit to being liberals will not raise the debate in this country, for liberals are by definition "unfettered," which is the meaning of the word. They are free from logic, morals, god, and scripture. They are free to love birds more than men, trees more than churches, and forests more than cities. The result is to turn men into dodos, churches into woodpiles, and cities into jungles.

But please, please, please take back the liberal label, please.

The "hinterland" knows what liberalism means for them every time it is tried, whether it is FDR's welfare state, Jimmy Carter's sentimental foreign policy, LBJ's great society, or Bill Clintons foreign policy of sexual distraction and foreign campaign donations. They know what liberalism every time their life is choked by regulation and their property confiscated and their liberty is curtailed by increased taxation. They may not be able to explain it to snobbish academians who disdain those with dirt under their finger-nails, but they know. Believe me, they know.

So please take back the liberal label. That will assure this great nation of a long line of great and noble election victories. Give us more great liberals like Humphrey, McCovern, Carter, Dukakis. The prospect is delicious. Don't give us liberals who mask themselves as conservatives like Bill Clinton and John Kerry--coward who are afraid to tell us what they are. We are simple folk, who work hard, and might get confused and elect one once every thirty or forty years. Just put the "L" on their forehead, and we will know what to do to assure our prosperity and liberty.