Liberal vs. Leftist
When it comes to politics, I am right-of-center. You can say I’m “politically violet” because that’s the color you get when you combine red with purple. I have friends and relatives that I consider liberal, but not leftist. I can befriend the former, but hardly the latter. “What’s the difference?” you ask. Let me spell it out for you. I define a liberal as a person that holds to liberal political views, period. That’s all, nothing more. One such person was my maternal grandmother Mary R. Kalman. She voted for Walter Mondale for President in 1984, then for Michael Dukakis in ’88. She was all-against Operation Desert Storm. She called it an excuse for oil. She was all-against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. On abortion, she was “pro-choice” all the way. In her eyes, a woman having an abortion was comparable to a woman having back surgery. You get the picture. She was politically liberal. As you could imagine, we were no strangers to escalated arguments, but at the end of the d