liberals? You mean THEY call themselves 'liberal'?...I can paste any sticker I want on my forehead, but others may not see me that way. We know a 'compassionate' conservative who is raising eyebrows about that 'compassionate' part, don't we?

I guess it is possible to have mixed ideologies...

(BTW...back up there you doubted that 'selfishness' was any worse now than in the past....thought that was small part of my post, I actually DO think it is true. Perhaps it is related to my moving from Kansas to Washington DC 20+ years ago, but I see 'selfishness' and related issues as becoming embedded in the daily routine in ways I never saw when I was younger. Laws and merchants and habits and institutions and friends and are exemplifying 'me-firstism' in an almost programmed way. The change is not easy to point to in discrete examples, but I do notice, for example, that these days grocery store no longer seem to train their employees and design their stores to cater to the CUSTOMER'S wishes & feelings. (I used to work in groc. stores)...I get glares and arguments from checkers when I ask for my groceries to be bagged MY way...this would have gotten me FIRED when I worked in a store! It seems to me that the pressure & stresses of modern life have made people in general more defensive, less friendly, less honest and unhappier than when I was 20 (40 years ago)....