I am a liberal because life beat me about the head with a blunt instrument, and I learned that you can't make it on your own. I discovered that life is, indeed unfair, but human beings can and should be.
Now a lot of my left wing friends are idiots. But they're decent idiots, who want to do the right thing, and genuinely care about the rest of the world.
My father was a staunch Republican. He voted for Nixon 3 times. But he was also a staunch believer in the separation of church and state. As he told me, at least twice a month, our Huguenot ancestors were forced out of France for being the wrong kind of Christians. As the state has no business interfering in the works of the church, so the church has no business interfering in the works of the state.
I'll be putting a flag on my father's grave in the next few days. I expect I'll hear him spinning in it, as he contemplates what his party has become, a tool of theocracy.