Some of my friends, family members, and co-workers wonder how I could be a political liberal in the midst of this new swell of conservatism the United States. The answers to that are all too simple. I am a liberal because the system originated by liberals called Social Security has made my parents' retirement more possible and comfortable than it would otherwise have been. I am a liberal because the system originated by liberals called Medicare paid for my mother to have two knees and a hip replaced at a cost that otherwise could not have been born by all...