Happy New Year, Liberal JU Bloggers

One of the most notable differences between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives are willing to call themselves conservatives. Talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity willingly, even eagerly, proclaim their conservatism.

Liberals in the mainstream media, by contrast, have spent 40 years denying their obvious tilt toward the left. Even outside the media, liberals resist the label, making recognition of liberals more difficult.

As a public service, and with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, here are the early warning signs that reveal if you, or someone you care about, just might be a liberal.

You might be a liberal if …

You think that if someone is getting richer, someone, somewhere, must be getting poorer.

You think that protestors outside nuclear power plants are dedicated activists, but protestors outside abortion clinics are dangerous zealots interfering with a legal activity.

You believe that more federal regulations will make your life better.

You believe that even though the top 20 percent of taxpayers pay 80 percent of income taxes, that the rich are not paying their “fair share.”

You think that Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are mindless “dittoheads,” but you have never doubted anything that you heard from Michael Moore.

You believe in global warming today just as firmly as you believed in global cooling back in the 1970s.

You believe that the network news is a better indicator of what “real” news is than talk radio, Internet news sites, and blogs.

You believe that there was never, ever a problem with biased news coverage until Fox News went on the air.

You believe that Mikhail Gorbachev deserves more credit for losing the Cold War than Ronald Reagan deserves for winning it.

Your parents gave you an acre of preserved rain forest for your first birthday.

You cannot name a single NASCAR driver.

You mentally subtract 100 points from someone’s IQ if the person speaks with a Southern accent.

You think that Dan Rather got a raw deal.

You panic if you discover that you’re out of chick peas.

You think that the phrase “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution.

You pride yourself on your global awareness, global sensitivity and global outlook, but can’t name your state legislator or school board representative.

You are dedicated to helping the poor, the downtrodden and the less fortunate, but you have never given blood.

You have not seen "The Passion of the Christ," and you don’t know anyone who has seen it.

You believe that a woman should make it on her own, without depending on her husband (except for Hillary Clinton).

You believe that professional, working women should never be judged on their appearance (except for Katherine Harris).

You believe that rich people should not be allowed to contribute so much money to candidates for office (except for George Soros).

You believe that government should make a special effort to hire members of traditionally oppressed groups, such as African-Americans (except for Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice).

You feel a deep sense of common cause with oppressed groups, such as Hispanic immigrants (except for Cuban Americans fleeing Castro).

You believe that a mother’s wishes for her child, especially a mother’s last, dying wish for her child, should outweigh the wishes of a father who had long before deserted his family (unless the child is named Elian Gonzalez).

You think people in south Florida, who can’t figure out how to work a butterfly ballot, ought to have the final say in choosing the president of the United States.

You have no problem with Hollywood movie starts flying around in private jets to give speeches on the evils of SUVs.

You think that raising taxes will reduce the budget deficit.

You deplore prejudice and bigotry in all its forms, but think that everyone in the “red states” is an idiot.

You are more concerned, more often, with the rights of convicted felons than you are with the rights of small business owners.

You uphold a woman’s right to choose, unless a woman chooses adoption, chooses to be a stay-at-home mom, chooses to homeschool, or chooses to start a business.

You are more concerned with Vice President Cheney’s links to Halliburton than with Saddam Hussein’s links to international terrorism.

You have used the phrase, “in Europe, the government pays for health care and vacation,” without irony.

You are worried about how the French view Americans.

You believe that nativity scenes should be banned from public view, but that anyone objecting to pornography “only has to look the other way.”

And finally, you are almost certainly a liberal if you refuse to admit that you’re a liberal, and accuse anyone of calling you a liberal of McCarthyism.

 Courtesy of Ed Lynch, Columnist and Professor.