I may be... *gulp* ...liberal.

I've always know that semantics are important. I just didn't know quite how much until recently.

More often than not my degree in philosophy helps me just about as much as it hurts me. An example of this is how good I am in my use of definitions. More specifically, I am good at using common words like 'conservative' and 'liberal' in totally expected ways, but with apparently uncommon usages.

For the few years that I have actually been paying attention to politics, I had assumed that underneath all of the labeling that goes along with the terms 'conservative' and 'liberal' there was a reason for the polar differences in the attitudes of the people who labeled themselves thusly. So I investigated, and true to the form of a philosophy student I reduced these terms to what I thought was their most simple and polar concept without consulting anyone or anything of authority. I concluded that a liberal is a person who likes government the way I like cream cheese on my bagel: applied liberally. Then I assumed the opposite of conservatives: government applied conservatively.

I had no idea how wrong I was.

Being a person who uses definitions like I do, I consulted that thing which is both my bane and my savior at the same time--the dictionary. So when it told me a person who calls himself a liberal really just thinks individual rights are paramount, I flipped out. Since a smaller government would clearly have fewer opportunities to infringe on individual rights I had assumed I was conservative.

But then I checked the dictionary again, this time regarding conservatism. Turns out these people just want to keep things the way they are. So if I were to actually be a conservative by this definition, and hold my current political ideas at the same time, I would have to live sometime around the early 1800s. I guess since I only have power to make time flow in a forward direction, I am forced to accept my new label. I'm a liberal.

Though on the bright side and with a hint of irony, by the dictionary's definition, liberals aren't actually liberal. But that's a discussion for another day.