Lately I've been wondering if there isn't a way to launch a campaign to bring the word "liberal" back into the mainstream where it belongs. Maybe in the process, also find a way to demonize the word "conservative"?

I was thinking bumper-stickers, which takes the message directly into enemy territory, starting with a message that hits many of them where they live: "THINK ABOUT IT: JESUS WAS A LIBERAL!"

Later, you can put other good-person names in there, such as "GEORGE BAILEY WAS A LIBERAL!" and such.

And you could follow up all that with things like "THINK ABOUT IT: DARTH VADER WAS A CONSERVATIVE!"

Or "THINK ABOUT IT: HITLER WAS A CONSERVATIVE!"

And if you dare deal with really complex concepts (although being complex, they run the risk of not being understood by conservatives): "THINK ABOUT IT: SCROOGE WAS A CONSERVATIVE, BUT WAS CURED!"

President Bush rarely delves into the vast gray area between the extremes. So when he calls John Kerry a liberal, he is trying to convey that Kerry, and his policies, are less than desirable.

Instead of just simplistically using the word "liberal" to negatively portray Kerry, Bush should have to tell the country in detail what liberalism is and why it is bad.

For too long, Republicans have been able to acquire political power by demonizing liberalism. I'd like to see the candidates discuss their understanding of liberalism during the upcoming debates.

Our founders would be dismayed at the way Republicans today discount liberalism's contributions to the making of a great nation. A shallow-thinking electorate led by shallow-thinking political leaders is a recipe for disaster.

- Robert J. Barboza, Phoenix

In recent decades the most common use of the term liberal in the USA is greatly at variance from the use of the term in the rest of the world, and with the historical meaning of the word in the USA through the mid 20th century.

Some think that conservatives have been successful in undermining progressives as 'liberals', by deliberate public relations campaigns, through repeated use of the word, 'liberal', in ways that associate it with irresponsibility.

Some independent leftists and libertarians who dislike the USA's two leading parties allege that since liberal means being in favor of liberty, both parties are telling the truth when they deny that they are liberals.

In the United States, the label of liberal is sometimes used as derogatory or politically undermining label. It can imply an overly free-spirited, unaccountable, and compromised character, or someone in favor of vast and needless government intrusion into peoples lives.

USA Conservatives in recent years, often those of the Republican Party, sometimes use liberal as an subversive adjective for anyone who is a member of or supports any policy of the Democratic Party. Consequently, while far right wing politics often are debated and voiced in the political world, liberalism has been associated with far-left politics, whose agendas are often voided.

Imagine my surprise when I looked up the word "Liberal" in my thesaurus.

Liberal: ... generous, abundant, lavish, broadminded, tolerant, enlightened, charitable among others. Not bad, eh?

Conservative: ... stingy, miserly, reactionary, regressive, bigoted, prejudiced, biased, narrow-minded and more. Ouch!

Considering that, and the track record of conservatives (anti-women voting, anti-blacks voting, pro-segregation, pro-Vietnam War, anti-Head Start, etc.) you can see why I'd be embarrassed to call myself a conservative.

So with all those accurate, flattering words to describe "liberal"... And all those appropriate, hateful words to describe its antonym, "conservative"...

After I stopped laughing at the irony, I knew I had to make a t-shirt out of it.