[Vertigo]

The fact is, Liber al and Conservative have traded places somewhere between now and the sixties, when there were real liberals. Liberal used to mean pushing the government out of your private life, removing false boundaries and living free. Now it means making sure every one else likes you. Conservative used to mean preserving the ways of the past with all of it's bigotry, hate and attached nonsense. Now it means conserving the rights of the people.

I consider myself a moderate conservative. I live outside the loop of extremism, where liberals and conservatives and anyone else who has a label for themselves live. No matter what you get extreme about (suddenly I'm talking like the cool kid from the ninties), it's still wrong. Extremes leave too much room for exclusion. Even that sick demented pederast down the street has a place in society, we just have to find it. (Bottom of a lake might be a good place to start.)

Despite my Lilo Pellaki ending to that paragraph, I'm not going to the extreme of saying we should accept him for who he is and help him grow out of his horrid former existence. Even I have limits.

No, I live in the small empty space between the circle of extremes. And while the Liberals and Conservatives turn their backs on me to fight one another, I pick their pockets and slink away snickering.