Reply #13: I'm not sure one is even a true liberal unless one is all three.

[IntravenousDemilo]

Nor am I sure where I'd place myself. Though I was never neocon, I started out as a Disraelian conservative. Disraeli once declared, "Power has only one duty, to secure the social welfare of the people." I became troubled with what conservatism was turning into, so I left the movement and, as I observed the horrors and inequities of unchecked capitalism throughout the world, was so repulsed and sickened that I moved progressively left, until I'm pretty much a social democrat verging on socialist now. I firmly believe that a liberal is primarily a social democrat who is dragging his feet, while a socialist is a liberal in a hurry. The difference is in the urgency.

Now, I don't know whether this change came about as a result of work from my head, heart, or gut, but since the head controls everything including emotion and instinct, and since it happened over a period of years, I'm theorizing that it was my head.