I figured that in order to prove just how much of a conflicted moderate I am, I would balance out the previous post by sharing a conversation I recently had with my father. I've been heading steadily leftward in my political leanings for many years now. My father has not been. He's what I like to refer to as "crazy republican." If I were still living in SoCal, the term Orange County Republican might mean something, but here on the east coast, no one really gets it. I think he believes me to be a communist. He denies it, but that's likely because he can't fathom his offspring being an anti-American pinko. He could never blacklist his own daughter.

So back to the story. We were on the phone one day for our obligatory bi-weekly talks and somewhere between what the dog's been up to, and how my sister's new job is going, we reached the inevitable political conversation. I don't really remember what we were talking about, or how it came up, but we began discussing progressives. I mentioned that I wish I had the dedication to be one, and he countered with the fact that too many of them used to be communists. I was surprised at how well he took it when I told him I really didn't see the problem with that. It hadn't really occurred to me that anyone was still stuck in that kind of a black and white Cold War mentality regarding the political spectrum. It seems that the same traits I admire are the ones he considers dirty words. Still, he recycles, so that's something. He also lives in a blue state, so his red vote is seriously diluted.