For the entirety of my adult life, I’ve openly and consciously lived by the principles of liberalism.
I consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool kind of liberal, and for that, I have no apologies.

It upsets me to see people reactively shrink from this benevolent word as though it were radioactive.
In doing so, they completely abdicate to the right-wing extreme machine of engineers who are aggressively rewriting our history, and our language.

For those who need a refresher, here is the definition of ‘liberal’ straight out of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, as pertaining to the word in a political sense.
BROAD-MINDED; especially : not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms 6 a : of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; especially : of or constituting a political party in the United Kingdom associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives.

My eldest brother once said to me that you can usually pick out the liberals in a crowd.
"They're often worried and tired looking”.

Then in his usual comedic style, he pulled wisps of black hair down over two haunted looking eyes, and with a pathetic looking grin, slouched heavily over his extended belly; all the while letting his tongue droop through his teeth.

The effect was at once hysterical, in part because of his goofy persona, but also because of the close proximity to the truth his embellished impersonation demonstrated.

Rounding up the stray hairs with his fingers in an effort to comb them back to the top of his head, he concluded: “Liberals are often frazzled and beleaguered. When you're aware of just how badly the government is being run, it's difficult to relax.”

The knee slapping antics of that morning gradually gave way to the hardcore news of the day as yet another moment of comic relief died on it’s way to the frontlines.

So to those who take offense from, or give offense to the 'L' word, I just have this one thing to say to you … “Yes I’m a LIBERAL, thanks for noticing.”

Soldiers are being ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor ($6,000) at home or face the possibility of losing their life insurance death benefit (should they be killed in action) of $400,000, and face disciplinary action.

A soldier who was affected by the order reported to DefenseWatch that the directive specified that "all" commercially available body armor was prohibited. The soldier said the order came down from Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command, located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. It arrived unexpectedly while his unit was preparing to deploy on combat operations.

The order was deeply disturbing to many of the men who had used their own money to purchase Dragon Skin (a popular commercial personal armor) because it will affect both their mobility and ballistic protection.

“This is crazy. They are threatening us with our benefits if we don't comply." the soldier said.