Declan wrote:

Jamie, I may have missed the fab 50s but I suspect you spent a little too much time in the psychadelic 60s. In 1997, a leftist can best be defined as a big government fetishist. :)

Oh my, this appears to suggest "leftist" means "liberal," the evil twin of evil libertarianism. Some, one or two or least, leftists are far right of the hard right in opposing big government, and even beyond that in opposing big business (Time-Warner, say, or ACLU), and ever further oppositon to big ambitions for big heads prescribing nostrums for the nation and the world under universalizing creeds of liberty, freedom and, well you know how liberals and kissing cousin libertarians lip and gum. Say, how do you distinguish between the two libers in matters of wanting to tell the world what's good for it, wanting to run it just so? Wasn't it the '60s radicals who pronounced pox on feverish liberals and rabid libertarians for their righteous complicity in gov, com, edu, etc., their common inability to forgo wanting to run things from the top, to hang out with the most influential, ahem, each other's dear friends, the "leaders"? Fabulous Ralph Naders, all.