This letter is in reply to your article of 18 February, "Oh, say can you see idiocy?". I assume that you consider yourself a liberal. I assume this because of the way you associate the actions of one repugnant southern politician with all of conservatism. You point out (quite rightly) that this is an act of the vilest hypocrisy, that the political right is supposed to decry governmental involvement in our personal lives. However, they still constantly try to legislate morality (abortion, school prayer, anti-evolution nonsense) and more (outlawing hardcore rap, strict drug laws, etc.).

Where I take exception to your article is your failure to point out that the political Left is no better. The First Amendment is sacred to any Liberal you care to ask (with the possible exception of Tipper Gore), but the Second is to be despised. We should have the right to do as we wish, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else–we should have the right to smoke marijuana, for instance. But, mention the right to self-defense and suddenly one become a monster, a gun-toting idiot who is just as likely to shoot one's own child as an intruder. Where is the mention of this hypocrisy? Or do you not see it?

I am neither conservative nor liberal. I hold many positions of a liberal (social programs for the disadvantaged, pro-choice, fanatically pro-environment) and some of a conservative (pro-self-defense, pro-small government regarding personal choice). I think the single most important contribution that a columnist could make is to try to illustrate that our two-party system has this country in a stranglehold and, until Americans realize that either extreme accepted blindly is asinine, the two-party system will continue to be part of the Problem. Please just think about the positions you hold, and encourage others to do so as well. Big-city liberalism is just as backward as backwoods, bible-swinging conservatism. They are not as different as they at first appear.