Gen-X spiritual nomad with more books than I know what to do with, and still not enough; longstanding SF and fantasy geek; spontaneous ranter on a lot of subjects, particularly ancient history, Tolkien's mythology, and general human cluelessness. Intermittent RC/agnostic, increasingly RC (ie practicing) last few years, but on very different terms than during initial "cradle" phase. Contrary to semipopular belief, I am not a BNF — John Howe and David Salo might count as Big Name Fans in the field — and there is not some sort of Rube Goldberg connection between my perceived BNF status and my damn-the-torpedoes ranting style. Frankly I just assume I'm writing for an audience of anywhere from one (me) to maybe five, six, at any given time, and if the stats show otherwise I'm always surprised. Nom de guerre Philosopher At Large is an ObRef to the Peripatetics, in whose tradition I try to work, and contains the implicit joke "because they haven't caught up with me yet." As Philosopher At Large is too long for everyday wear, and P@L abbreviation gives some logon screens fits, I go by "bellatrys" usually when posting in forums (forae?) Other details not gleanable from my writings available upon request to those who care enough to correspond with me personally.

—Am I a liberal? Probably so by your definition, though I consider labels, particularly labels intended to pigeonhole individuals for the purpose of dismissing them, to be generally useless (see "Feminist? If You Say So" rant for details); but since to care about those things which I care passionately about — social justice, gender inequity, environmental stewardship, cultural richness, ecumenical transcendence, carefulness of thought, and accuracy in reporting above ideology and polemics — seem to be dismissed as "liberal" by those who self-identify as "conservative" — then I must be a liberal. (Of course, by these standards, I am in good company: the authors of  The Napoleon of Notting Hill and The Abolition of Man are also liberals, along with Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos — or rather, the One who speaks through them.)

I was however raised to consider myself a conservative Catholic though, and so it was rather a shock to me to find some years ago that all those things which I had been taught were quintessentially conservative and Catholic were, in fact, neither, and that those with whom I have the most in common, in terms of valuing the arts and letters and Western Culture (though not to the exclusion of Eastern or Northern or Southern Culture) let alone the cry of the poor and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan, in defiance of the complacent and strong — were nearly all on the liberal side, and a good many of them not Christian at all. Being, however, a Baltimore Catechism kid, this didn't cause me quite the stress that such discovery — the existence of the Virtuous Pagans real, not hypothetical, and known named individuals, not caricatures — often causes conservative Christians of various denominations: we traditional Catholics of the Baltimore Catechism at least, know with Lewis and others that the Lord, if we are right and He exists, is intelligent enough to know His own without any guidance from earthly rule-makers.

At any rate, I have no patience for those who focus on the less-than-handful of lines concerning homosexuality in the Bible and ignore the literally hundreds upon hundreds of lines condemning avarice, oppression, callousness towards poverty and suffering, and egregious waste, and call themselves faithful Christians; I believe the appropriate comparison  would be, Gagging on gnats while swallowing camels. —Woe to the complacent in Zion!  And the Novus Ordo, imperfect though it may be, is far preferable to a sublimely-eloquent service you can't even hear, let alone understand, even if one does read some Latin and have a facing-page translation to follow along with, because it's rattled along at express-train speed. I learned far more Latin attending the Novus Ordo than I ever would have gleaned at the Tridentine Mass, and after I attended one, I finally realized why the old devout ladies in the traditional, ethnic parish, simply prayed their Rosaries all the way through the liturgy, right through the very Consecration, just as they'd been raised to do in the days of the Silent Service, which had scandalized me (well, not really, but close to it, leading towards pride) as a kid.

So now you know enough to dismiss what I say out of hand without even bothering to read it.

(Just remember, though, that "liberal" literally means generous, and those whose hearts are too stony to bleed, according to the Easter Vigil readings, must have them taken out and replaced with hearts of flesh for salvation, so that their inhumanity will not be an embarrassment to the God we claim to adore…)