I am tired of the assumption coming from conservatives that all liberals are just sitting around waiting for someone to take care of them. All the liberals I know work very hard to support themselves and pay their own way. We do, however, care about those less fortunate, the elderly, the ill, the homeless and hungry, children who are neglected and abused, and those persecuted for being different.

Although there are leaders of industries who treat employees well, it cannot be denied that workers are, and have been, exploited by some of those in charge of factories and businesses. Ten-hour days, six days a week, child labor, sweatshops, extremely low pay, no benefits, health care or retirement. Three million industrial jobs have vanished since Bush took office.

Liberals see the need of helping people help themselves through education, health care, work training, habitat for humanity, family planning and family counseling, We do prefer work fare to welfare. “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

Liberals care a lot about the environment. We believe we are borrowing the earth from our grandchildren.

In the parable from the Bible, the good Samaritan must have been a liberal, while conservatives passed the victim by on the other side of the road.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Nancy Willard, Woodstock