In her letter Nov. 7, Mary Jane Newell defined a liberal in her own terms. She says that most of the liberals she knows are rich white men, Hollywood actors, and a black president.

I would like to introduce myself to her. I am not rich. I am not a Hollywood actor. I am not black, and I certainly am not president.

She also refers to liberals as “elitist snobs.”

After years of consideration, I call myself a liberal. Living in North Paris, Maine, on a modest income hardly qualifies me as an elitist snob. I was the first person in my family to attend college. I hardly think that makes me an elitist.

Newell has performed one of the oldest rhetorical tricks: setting up an opponent by defining him and then attacking the definition.

I want everyone to have an equal opportunity for success. I want everyone to have a say in their own future. I want a country in which the common person can live his or her life without fear of discrimination and without being told how to live that life.

Liberals fought to end slavery, to give women the right to vote, to end segregation, to establish minimum wages and safer working conditions for workers, and to extend the liberties defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to all.

I could define a conservative to my own satisfaction and then attack that definition. I won’t.

Rodney Abbott, West Paris