It’s true that for a long time, an inexcusably long time, I was a registered Democrat. But even then, I never called myself a liberal. Because I came of age in the 1960s, I associated liberals with the punks I knew who called cops “pigs,” called soldiers “baby killers” and used any and all means to dodge the draft, and then had the hypocrisy to announce they did so because they were avowed pacifists.

Being in my 20s myself, I knew these people and I knew it was fear of battle or being bossed around by top sergeants, typically tough guys from the South, that motivated them to head off either to Canada or to one of the many left-wing shrinks who were willing to lie about their mental disorders and or verify they were homosexuals.

Fifty years later, they’re still hypocrites, but instead of being college students, they’re running colleges, TV networks, movie studios, solar panel companies and the New York Times. And, what’s more, they continue to lie. Most recently, a sample of journalists lied to a pollster about their political affiliation, a mere 28% admitting to being Democrats and 50% claiming to be registered Independents.

Inasmuch as we already know that at least 90% of those in the news game always vote for liberals and that their campaign contributions are even more lopsided than that, you have to wonder why they even bother lying about something as transparent as their political bias. All you really have to do is turn on the network news or pick up a daily newspaper, Time magazine, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair or any of the slick glossies devoted to fashion and cosmetics, to realize that they should, by all rights, be paid directly by the DNC for their propaganda efforts.

Ever since I heard the head of the NBA drop the hammer on Clippers owner Donald Sterling, I found myself wondering where Commissioner Adam Silver, who is nearly as spooky-looking as James Carville, got off thinking he had the authority to take the team away from its rightful owner. I mean, who the heck does he think he is? Harry Reid?

Even I know that California is a community property state, and I certainly knew that Sterling had a wife named Shelly because I kept hearing that she was suing her husband’s ex-paramour for the return of the two million dollars the old fool had lavished on her in the form of cash, cars, condo and, unfortunately for the big mouth, a cellphone.

If I know anything about Jewish wives and, regrettably, I do, Commissioner Silver would have an easier time trying to pry my dog’s chew toy away from her than taking the Clippers away from Mrs. Sterling.

It doesn’t happen too often, but every once in a while someone forwards something to me from the Internet that I haven’t seen before and that actually grabs my attention. In this case, it was a series of ways that one could easily identify a liberal. I mean aside from asking them if they happen to be journalists, judges, social workers, teachers, professors, illegal aliens, actors, musicians or convicted felons.

Here it is, with a few of my own modifications: (1) A liberal is someone who thinks Republicans are waging a war on women, but that the Muslim world isn’t. (2) A liberal is someone who says to a pregnant woman: “Don’t smoke, it’ll hurt your baby,” but tells her it’s quite okay to abort that same baby. (3) A liberal is someone who thinks Fox News lies, but Obama doesn’t. (4) A liberal is someone who lives in a gated community or behind a high wall, but says that a border fence won’t work. (5) A liberal is someone who wails about “corporate welfare,” but thinks it’s great that Obama bailed out General Motors to save union contracts and blew a billion tax dollars on certain-to-fail green energy companies in exchange for campaign contributions. (6) A liberal is someone who protested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and proclaimed the Patriot Act fascistic, until Barack Obama took office.

Finally, Pope Francis is at it again. He has now called upon the governments of the world to redistribute their wealth to the poor in order to put an end to what he calls the “economy of exclusion,” by which I assume he’s referring to capitalism. What he doesn’t bother explaining is that it is capitalism that allows the poor in America and the industrial West to live in, relatively speaking, the lap of luxury when compared to those who live in places where capitalism is just a rumor.

As my friend Jim Bass says, “Let him put his money where his mouth is, and start auctioning off the Vatican’s treasures.”

For my part, the more socialistic blather I hear bubbling out of his mouth, the more convinced I am that he should be identified as Pope Francis (D-VC).