When you’re a conservative, it’s just about impossible, unless you’re the sort of person who wins million dollar lotteries, to not have some friends and relatives who are liberal. The secret, I’ve found, to maintaining even slightly cordial relationships with them is to never share your honest opinions about anything important, sliding through social occasions discussing the weather, sports and, well, more weather.

The truth is I have removed a fair number of people from my social circle over the past few years simply because they support Barack Obama’s policies and respond favorably to his race and class warfare rhetoric. That may strike some people as petty and intolerant, but what would it say about me if I associate with people whose beliefs, values and behavior, I abhor? Why on earth would I want to spend time with those whom I am convinced are doing their utmost to destroy the nation I love?

I understand that most people who vote for people like Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Waxman and Reid, are benign. They may be great neighbors and wonderful, caring parents, but they are also enablers. When people help addicts feed their habits, they’re not acting out of love, but out of fear that if they behave responsibly they will no longer be loved by the addict. But of course the addict doesn’t love anyone or anything but his drug of choice.

Liberals are by nature bullies, which is why in Hollywood, they openly boast about blacklisting conservatives and why, in Washington and the mass media, they bludgeon Republicans who stand by their principles, referring to them as fascists, racists, obstructionists and hostage-taking terrorists.

Ironically, I have found it easier to draw a line between myself and the liberals I know personally than between myself and the repugnant creatures in the entertainment world. I would love to be able to boycott the movies and TV shows that feature the likes of Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Julia Roberts, Alec Baldwin, Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, George Clooney, Ed Asner, Larry David and Morgan Freeman, but the truth is I lack the requisite amount of character to go cold turkey even when these left-wing turkeys are involved.

Furthermore, in the interests of full disclosure, I should confess that for a long time I was a Democrat. But, in my own defense, I was never a liberal. For those of a tender age, I should hasten to mention that there was a time when it was possible to be one without being the other. So, for instance, I could be a registered Democrat while simultaneously opposing unilateral disarmament. I could be a Democrat and still believe that Whitaker Chambers was telling the truth and that Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg were lying when they denied being Soviet spies. I could oppose Jim Crow laws while at the same time regarding racial quotas as reverse racism. I could be angry about Watergate and still oppose the slandering and libeling of Clarence Thomas. I could even be a Democrat and still despise the universally beloved Walter Cronkite, whose pose as an objective newsman was as phony as Obama’s attempt to foist himself off as bi-partisan, for doing his best to make certain we didn’t win the Vietnam War.

These days, I’m not at all confident that a Democrat could make those distinctions. Not when Rep. Maxine Waters has the audacity to label Rep. Allen West, a retired military officer, an “oreo,” and not be denounced by the media, the NAACP or the Black Congressional Caucus.

Even when I was a Democrat, I knew that nobody was entitled to sneak into this country. And if he was found out, he certainly wasn’t entitled to receive schooling, health care and financial aid. I also was bright enough to know that when a nation’s border consists of sand, deportation isn’t going to be much of a deterrent. Even I, at my present advanced age, can easily scale a non-existent wall.

I can understand why Rick Perry, running for governor in a state that has a huge Mexican population, would feel he had to speak out against a barrier on our southern border and had to promote in-state tuition for the offspring of illegal aliens. That doesn’t mean I approve, but politics isn’t a game for purists unless they have their hearts set on losing elections. However, when he appeared at the GOP debate and said that if we opposed his tuition policy we were heartless, and added that because the illegals had Hispanic names, it also meant we were racists, he stepped way too far over the line.

While it’s true that the children of illegal aliens had no say in the matter when it came to sneaking across our border, we all know that no one is ever entitled to profit from the commission of a crime. Just because the child of a bank robber, for instance, didn’t drive the getaway car doesn’t mean that he’s entitled to live off the ill-gotten loot.

So, although I had been delighted when Governor Perry tossed his 10-gallon hat into the ring, I’m no longer cutting him any slack. He didn’t simply misspeak; he went and stuck both of his expensive cowboy boots in his mouth. It had nothing to do with his lack of debating skills. It had everything to do with arrogance and stupidity. We’ve just endured three years of that combination, and we don’t need four more years of the same.

Perry simply had no business saying what he did. After all, if conservatives want to be gratuitously insulted by ignoramuses, they merely have to turn on MSNBC.