How to tell if you're a radical.

Can you let it go?  Let the other person have his or her opinion?  Shrug it off?  Talk politics without raising your voice or casting aspersions or calling names?

I don't talk politics at the store.  Occasionally, by hints and by both of us carefully feeling our way, I'll realize that I have a compadre in the store and we'll relax and commiserate.  No harm done.

Often, I'll go ahead and declare.  "I'm a liberal democrat..." just as a warning that we're wandering into dangerous territory.

It's all right.  You can disagree.  Please let me disagree.

The world won't end, the country won't go up in flames -- it probably isn't the "worst" or the "best" and we'll just muddle through as usual.

Seriously, we're all Americans -- even us pinkie, commie, socialist bleeding heard liberals.

(Actually, I think I'm a pragmatic liberal.)