When I was in high school government, our government teacher gave us a ten question test to see where we would land on the political spectrum. I remember thinking that test was bogus back then and that point was rammed home more so when my classmates (and teacher) labeled me as a liberal leaning communist anyway. See, I grew up in Clear Lake and in Clear Lake you are automatically a liberal if you vote Democratic. I went on to TCU where I was also a liberal for voting Democratic.
In fact, I've spent my entire life feeling the need to apologize to a lot of people for my politics. Of course, I don't really apologize, but it just seems like I'm on the wrong side of the coin everywhere I've been. That changed in the summer of 2008 when I went to my local precinct to vote in the primary. There were about two hundred people there. 197 of them were for the Democrats and three of them were for the Republicans. I remember the days when the situation was reversed.
These are confusing times for all of us. On the one hand, we have a majority in the House, Senate, and White House that is/was sizable. On the other hand, it seems like loud-mouth rednecks are dominating the airwaves these days. You have a Republican party that Abraham Lincoln and even Barry Goldwater wouldn't recognize and you have right-wing yahoos that dominate talk radio and cable.
I suppose the point is that it's hard to say what is up, down, left, or right anymore. More importantly, it is hard to say what is in the middle anymore. Most Americans don't think in terms of donkeys or elephants. A higher percentage of people are independent than belong in either party individually. JKugler's blog today talks about Bob Dole's call for bipartisanship. The problem is that we are beyond partisanship. We are into cut and run, win at all costs politics. Most Americans see issues. Most politicians see coalitions and midterm elections.
I always thought of myself as a moderate, but now I don't even know. The center in American politics seems to have moved so far to the right that's it's hard to say what anything is anymore. If you read the bios of the bloggers here you will note that I am one of the few that is not a former Republican. I don't know if I will ever vote for a Republican candidate for president in my lifetime. The way things are going it seems like the odds of that happening are less and less. Does this make me a liberal? I guess that's your call. I really don't care anymore.
From a young age I saw how evil conservatives were. From the "kill them all" comments and the racist remarks, it didn't take much to realize what they are all about.
There is no confusion, they make up roughly 20% of the country. They just scream loud. They have dominated domestic and foreign policy for decades, yet they think they are a "sleeping giant"... Hello? anyone paying attention? Just listen to the things they say, and their true intentions will become clear. HATE and FEAR
In their cloistered little world you and I don't matter. We are just obstacles in the way of their Nihilistic Theocracy... Think that is a contradiction in terms? Just look at their actions.
There are some labels for you...
I guess what I long more for is reasonable debate. I know most people here are like-minded people. There is a lot of comfort in that. I have a hard time with arguing with people who treat me as some kind of extremist because I'm not to the right of Reagan. You try to throw facts their way, but you might as well be speaking Swahili.
I used to love engaging people on the other side. That's one of things I took from the Kennedy coverage this weekend. There was a time when that happened. I guess I'm trying to figure out if it is just my imagination or are we becoming a nation that can't discuss our differences rationally.
Excellent writeup.
Absolutely. And although it may seem like the center has moved to the right it really hasn't. The electorate has been thru eight years of gov't excess and a wandering national moral compass and begs for someone else to point the way. Scott, don't sweat which party you're voting for, just vote in the direction you believe is right; the people that know you will still love you regardless.This afternoon on NPR there was an interview with the author of "The Death of Conservatism", who outlined that conservative thought, in its present form, would be unrecognizable to its founder, Edmund Burke. He postulates that the conservatism of today is more "revanchism", (from the French word for "revenge"), devolving into sniping *against* things in order to make up losses in other areas. I can hardly wait til this book shows up. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400068843/ref=pd_luc_mri?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance)
I grew up in the north, and moved to 4 different states in as many years before I ended up in Houston. I believe those definitions change according to the political climate of where you are located.
When I am inside the loop, I feel that I am at home. I have worked there for 19 years. But I have never LIVED there, inside the loop. My 'home' is in a lower end sub-division of a well-to do-suburb. My husband and I are a team. Our beliefs are close, and both of our families were blue collar. But his was blue collar Democratic and mine blue collar Republican.
We shoot pool. In bars. In suburbia, Texas.
My tongue is sore from biting it, yet every once in awhile we will meet a kindred soul. At the caucus, I met both a player from another team whose wife is the Dem. precinct chair, and the woman who delivers our mail. It was so nice to 'belong' for a couple of hours. (For that reason alone, I hope we keep caucuses).
I think as humans we all have a need to 'belong', to find political soulmates. The problem is that it sets up an us/them dynamic. Maybe there are many of us who feel lost these days, Scott, and in our anxiety and longing to be a part of something, we have collectively created monsters that are now out of control.
The squeaky wheels have always gotten the grease, and the extremists are the ones squeaking the loudest and getting the air time. It seems to be rather tilted toward the right unfortunately.
Until we go all "Peter Finch" on them and get mad as hell and not take it any more, it won't change.
Everyone is griping about "where's the change you promised me, PBO?"
I say take the Ghandi approach: you must become the change you want to see.
Everything else is just noise, and there's way too much of that these days.
I think that "labels" are a good way to know "what's in the can". My brother-in-law used to work at Safeway. He got "unlabeled" cans of goods for 7 cents a piece when the retail cost for such "known" commodities was around 30-45 cents. Unfortunately, when dining at his house one evening we had meatloaf with brussel sprouts, brussel sprouts and, brussel sprouts.
Although I agree that left and right are sometimes hard to make out. Unless you are right wing religious fanatic. Then EVERYTHING is "left" to you.
I disagree that the American political "center" has moved much. Maybe a little right of center. But JUST because ALL the radio loudmouths, morons and idiots seem to come from that point on the political spectrum, doesn't mean anything other than they are "very vocal" and generate profit for their respective networks.
The fact that Obama was elected president, I think, shows that MOST of the country is thinking correctly and properly attuned and aligned.
BUT, (and this is a BIG but) there are WAY too many people who are NOT informed and are TOO EASILY led astray by the big mouth, blow hard, right wing morons because they get SO MUCH exposure without being dutifully contested and exposed.
Cable TV and the internet is only causing these idiots to propagate. It's a BIG problem. We MUST find a way to fight them on their own terms.
I think there is room in the country for left, middle and right. AS has been said before, it is the maniacs, radicals and morons on the extremes of both ends of the political spectrum that we MUST find a way to deal with.