Myths of the Political Spectrum

It is important to remember that the terms we apply to those on the political spectrum are fluid. For instance, conservatives in Europe get their name from trying to maintain the status quo, including all the liberal programs that have already been instituted. Conservatives in America get their name from trying to conserve our First Principles (which would necessitate removing the big, liberal programs). When they introduced their ideas, the Founding Fathers were liberals, today adhering to their philosophy makes one a conservative. In the 1860s, the abolitionist Republicans were the liberals, in the 1960s the Democrats were the liberals, but being a Democrat with a 1960s philosophy today will get you branded a conservative member of the party.

And so the terms “conservative” and “liberal” find meaning only in relation to each other on specific issues. It may be more helpful, however, to utilize the terms Left and Right.

It has become, however, some kind of “common wisdom” that communism represents the extreme Left of the political spectrum and fascism (and fundamentalist Christians) represents the extreme Right. In analysis, however, such thinking make little sense.

Americans seem to be in little agreement these days about fundamental principles. All sides use the same vocabulary, but the words mean different things to each of them. In order to have a meaningful discussion, we need to reestablish a principle of what precisely constitutes a “Left” idea and what precisely constitutes a “Right” idea.

I think there is little disagreement that Progressives, FDR’s New Deal, Johnson’s Great Society and Socialized Medicine all represent ideas of the Left. Supply-Side Economics, repeal of social programs and the primacy of individual liberty above all represents ideas of the Right.

It should not be too much of a stretch to state that government intervention and programs as solutions to problems (social, economic, etc) finds itself on the Left, and individual actions and free market solutions find themselves on the Right.

COMMUNISM
This is why both sides seem to agree that the logical extension of positive government intervention into economy is communism. In communism, the state owns all industry and means of production. In short, the state micromanages the economy.

THEOCRACY
But what happens when a different issue is selected? What about social concerns like morality? It doesn’t make any sense that the logical opposite of government control of the economy is government control of morality. The opposite of complete government control of the economy is no government control of the economy. In a theocracy, such as we find in Iran, the government (violently) controls all aspects of public morality, just as it controls the economy in communism. The degree and general philosophy behind the state domination is the same in both cases. Because of this, state control of morality must be placed to the left of the center mark. Thus, we can see that the fundamentalist Christian “right”…those usually termed “social conservatives” are actually part of the big government Left (remember, “conservative” is a relative term, but “Left” is not).

If you’re still hesitant about this, consider the following, the government telling you what car you can drive is an initiative of the Left; the government telling you how much money you must give to other citizens in the form of social programs is an initiative of the Left; the government telling you what words you can use (political correctness, a form of legislated morality itself) is an initiative of the Left. So why should people who advocate allowing the government to dictate whom one can marry be associated with the individual-liberty-loving Right? Well, there is a reason (an oversimplified, invalid one), which I will get to in a bit. In short, whether the government is endorsing with force of law the morality of homosexual acceptance or the morality of heterosexual supremacy doesn’t matter. In both cases, the government is intruding into the bedroom and defining what is “acceptable.” Government intervention = Left. Therefore, “social conservatives” are actually of the Left.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “What about abortion? The anti-abortion crowd wants to limit a right and define a morality!” If you said that, however, you would be half right. Even those Right of center (although not the “extreme” Right) do define some kind of morality, but that is (as I’ve said) the “good” of individual liberty and Constitutional protection of rights. The anti-abortion argument is standing up for the rights (the real, Constitutionally guaranteed ones) the unborn child has vs the “right” of reproductive freedom (not anywhere in the Constitution) so closely guarded by the pro-abortion crowd. What has happened here is a difference in terminology. The anti-abortion crowd believes the unborn child is just that (a person), whereas the pro-abortion crowd does not (and therefore it has no rights). Until consensus can be reached on that matter, no headway will be made in resolving the dispute between both camps.

And if you still doubt me, consider that until abortion (and now gay marriage) became issues, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians leaned Democrat (and even for a while afterward, see their support for Carter in 1980). No particular end of the spectrum (Left or Right) has a monopoly on “social justice” (a core Christian concept), but when it is desired that the government should mandate and administer said “social justice,” that is a step in the direction of both Communism (greater economic control) and theocracy (greater moral control). When the government tells you how you must think and feel (like in a theocracy), that is of the Left…and the Left *does* hold the monopoly on that (political correctness, multiculturalism, diversity, eco-sensitivity, affirmative action…the list goes on and on).

FASCISM
And now we come to fascism. This is not necessarily Nazism per se, but even that still falls on the Left. Eugenics and state population planning were core tenets of the Progressive movement (from which modern liberalism springs). Fascism makes use of government control (but not ownership) of the private sector (remember, the Nazis were the “National SOCIALISTS”). Perhaps “control” is too strong a word. “Influence?” Hm…not strong enough. How about “government *bullying* of private industry and the means of production?” Yes, that is far more accurate. Anyone who knows how fascists run things knows that it’s all about invasive state control. Economically, it’s just this side of communism. Ideologically, it’s just this side of theocracy (either there is a state religion, as in Reformation-era England, or the advocacy of a “religion of the state” as in Nazi Germany). The difference between the ideological aspects of fascism and theocracy is that in a theocracy the religion controls the state, in fascism the state controls the religion and utilizes it to maintain control and loyalty. Both are about government control. Both are Left.

SOCIALISM, PROGRESSIVISM AND MODERN LIBERALISM
Continuing Rightward on the spectrum, we run into various forms of socialism and Progressivism. All advocate different degrees of government control. Whereas socialism tends to limit itself to economic matters, Progressivism contains elements of both economic as well as social engineering. To help you understand the differences (as there is much overlap), I’ve prepared the following list:
Laws favoring trade unions: socialism.
Public education: Progressivism.
Bank and industry bailouts: socialism.
Government healthcare (in whole or in part): Progressivism.
Progressive income tax: socialism.
Population control/engineering: Progressivism.
Government mandated eco-sensitivity: Progressivism

In many ways, the Republicans are where the Democrats were thirty years ago, but they still find themselves “Right of Center.” They advocate government control in some areas (for instance, they would probably not disassemble the Federal Reserve Bank), but tend to eschew social engineering and welfare-state social programs on the whole (even though they would not likely repeal Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare at this point, they would not have come up with them on their own). They are somewhat to the Left of the original philosophy of the Founding Fathers

LIBERTARIANS
Somewhat to the Right of the Founding Fathers we find libertarians, “tenth-ers,” and most of those who attend the Tea Parties. Most of these groups would probably do away with Social Security and the whole Great Society tomorrow if they could. A good number argue against the Federal Reserve, US membership in the UN and the existence of a (Federal) Department of Education (which has only been around since Carter).

These are people who value individual liberty above all else. They realize that the American concept of rights is founded on individual property rights and would not likely stray left of Reagan on many issues.

A central tenet of their belief structure is that government, instead of being a solid answer to a particular problem, is usually found to be the cause of any problem one can define. By and large, they would like to see the power of the Federal government limited to national defense, interstate disputes and commerce regulations (when needed), and maintaining interstate infrastructure. Most of the people who put themselves in the categories mentioned in this section believe in laws, but laws to protect individual liberty not to mandate belief or restrict action (beyond what is necessary to keep order in the streets). These are the folks you are likely to find quoting the Constitution and holding it as the final arbiter of Federal authority (with a very strict interpretation of it).

This is a wide niche, however, and there are those who are not very enamored with “law” and only marginally more enamored with “order.” This is NOT your average tea partier, but rather your Montana Militiamen and Unabomber – people who still believe in SOMETHING, but tend to put that in the context of extreme individual liberty.

ANARCHISTS
And so now we approach the extreme Right of the spectrum. If we place increased government control (communism) on the Left, we then know it’s logical extension on the Right is not Fascism (which still requires phenomenal amounts of state control – “statism” as has recently become popular), but the complete absence of ALL government control and laws. These are the Anarchists, and they represent a complete dedication to individual liberty without any other guiding principle or societal structure.

The Democrats, Big Labor, and the Future of Prosperity in the United States

I was going to post on this subject for Labor Day, but as I spent the weekend out of state, and all my germane points were already hit last week, I will allow this link to suffice for this week’s entry.

Now that summer vacation season is over, I hope there will be no more interruptions in my regular posting.

PSA #1

I’ll be in San Francisco next week, and so I won’t be continuing with what I hope to be the final part of my climate series until after I return.  In the meantime, treat this as a public service announcement:

This is a reminder to those on both the right and left (although in my experience applies far more on the left side than the right), that if you haven’t read, or aren’t at least reading, the health care bill, you don’t know what you’re talking about and have nothing of value to contribute to the debate on its merits.

Dr. Changebluff: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The CO2. (Part I)

For 28 of my 30 years on this planet, I have been an ardent supporter of theories of global warming and, later, “global climate change.” Well, during the years in the beginning I wasn’t really an ardent supporter of anything, but I accepted the wisdom of the prevailing theory of the day and had no particular objections.

I had long been taught those theories (in my youth it was only “global warming”) exclusively and had no idea that any dissent was possible, much less credible. I distinctly remember covering the chapter on “the greenhouse effect” in Mrs. Williams 7th grade science class, although I was already familiar with virtually every one of the definitions and concepts already. I also distinctly remember watching the tailpipe of a parent’s car idle at the bus stop one winter morning in second grade and trying to imagine how much greenhouse gas they were putting out (although the alarm was being raised on aerosol cans equally with cars back then, or so it seemed to me).

In fact, when I started to become more politically involved after the 2000 election, it was a point of disagreement between myself and the conservative “pundits” who seemed to have a more sensible philosophy on government, economy and foreign policy in virtually all other areas. Another personal experience I distinctly remember was a 2007 conversation with my brother in which I expressed concerns that conservative voices – which had wonderful ideas that would increase our prosperity, security and prestige – were relegating themselves to irrelevancy by clinging to such a ridiculous position as that of a global climate change skeptic.

But the more research I did, the more convinced I became that the skeptics at least had concerns that both seemed reasonable and, rather than being addressed in scientific manner, were simply ignored by the western governments, scientists beholden to those governments, and the education and media institutions that I was finding were even more beholden to those governments.

The more I looked, the more “manmade global climate change” seemed to be a house of cards. Sure, once the fundamental assumptions are accepted, it all seems very consistent and reasonable, but I have yet to come across a “manmade global climate change” supporter who has ever questioned or looked into those fundamental assumptions apart from pulling up the government-produced reports used to justify their bids to increase regulations (the very things being impeached by the objections).

In the coming weeks, I intend to walk you through my journey, as best as I can remember the major twists and turns that it took, in an effort to explain how I personally went from global warming supporter to skeptic.

Ahead of the Curve

I’d just like to note that I was ahead of the curve on The Matrix metaphor:

Greetings from the Matrix

You know, the more I think about the political events and discuss them with Democratic Party supporters, the more I sympathize with Joe Pantoliano’s character, Cypher, from the film The Matrix.  This is not to say that all the Democrats I’ve been talking to have made me feel this way, but more on that a little later in this blog.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, the Matrix was a vast dreamworld in which all but a few human beings on earth were living.  We all thought we lived in the “real” world, but that “real” world was just a virtual reality illusion in which we were placed by our overlords to keep us from seeing the real reality and fighting back.  The leader of the resistance would meet recruits in the Matrix and offer them a symbolic choice, one of two pills.  If they took the red pill and they would get an answer to the question “What is the Matrix?”  If they took the blue pill they would go back into the dreamworld and forget that they had ever met with the resistance leader.

The people who selected the red pill didn’t know that they would get their answer in the form of being physically ejected from the machine and being forced to live in the real real world, a dark and unpleasant place where humanity was weak and dirty and on the brink of extinction.  Everything they thought they knew about the world was wrong, and the real picture was very bleak.

One member of the resistance, a man named Cypher, came to regret his decision to live in the real real world and eventually betrays the resistance to the overlords in exchange for being put back into the dreamworld of the Matrix, along with promises of prosperity and that he would not remember anything of his time in the real real world.  In short, he wanted to voluntarily subscribe to a lie that was actually placing humanity in peril, because he could be happier living the lie rather than grasping the full scope of how bad thing were and fighting what seemed to be a losing battle.  His famous line, “I should’ve taken the blue pill,” has become synonymous in some circles for choosing not to get involved in a cause, and forgetting that there even is a cause to refuse.

I see great symbolism in the choice of the red/blue color in the pills.

And I’ve sometimes envied those who wake up in the morning and take the blue pill for the day.  The more I look at everything from global warming to government healthcare,  the more I see duplicity and ulterior motives coming from the Democratic party.  I have come increasingly to see them as part of a global political movement, truly Orwellian in scope, that leans toward socialism and the statism that is required to keep a socialist system afloat.  The more socialist the system, the more statism is necessary.

This global political movement is driven by several key points of ideology.  Now, I won’t go into this any farther here, as each of those points will become essays in their own right.  For now, I’d like to stick to my metaphor.

It’s not limited to politics, however, the mechanism by which people imperil themselves for a comfort zone seems to be psychologically common.  For instance, when discussing with a relative simple steps she might take to deter a break-in after there were a couple in the neighborhood, she grew very uncomfortable at the prospect of replacing windows or altering any part of her daily routine.  Whereas a break-in would be devastating for her (she’s very sentimental and attached to the things she owns), going out of her way to take any steps to avert such a disaster were out of the question.  She preferred to rely on the statistic (now no longer accurate) that break-ins were rare in her nice neighborhood, that her neighbors (most of whom spend the daylight hours at work) would call the police for her, and a bumper-sticker motto of dubious veracity that, “if somebody really wants to get in, you can’t stop them.”

The only thing she would consider at all was an alarm system, basically abdicating her other responsibilities to protect her own property and put complete faith in a team of strangers to do it for her.

This is where we come back to politics.  We are in a struggle for our prosperity and our very way of life.  There are some in high levels of government who are out to abrogate our national sovereignty much like leaders in the EU nations have done, others who mean well but whose ideas are myopic in that they provide band-aid fixes for symptoms of problems while destroying safeguards against tyranny and individual liberties.  Both groups know that the rank and file voter would never support the full extension of what they are trying to bring about, and so they craft the “good reasons” behind their “real reasons” for advocating certain policies.

That way, global cool- er, -warm, er, “global climate change,” for the supporting voter, is about saving the planet, for most of the Democratic politicians is about revenue for wasteful, failing social programs that keep them in power, and for the true puppet masters is about control, statism and diminishing the overall prosperity, influence and power of Western nations in favor of an “egalitarian,” utopian global agenda.

Healthcare follows a similar tack.  For the supporting voter it’s about believing their costs will go down and preventing millions from dying in the streets (which doesn’t happen) for lack of lifesaving care.  For the rank-and-file Democrat it’s about solidifying voting blocs in their favor by making a dependent class out of virtually every American (much more than the smaller dependent classes manufactured by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Welfare…ever wonder why recipient groups are those most “in the bag” for Democrats?), while for the bigwigs it’s again about global control and moving the US one step closer to an economic and political EU-style “union” with neighboring countries who already have disastrous social healthcare.  Getting to dictate social policy through such a system is an added bonus.

But now there I go sounding like a conspiracy theorist.  It’s downright uncomfortable to have an inkling of big, evil things coming to destroy everything you know and love, and the only possible defense being like-minded people banding together and, against great odds, fighting a multi-generation effort to erroneously re-educate Americans about their rights and render many Democratic Party dependents.  It’s so much easier to dismiss it all as nonsense – without ever doing several hours of research yourself in sources neither owned by the government or taking an avowedly pro-administration stance – than it is to truly wrap your head around the peril in which you now live your life.  In your lifetime you may well see the end of this Republic, not in name, but in every meaningful way that made us a free, productive and prosperous people.

Now, there are many of you Democrat supporters who are not simply Kool-Aid drinkers.

But being truly informed about things like global climate statistics, economic effects of cap-and-trade, the true cost of government meddling in housing markets, banking, and all quarters of American private industry take  a lot of time and effort.  And surely those in government couldn’t possibly be out to hurt the country, right?  Well, I’m telling you that they can and they are.  Don’t simply look to politicians’ spin statements, or shamefully biased “news” sources like cable news networks or the New York Times and call it a day.  Do the digging.  Many of you with whom I’ve spoken aren’t happy.  The political and economic things that have the opportunity to permeate your everyday lives perturb you.  You know something is wrong.

You now stand at a crossroads.  You can do one of two things.  On one hand, you can take the easy route.  Do nothing you’re not doing already.  You can simply try to ignore it, or occasionally check MSNBC or the Times long enough to assuage your suspicions and go on about your life.  On the other hand, you can start to independently educate yourself about these matters, and perhaps you will find that you’ve been rooting for the wrong team.  Why is it you pull the blue lever every time anyway?  Do you really agree with that party’s policies?  Including their effects?

I don’t think that most of you really do.  The bumper-sticker slogans sound good – that’s what they’re designed to do.  But they mask things like real costs, real effects and real effectiveness (or complete lack thereof).  But that’s also what they’re designed to do, oversimplify and distract from “inconvenient truths.”  What if you don’t like what you find?  Will you simply reject it and go back to life as usual?  Ignoring that little voice nagging in the back of your mind would make you a conscious Kool-Aid drinker, far worse than the poor slob who really doesn’t know any better.  Or, do you fight?

And you fight in the voting booth, starting in 2010.  You fight by attending your town business and planning meetings.  You fight by running for local office yourself if you don’t like the choices that keep appearing on the ballot time after time.

Yes, it’s hard.  Yes, it’s uncomfortable.  Yes, it’s unpleasant, inconvenient, aggravating, frustrating, dirty work that nobody really wants to do except those who have agendas to push.  So soon you will step into a voting booth and again be faced with a red and a blue lever.

Which pill will you take?

Teatime

I’m updating this blog early, because this week’s essay is about my experience at the Middletown, NJ tea party.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, NJ pays some of the highest property taxes  in the country.  This is not due to wonderful services, mind you, but rather because the state finds itself awash in waste and corruption.

A situation very much like that with the federal government.  So, at its heart, those who organize and attend these tea parties are those of us who are dissatisfied with what we see in our governments (state and federal) on this note and feel unrepresented by both parties.  With the exception of a brief spate of welfare reform in the 1990s, many conservatives feel they have not had a voice in government since 1988.  “Republican” does not necessarily (or even often) equal “Conservative.”  And if you think that the Evangelicals in the Mid-West represent “Conservative,” or that they comprise a majority of the Right, then you have bought into the misinformation and have no clue what the difference is between Right and Left.

But that is a subject for other essays.  Back to the tea party.

There were many patriotic people there from both major political parties as well as numerous people who were unaffiliated, or affiliated with smaller parties.  Far from simply being a “Republican Pep Rally,” these were people who deeply believe in America’s founding principles and want America to once again stand astride the world as the land of liberty and prosperity.

After interviewing me, several people asked me to speak when an open mic was declared later, and so I did.  My comments are below:

“Where do we go from here?  We have an ideological fight on our hands.  The Left has made a concerted effort for the last few generations to re-educate the American people in terms of the nature of our rights and the role of responsible government.  We are now at the point where entire generations are wholly ignorant of the nature of our rights and the role of responsible government – the reason there is an America to begin with.  Worse yet, they now have a belief entirely at odds with our founding principles.  You can’t argue something is unconstitutional to a person who doesn’t care about the Constitution.

“Yes, we need to fight them on the issues, but we cannot only focus on them.  We must fight their re-education and re-principling of the American people.

“It won’t be easy; we must compete with public education, the universities, media and Hollywood.

“We have a long road ahead of us, re-asserting justification for the Constitution and the United States, but if the Left were able to pervert it in three generations, surely, right-thinking, sensible Americans can turn the tide and save the greatest experiment upon which humanity has ever embarked.

“Start with our children – the Left already has…”

Talking to Ourselves

We conservatives need to change our strategy because, despite the groundswell of emotion and action to be seen in events like the Tea Parties, for the most part, we’re talking to ourselves, and nothing gets done that way.  In order to make any headway for your ideology, you have to talk to the other guy.  The Left figured this out fifty years ago.  Since that time, their message (social values and otherwise) has gotten out, in particular to children, in the form of television, movies and public education starting at age 5 and lasting through university.   Now, I know what you’re thinking; talking to many of those on the Left with whom you cross paths in a given day is usually about as enjoyable as performing your own dental work and as effective as quite literally banging your head against a wall.  But it doesn’t have to be.

As I was reading a required text for an English MA, it struck me what has been going on with the ideological dialogue in this country for quite some time.  In his book, Falling Into Theory; Conflicting Views on Reading Literature, David Richter defines “theory” as “the talk we talk when a consensus breaks down, when we begin to disagree about fundamental principles and to argue about which principles are truly fundamental.”

For those of you who are not graduate-level English majors, allow me to say that there has been an explosion in the different ways we approach literature in the last half of the last century: Freudian, Marxist, post-colonial, new historicist, feminist, new criticism, Africanist, deconstructionist, nativist, semiotic, &c, &c.  Each of those theories springs from a shift in fundamental principles and assumptions from the others. They can each insist on their interpretations until they’re blue in the face and never get anywhere.  Not only that, but the more each side finds itself shouting into the wind, the more frustrated they can get – anger rises and the discussion becomes more shrill.

Does this sound familiar?  The “falling into theory” that the literature field has done did not happen in a vacuum.  It was precipitated by a similar shift in the social order at large and has affected politics even more.

The Right and the Left have lost consensus about the nature of government and the nature of rights; this period of political rancor and stonewalling will not give way to one of more prosperous productivity until a consensus is again reached.  This was driven home to me when, in private conversation with some personal friends who read my previous article, it became immediately clear that while to a conservative things like healthcare and housing are unquestionably not “rights,” it is equally and unquestionably clear to his liberal counterpart that they are the most fundamental of “rights.”

America finds itself at a tipping point as the last of the pre-FDR generation dies off and the 20-30somethings that have taken their place in the voting booths have spent their lives indoctrinated with liberal ideology and social values from the time they were old enough to speak.  Even at home, their parents (the 50-60somethings) grew up entirely post-FDR and were encouraged to rebel against their parents’ values throughout the 60s and 70s.

The conservative (and historically accurate) argument that christening such things “rights” is completely at odds with not only our Constitution, but the entire concept of rights that fueled the creation of this nation, will get the conservative nowhere fast.  Consensus has also broken down on the issue of the importance of the Constitution and its ideology.  The liberal will argue that “times change” and anything in the Constitution that conflicts with their utopian vision is cruel and should simply be discarded.

That is what we’re up against.  If American conservatism and individual liberty are to survive, those on the Right need to begin a campaign of justifying our founding principles to those who have been raised to reject them.  The Left has spent the last half-century in a concerted (and phenomenally successful) attempt to undermine those very principles as irrelevant.  While they were doing that, those on the Right kept fighting the individual battles without addressing the underlying liberal movement that fueled the opposition.  Because of this, the Right seeks to limit the power of the Federal Government as a threat to our liberties, while the Left favors increasing that power because a powerful central government is required to compel the unpleasant burdens that will need to be borne in order to achieve some semblance of their utopian vision.

To the conservative, individual liberty is the reason there is an America.  To the liberal, individual liberty frequently stands in the way of a “collective good” which they consider the primary purpose of government (the fact that the government then gets to define the term doesn’t seem to bother them).

And so we now have Right/Left, conservative/liberal, red/blue discussions similar to those in the literature field described above.  Conservatives will never be able to have a productive discussion about national healthcare, auto bailouts or “stimulus packages” without first having the discussion about which fundamental principles are important, which ones are right and which ones are wrong.  And it needs to be done in terms that actually matter to “the other guy.”  This doesn’t mean we have to change our principles, just the language by which we justify them.

So when it comes to making headway in reinforcing our ideology, conservatives should neither be arguing the forest nor the trees, but rather why they need to be planted in the first place.

In principio creavit Patricius blogum suum

…well, in the beginning of that particular blog, anyway…

My intention with this blog is to produce thoughts and musings from which you can all feed your brains and debate. Perhaps you will learn something new about another point of view – and just maybe learn something new about your own as well. I will attempt to publish on Mondays. I’ve never tried to keeps something like this going with a self-imposed deadline before, so forgive me if the timetable is a little off, especially in the beginning.

Regards,

Patrick Sarsfield