At various times in my life, I was, or, maybe, I tried to call myself a conservative and other times I called myself a liberal. I've finally seen and heard enough to say conclusively that I have no idea why I wasted my time trying to understand which one of those things I am. I'll go a step further on this, dear anonymous reader, that what I have to say is the same for you, regardless of what you believe. Ready? Let's go…
The first thing we should realize is that our language must reflect what is real and what we feel instead of trying to make what is real and what we feel fit our language. So we need to start by at least allowing for the possibility that there isn't a magic line out there with the left hand side being liberal and the right hand side being conservative and people fall somewhere along on that line.
Ok, but let's start assuming that line exists. How do I know where I fall on that line? Principles? Let's try that. My principle is that we should protect life. Easy principle, right? So when I think we should protect life, that means that we should not kill people for crimes no matter how heinous. Neither should we celebrate abortion as a form of birth control. Rather, we should try to ensure no woman (or no family, really) finds itself in need of an abortion. But, of course, once someone is to the point of whether she should have an abortion or not, I have nothing to do with that decision. To me, that protects life. I like life. You could say I am certainly not Anti-Life and am thus Pro-Life. So my principle on the face falls to the conservative side of the line but the actual implementation of those principles look liberal. On that alone, I'll say the whole line idea is broken and there is no line.
What is there, then? Here again I need to interject an assumption: I assume we need government. I see government as, essentially, a union that all Americans are part of (taxes are dues???). It's the one entity that has no other goal than to look out for our well-being in every single aspect. Pharmaceutical companies look out for our well-being in the doctor's office, but what if the factories themselves pollute? Car companies look out for our well-being by allowing us to get up and move, but what if the cars aren't safe? Government looks at all aspects all the time and we elect experts from among us to do the looking out.
Ok, so the question again is since we don't have a line between liberal and conservative to judge how we vote for people, what do we have? I posit this: we vote based how folks will or won't do whatever it is they do. Using our most divisive topic again, one may vote for Candidate Smith because he protects life by expanding education and reach out so people have a better chance to never be in a position to consider an abortion. Candidate Jones protects life by working to make abortion itself illegal and some folks may vote for him for that reason. Here's another: Candidate Anderson protects health by taxing tobacco and limiting alcohol to people over 21 while Candidate McSmith (I'm bad at conjuring up common names…) protects health by making alcohol illegal (harkening back to the 18th amendment and the Volstead Act…those cursed goddamn things…).
It's clear, I think, that Candidates Smith, Jones, Anderson and McSmith all have good intentions. They all look to protect the lives and health of Americans. So how do we decide? Some people, I think, would look at strict prohibitions set down by the government as bad in some way. Either they're ineffective (the war on drugs is still raging), overly-costly (higher incarceration rates), or they are just not the sort of things government should be doing (it's the job of parents to push around their kids, after all). Others may think that government has no place in "education" practice and should only make distinct black-and-white laws. Regardless, people decide based on how the work gets done.
"But Mr. Blogger, nothing gets done in Washington, so why would we vote based on how work gets done?" Ah yes. Time to bring it all home.
Something unique has happened in 2012. Remember all of that talk a few weeks ago about "Party Platforms"? What those are supposed to be, as I understand it, is a nice, clear explanation of what political parties want to do and how they want to do it.
Here's the GOP Platform:
http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_home/
And the Democratic Platform:
http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform
So yes, we're left with to parties, but they're not polarized as Left or Right. They're different in the way they want to help America. Looking at it this way, I'm immediately hopeful that our political system is actually really, really good. See, if in 2016 America decides they like the party of Candidate Smith, they can vote for the entire party she's a part of because they all share the same methodology for solving issues, semi-regardless of what those issues are. If this happens, Candidate Smith may get the White House, and maybe the House of Representatives will be majority Smith's party (because every Rep is up for reelection every two years), but the Senate may not flip to that party because only one third of the Senate is voted on that year. This keeps progress moving but does hinder changing too much too fast so we don't spin out of control. If we really, really love Smith's party, then in 2018, America may re-elect all those House members and then add more Senators when the next third is up for election.
See? Platforms matter. I'm pulling the lever for Smith and Anderson.
1 year ago
