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Name:
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Yankee06
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Subject:
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And by "you" in the above
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Date:
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9/9/2009 11:56:00 AM
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MMan,
-I enjoyed your above post on your thinking about independents and about your own core beliefs. But then again, I enjoy most of your posts.
-It would be great to discuss your above thoughts in detail, however, we all recognize this forum format is too restrictive to allow for detailed discussion on all the points you made. Overlooking the lake, sharing a table with "Jack" and "Johnny" would be the best way to discuss all this stuff.
-Some issues would lend themselves to agreement right away, --or at least soon after we downed a few. For example, teh idea that independents accept confiscatory taxes in some areas but not in others,.. with the implication that conservatives do not. You're right about the first part, ...but ...I believe every conservative does that too. The constitution allows the government to tax. Most conservatives believe in taxes for defense, for commerce, for government, etc. It just becomes a matter of degree, breadth, depth, --and those boundaries are never clear, thus the constant national discussion. Is welfare good for teh social stabilization of teh country? If so, how much? etc. etc., all these are issues that lend themselves to both agreement at their core but disagreement at their edges.
-True, as you state, that our founding fathers are often thought of as conservatives and that their beliefs are good ones to adhere to, ..and I agree that teh founding fathers can be considered as"conservatives" in some areas, ---yet, ...the Declaration of Independence was anything but conservative; Jeffereson's treatise on religious freedom was anything but conservative; Madison's bill of rights was anything but conservative; Franklin's "everything" was anything but conservative. These men were very liberal for their times and even very liberal relative many areas we think of as conservative today. Even Thomas Jefferson exhorts from teh grave not to blindly follow the thoughts of our forefathers but rather to constantly reevaluate them and when necessary change them. One of my most enjoyable activities when I lived in DC was to walk teh Jefferson Memorial at dusk. Inside the memorial are four or five quotes engraved on teh walls. One speakes directly to this issue of the impact of teh founding fathers down through the centuries. I can't remember the exact words but it goes something like this, ---as we can't expect a man to wear the suit that fit him as a child, we can't expect a society to mindlessly remain under teh dictates of it barbarous ancesters. What that quote meant to me (in addition to justification of the American revolution) is that it is the responsibility of every citizen to constantly evaluate the applicability of traditional laws relative modern needs, -- a sacred task indeed.
-Finally (cuz I'm getting a little lengthy here) let me just make a few comments on how I view independents. You may be right that a lot of independents are closet liberals who don't have the fortitude to admit it, ...but ...if that is true...then I think you would agree that it is only logical to also assume that alot of independents are closet conservatives who don't have the fortitude to admit it. Both assertions may be true for some independents ,but I don't think they apply to most of teh independents that I know.
-Rather than thinking about independents being in the middle on a spectrum between liberals and conservatives, or between Democrats or Republicans, most independents think of ourselves as being a different group (or group of groups) altogether. Rather than thinking of politics as a linear spectrum, we think of a triangle with a different group at each corner of teh triangle. That way we don't see ourselves as a group torn between two other groups , but rather, we see ourselves as a single group "different" from the other two groups and thus having a different set of core values. Or maybe even better yet, think of a Venn diagram where 1) all three circles have overlaping beliefs in a central area, and then 2) where each circle has a shared area of beliefs with each of the other two circles, and then finally, 3) where each circle has its own area of beliefs which it does not share with either of teh other two circles. I believe thinking of U.S. pollitics as a linear spectrum between two diametrically opposed camps is too simplistic to properly address and solve the issues we face.
-HOwever, although thinking about politics as I described above probably leads to a more refined understanding of different belief systems, the reality is that the size of teh three groups is grossly distorted with independents being about 15-20% of teh voters and each of teh other two being 40%. This disparity in size means that although independents can hold their own in logical discussions and political discourse, they do not have significant power in the voting booth. So in elections where independents can turn the tide, the eventual winners see the independents as "enlightened" , while the losers see the indepndents as "spoilers" or perhaps even "duped." In truth though, we seee ourselves as frustraed because we don't undertand how thinnking people can follow either one of these two groups of charlatans.
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