Rights. Are they natural? Kind of.
In a naural world, we have unlimited rights and are subject to unlimited tyranny by others taking advantage of these rights. That's why we've become a democracy instead of, say... a failed state.
So "rights" is a concept about things we can do within the context of a society where others can do their things and we have a minimum f bloody conflict over it.
OK. So you knew that (I hope).

The Left and The Right use a lot of rhetoric about rights and occasionally its not-so-sexy twin responsibility. And usually the subject is that the government is not allowing us certain rights and not forcing us to meet certain responsibilities that we don't seem to be meeting on our own. Libertarians are another group in between, typically described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The rhetoric involved tends to make some libertarians and the perception of libertarians float toward the extremes... which conjures images of a failed state.
But it's bunk.
The Left is really socially libertarian and fiscally populist. The Right is fiscally libertarian and socially populist. Libertarians are libertarian on both types. Fine. Nothing wrong with that. Just need to put it in perspective. And for people who like to worry about such things, everyone's the same on foreign policy, depending almost entirely on whether or not they're the ones in power. But that's a discussion for elsewhere.
OK. So you knew that (kind of).

But what's interesting is that libertarians are probably less likely to float to extremes than The Left and The Right. Libertarians consider freedom to be important and simply figure out what small populist measures are necessary to keep the concept of "rights" valid. In doing so, a libertarian might fall in line more with The Left or The Right, though in our political environment, they will probably no longer be libertarians. And maybe that's fine. They are part populist anyway.
OK. So you knew that (or at least it wasn't really all that important a point).

But the problem is that while rights and responsibilities are both necessary, "rights" is infinitely more positive. What strikes me is the libertarian rhetoric of The Left and The Right when describing their populist ideas.
Let's begin with examples of honest populism. This occurs when The Left or The Right is talking about a populist measure within its own sphere. For instance, the Left, socially libertarian, on the subject of helmet laws (paraphrased):"It would be irresponsible policy to remove the law. It would only lead to more deaths in the name of choice." Very honest. You may not agree (I certainly don't), but it is good, honest populism. Sacrifice a little freedom to save lives. Bravo. Likewise, occasionally politicians from The Right will pay lip service to some social programs or the need to pay taxes because they are important to keeping society running.
OK.
But then we have the populist stuff disguised in libertarian clothing. The Left often does this with stuff like the "right" to health care. It doesn't really mean that they have the right to healthcare (they already do, and even get it if they can't pay), but the right to get healthcare as good as paying customers and without having to pay. Populism disguised with the concept of "rights".
But I think what really shocks me these days is the way The Right likes to use this ploy (No surprise... I'm not secretive about leaning left). Lately The Right, specifically their "social conservative" subsidiary has been framing the enforcement of the majority's values and lifestyles on the minorities as a "right" of the majority. Like both sides do constantly, they use pseudo-religious ramblings about the forefathers to get the point across as though that's either undebatable or important.
What makes it especially odd is that this definition of "rights" approaches overriding the concept of "rights" as mutual protection of rights. And I'm sure The Left is guilty of something similar. The problem is that The Left and The Right are blind to it when they stumble this far. Their alliance with an ideology makes it hard for them to determine what is populist and what is libertarian and how much populism is necessary to keep society functioning.
OK. So hat's no big surprise.

Then why do we continue to frame things in the extremes of this Left/Right thing? How can a moderate conservative find themselves backing an embodiment of The Right that feels that all welfare should be destroyed and states should be able to become theocracies that jail heretics (yes, it's a strawman... but I guarantee a lot of cons would vote this person in if doing otherwise meant a Crat getting into office). And equally why should a left-winger like me stand behind a totem of The Left who will not allow any reform of the welfare system and thinks we need to micromanage religion out of every community (also a strawman... but I know a lot of the liberals would vote this one in over a Pub).
So here's the big question: How many of you think that either of the mentioned strawmen are real? Frankly, I've met one of them on this site, but I've never seen a serious politician that espouses either of these extreme beliefs.

So rather than paying attention to The Left or The Right, why are we not all libertarians. Why do we not all start from scratch in our mental landscapes and figure out just what amount of liberty we really need to sacrifice and how we could get the most "rights" per unit of responsibility... then discuss it?
Is it really more fun to cheer on our political sports teams (It might very well be... on that note, when are the Crats changing their name to the Lions?).
And if you're going to make a populist comment... admit that it's populist. There is no shame in mentioning the responsibility we have, even in the sphere you think you're so libertarian in.
The Left or The Right, if ruling in their extremes, would make this country a half-failed state. .5 rounds up, you know.

__________________
That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

Very good post Java


As much as it would be nice to influence people into actually thinking about things and addressing issues with well presented arguments (such as your own), it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen. It would seem that people only want to pick a team (and defend that team at any irrational lengths deemed necessary) and try to smear the other team (again, by any irrational means necessary). Just look at some of the topics on this forum:

Republican wins in California!
Belwether answered

Bush's job approval ratings begin to climb
Bad news for the poopoo brigade

Things are swell in Baghdad
but getting worse

Ann Coulter villifies 9/11 widows
Says they enjoyed their husbands being killed

Every one of these threads was created for exactly the purpose I stated. I'm honestly getting to the point where I'm sick of it enough to believe that they deserve the crap government that they get.

Sorry I got way off your point...I'm just sort of venting

__________________
Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly, Man got to sit and wonder 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land, Man got to tell himself he understand.
~Bokonon

Yes, they probably do. It's just too bad they drag us with them. But it is entertaining, I guess... in a sad kind of way.

__________________
That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

Yes, excellent post, JavaBlack.

I also agree with this observation:

You know, it occurs to me that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are "homogeneous".

For instance, there is a strong Libertarian component within the Republican Party, and the main reason they're there (as opposed to in the Libertarian Party) is that the Libertarian Party doesn't hold any seats.

That's kind of a fundamental choice in politics these days - either you work "within" the system, in which case you have a chance to actually get elected and change things, or you work "outside" the system, in which case you'll have a difficult time making your voice heard.

I myself, am one of those Libertarian-leaning Republicans, and as y'all know, the NeoCon faction of my party disgusts me to no end. And it's really quite amusing to read some of the replies to my posts, from the NeoCon-leaning conservatives here on this forum - it's like, every time they read something they don't agree with, they immediately want to classify me as a "liberal".

That kind of behavior, unfortunately, has become deeply ingrained into modern politics. It's almost like a "reflex" - IOW, there's very little "conscious thought" involved with it.

The Libertarian "Party", in my eyes, is a little extreme - it's an "ideological" version of some of the things I might agree with, but the Party itself goes a little off the deep end in terms of their lack of understanding of the practical aspects of the ideology.

But of course, one could say the same thing about "any" set of ideologues - not the least of which are the NeoCons.

Personally, I could care less about social issues, that kind of thing is best left up to individuals (or at least, the lowest political level at which it can reasonably exist). What I care about is the business of running the government - things like the national debt for instance, are of primary importance in my eyes. Things like the ease with which our various Presidents get us involved in costly foreign adventures. Stuff like that.

And as an aside - it also strikes me as noteworthy that there is now a significant "learning curve" for any new President who enters office - the government has become so enormous and complex that this is now a significant factor in my decision about who should take the reins. Ideologically speaking, I might like to vote for a "nobody" like a Badnarik or someone, but the practical reality is that it would take him many many years to learn how things actually work on the Hill, and by that time he could get us all into a lot of trouble. Even a guy like Bushie, who used to be a governor but really had "zero" experience at the federal level when he took office as President, has had a significant learning curve in that regard. A Senator or Congressman, though, might be more in tune with some of the processes and procedures on the Hill, and therefore might be able to shorten that learning curve a little.

And another noteworthy aspect of reality, is that the more things become politically polarized, the more difficult it will be to actually get anything useful done. As the poles become wider apart, the acceptable "middle ground" becomes vaguer and more diffuse, and the likelihood that a "middle ground" solution will actually address a particular problem becomes vanishingly small. The immigration thing would be a perfect case in point.

And then finally, there are some areas where the Reps and Dems are exactly alike. Consider for instance, the similarities between tax-and-spend, and borrow-and-spend. There's no difference there - the ultimate result is the same. And yet both sides try to make big political hay over the other's "fallacious logic", when the reality is that neither one of them is addressing the problem.

And ultimately, this is exactly the danger of partisanship that George Washington warned us about in his farewell address to the nation, upon leaving office as our first President.

I would love to see a powerful and independent third party come into being. In my opinion, that would be one of the best things that could happen to our country. I was reading with interest the thread about the "coalition party" that a few forward-thinkers are trying to form - it's too early to tell whether it'll go anywhere (probably not, in this world of big money), but who knows. The only viable "third candidates" seem to be the ones who are willing to pump their personal fortunes into the race, like the Ross Perot's of the world, and that piece is very unfortunate - the idea that it takes astronomical wealth to make a difference in the political world is surely not what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they said, "government of, by, and for the People".

It's ironic that the neo-con sympathizers call you a liberal. The times that I do agree with neo-cons, it tends to be because I'm a liberal. At the same time you and many others who are conservatives get called liberals for not towing the party line.
I find it even more irritating. The political campaign designers for the Pubs have turned "liberal" into the new "communist" or "witch". Disagree on one thing and BOOM you're in league with the KOS crowd that allegedly hates America.
I'd consider it a simple accident of politics except that the neo-cons have this think-tank and all of their manipulations are very... deliberate.

But no worries. People are sick of them already. They'll be out soon and it will be back to people like me arguing heavily against people like you and vice versa. Hopefully we'll have a period of doing it with more respect, having grown sick of all this polarization of late.

__________________
That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

No one has ever called me a liberal.

__________________
Hi, I like communications. I like intelligent and amusing people. We might disagree, but that's okay. Just don't be boring.

hit a nerve for me with this post. I try hard to be phlegmatic but nothing rouses me more than being "branded". I don't mind being told that a particular viewpoint is "left" or "liberal" but the: "all you (*)(*)(*)(*) Liberals" ,"why don't you just say you are a socialist-it would be more honest" or "this is what the Left says", "liberals hate America", Yes, I would say the forum is heavy on the Republican side of things, lately. I find it curious that several people assert that there is no difference between Republocrats yet the rhetoric is sufficiently divisive and angry to make me think that a vicious civil war would not be hard to ignite in this country.

Honestly I don't know what I am any more. Liberals and neocons seem the same to me....bad for the U.S. What I believe is conservative, I don't see in any politicians anymore. It's like the twilight zone.

For many years the liberals were all against violence for any reason which is nuts but yet instead of agreeing to violence when a person is defending themselves against crime they join Bush and agree that killing hundreds of random Arabs at a time is O.K.

I hear you rota. It seems to me, that there are a lot of people like us, people from varying backgrounds and with varying political beliefs, who look at the world of politics today, and think, "this is nuts".

It doesn't make any sense, it's all topsy-turvy. The "wingers" (as someone coined that phrase in another thread - good concept) may disagree, and those seem to be the people who feel more comfortable with politics "as is", but to me, I notice those little oddities like the one you referred to, for instance where the "liberal Dems" get into bed with the "NeoCons" (the immigration thing being another example of that) to the detriment of the United States of America.

I'm not sure what the solution is. A strong third party would be helpful, but in today's world of big (political) money, that seems like a tall order. Along those lines, it would help if someone really respectable (politically) joined in that effort - a Ham Jordan is a good start, but he doesn't really have the political clout that I'm talking about. A Pat Buchanan probably has the name recognition, and IMO a decent understanding of some of the practical aspects of government that matter, but in his own way he's an ideologue and for that reason turns some people off. The Bush-Clinton thing was good (when they got together for Katrina and whatnot), but both of those guys are carrying around quite a bit of political baggage - although if they got together in the "political" domain it might be an interesting and newsworthy event.

Seems to me, it's going to take some relatively new up-and-comers, to get together "before" an election occurs, and really drive home the deal to the voters. In my mind's eye, I could imagine a team of, say, a Lindsey Graham and a Mark Warner, perhaps campaigning on a ticket together. They're both more-or-less centrist, relative to their respective political parties, and they're both very practical in how they see the world, and they both have pretty well-defined political viewpoints, and they can both raise money, and neither one of them can be accused of "flip-flopping" in the sense of a Hillary or a McCain, and it seems to me that such a team could pose a serious challenge to either or both of the "winger" parties.