Fault Lines

At Winds of Change, Armed Liberal says:

Personally, I refuse to yield all the optimism to conservatives. I believe there are a number of liberals like me - who define their liberalism not by antipathy for the modern West, or more specifically for the U.S., but by a desire for more justice, more liberty, more equality, and a belief that we can have it all. I think that someone will find a way to channel our patriotism, our hope, and our energy into a political movement that can stand toe-to-toe with the conservative wave that is going to rise for the next few years in this country. Somone is going to outline a future for us, and challenge us to make it happen.

I believe that the old lines between Conservative and Liberal are blurring. In the 1990s, the Conservatives kicked out their reactionary, extremist idiots, and basically silenced the extreme right. The remainder is a moderate classical liberalism, with economic and foreign policy ideas drawn from the legacy of both Conservatives and Liberals in America.

The Liberals are beginning to find the same fault lines within their own party, between the Noam Chomsky left and the Dick Gephardt left. There is more in common between the Noam Chomsky left and the Pat Buchanan right than there is between the extreme left and the moderate left. I believe that the extreme right and the extreme left are coming together to make common cause. I belive that the moderate right and the moderate left need to do the same.

The kind of rightist that Bush represents and the kind of leftist that Armed Liberal represents have a lot in common. As Armed Liberal himself puts it:

And I'm happy to admit that it isn't for me because I am perfectly willing to stand with conservatives in believing in American exceptionalism.

I just think we got there for different reasons, and that we'll build the shining future using different tools.

I concur. I think, though, that too many on the moderate right and too many on the moderate left are blinded by the Republican and Democrat labels. The labels keep us from seeing our commonalities by emphasizing our differences. There is a thread of self-loathing and hatred of those who aren't "part of the tribe" which needs to be fought, and it will only be the combined efforts of the moderates in all parties and among independents which will be able to ward off the doomsayers and cynics enough to allow America to act, at home and abroad, optimistically.

This is a time when we need to come together - the moderate right, the moderate left, and the non-ideologically-blinded among the Libertarians and independents - in order to fashion a new polity in America, which believes and acts both at home and abroad on one simple principle:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Posted by Jeff at April 9, 2003 07:08 PM | Link Cosmos