It seems that no matter what aspect of life you look at people have create a geometric, visual or mathematical model to describe it. Politics is the big one. The model of politics is a straight line. On the right side of this line is the craziest fascist and on the left I guess there’s an anarchist. In the middle are the centrists and so forth. It seems that models like this have good and bad effects. The good is that it gives people a context in which to think about things. It’s a lot easier to relate things to each other when you have a visual model in which to place them. It’s hard to think about ambiguous model-less things. If you can envision it its much easier, that’s why comprehending god or infinity or four dimensional objects is so hard. The bad is that it restricts thinking about the particular subject to the model we have chosen. So if we choose a straight line for our political model, but someone comes up with a new view that doesn’t fit in the model it gets discarded. People have as hard a time understanding it as they do the concept of infinity because it doesn’t fit in their ingrained visual model.
The crazy libertarians have a solution, they made another model. It is a two dimensional diamond. The right is conservative, the left is liberal, the top is libertarian and the bottom is statist. The middle portion is centrist. And people can be placed in different areas of this chart, you can even be on the line between two different things. But this model, while different and more forgiving than existing ones still restricts peoples thinking. It is still a model and still puts limits on free thought about political standing.
This is my problem. I’ve come to believe that I am bi-political. It seems that everyone’s opinion on any issue pisses me off and my opinion pisses everyone off. I can only believe that this is because my beliefs do not fit into anyone’s political model. Crazy conservative Limbaugh-types piss me off a whole lot. But so do dirty socialist hippies. I feel that I lean toward the left because I feel those types of people are more caring individuals, they actually care about people. But those people don’t like me because on some issues I feel the same was as the crazy right wing radio guys I hate so much.
For example. I feel that we should get rid of social security slowly. It is now more of a problem than a benefit and people who aren’t smart enough to save money for retirement, tough shit. But there are people now who are expecting to receive it and have paid into it and are currently relying on it, screwing those people is not good. This is an idea that leans heavily to the right.
I believe gun control is bad. The number of guns has no relation to violence. It is the violent nature of our culture that increases killings. It appears that people will use things like box cutters and potato peelers when guns are not available, so guns are not the cause they are just a tool. And as the old saying goes, we’ll always have the first amendment as long as we have the second. This is a right wing idea.
I believe abortion is OK. Lefty idea.
I believe that war is bad. In fact, I’m near pacifist. I believe in non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. War is almost never the answer. And when it is, it should be strictly defensive. That doesn’t mean it should be weak, just strictly defensive. Because if you act in this manner then you become the good guy and the world will support you and you will win while maintaining a moral high ground. This is a left wing idea.
I believe in freedom of information. Intellectual property should not exist. Only physical goods may be property and people may not be property either. Money should simply be a common exchange for goods and services, not information. If it doesn’t cost anything to share it, you can’t charge to share it. This is a crazy idea that only nerds like.
I do not believe in the death penalty. In fact, I’m not even sure if I believe in prison. I think that everyone is guaranteed some rights. And that only be infringing upon the rights of another person can and should you be punished. And that punishment should come in the form of the removal of rights from the offender. This is a libertarian idea.
I have heard all scientific evidence for and against environmental issues like global warming. I’m not sure what to believe, but I tend to lean towards global warming being real, though it probably isn’t the end of the world. However, I do not believe there will be any significant environmental concerns in my lifetime that will have an effect on my life. Therefore, I don’t care. I think there are more important current pressing issues than the environment and that over time if we worry about advancing technology we will develop a solution to the worlds energy problem and wont have to worry about the environment, it will fix itself. The planet is a lot less fragile than we make it out to be. This is a conservative idea.
I hate big corporations and their evil. I do not believe corporations should be treated as people. I believe that when a corporation does something wrong, like have child labor in sweatshops in Asia, that the individual people responsible for those things should be punished as individuals. I believe executives of corporations that do wrong should be held just as responsible as mafia bosses are when their henchmen kill and rob people. This is leaning in the socialist direction I think.
So what am I? I don’t really fit onto any political model. Everyone who does fit into a model hates me. Some other people who are also outside the model change their views to fit into the model. This is because they can’t picture themselves outside of it, so to avoid the illusion of self contradiction they change all their views to match the party line. These people I believe are particularly weak willed. My point is that in this world someone like me can’t win. The reason is that people’s thinking along political issues is stuck into this straight line left to right model. Somewhat more open minded people who use the libertarian box thing like to think that everyone has a place on it. But every time I try to figure out where I am it moves around. Because people can’t place me, they hate me. Disagreements on issues, negatives, stand out a lot more than agreements or positives. If someone agrees with me it takes only a few seconds to agree. But they only remember the much longer disagreement. Some people are bi-polar and have trouble in social situations. I haven’t even gone through every issue in the world, but as you can see I’ll take a different stand on each one. I’m bi-political and I don’t fit in.
