Now - that is not to say I haven't found myself on one side of a particular issue. But I'm sad to see that our candidates are polarized to such an extent that they represent a loss of common sense and negotiation that our nation has thrived upon.
Compared to the rest of the world, and excepting a few totalitarian countries or oligarchies, we are pretty far to the right already. It is what makes the formerly center left seem extreme - but it's not. I think it is important to have some yardstick other than our own two political parties upon which to define the extremes. Canada, England and France are farther left than we are, and yet they are more moderate in many cases too.
And contrary to anyone's ideas, the Soviet system was the farthest thing from true leftism that you could probably find - Stalin called himself a communist because he succeeded Lenin, but he was a dictator - and post Stalin USSR and Russia has been an Oligarchy at best. China is an oligarchy as well and falls on the right, not the left as they may claim, because the force the political opinion. True leftist arguments tend towards a classless society where equality in status and possession are the goal. It is easy therefor to draw the conclusion that at anything that works towards providing equality is leftist. But wait a minute. We want racial equality. We want sexual equality. Those are human rights issues. Why is fiscal equality not a human rights issue? It IS a human rights issue to the extent that some cannot eat. But I believe in socially responsible capitalism where we still have unlimited potential to reach our zenith as individuals and collectives - with the understanding that it is important that we preserve everyone's ability to survive in order to allow them to pursue liberty.
No, there is no real good example of a pure left state, so we have to use our imagination and call that communism and understand it to be a completely community oriented society - no personal property, etc... socialism is a moderation of the ideal and social democracies like Britain are closer to the center than the left.
The closest reference we have for "Right" is Hitler's Germany. But it doesn't matter. All extreme's abuse human and civil rights. They dimiss the compromise that we need, as a society, to function and live together. And we need to change our society from the inside. My father once pointed out that protest is great, but not as effective and systemic change - because protest is always from outside the system.
We need the center of this country to pull forward and learn to work together. Both public and private interests function in our great nation because of the debate and our ability to collaborate. Collaboration is the optimal brother of compromise - where we don't just arrive at a balanced agreement, but we step forward together to improve the situation for the majority of folks. Party politics support the idea to a point. But they also get in the way of collaboration and compromise when they show no ability to work on behalf of the citizenry, which is far more moderate, in general, than either of the parties.
Come on people. Don't get angry. Start thinking about how we work together to solve problems. Don't like a particular solution? Figure out how to modify it. Examine the goals in mind and determine if there is some common ground. Together we stand, divided we fall. It was true when it was originally said and it's true now.
