Libs v cons

[mqbush]

Any general public discussion of liberal and conservative values is bound to attract lots of attention, because the topic is so basic,-the dichotomous view of life of Americans in a two-party political system. There are more aspects to life than wars and taxes, so we should be able to have a dichotomy-busting third party that would profoundly transform the entire structure and rhetoric of our politics. But just try to list a few of these other aspects to life, and you’ll see that we’re so deeply channeled into the dichotomy frame that we can’t even see anything outside it. That’s really quite scary.

The two parties are each so powerful that they are much like nations, with vast economies, land masses of red states and blue, distinct cultures, and militant and determined allegiances. But, of the two, the likelier pusher of strict dichotomy has to be the one that sees but one solution to all things, rather than the more nuanced one that at least nominally looks for a multi-faceted approach to solving problems. When the answer to every foreign policy question is domination, whether through militaristic or economic methods, then, of course, this single “us against them” dichotomy will be utilized, too, for domestic political domination; the political right MUST have a strict dichotomy for its methodology to function.

It’s entirely natural and understandable that the public has an interest in bread-and-butter issues, the refinement of civilization in general, requiring multi-solutional, non-partisan thinking and non-adversarial cooperation. It takes a narrowing of focus to an “us versus them” dichotomy to get people to give up what they have and want to have for their children, and to instead go to war against mothers and sons and neighbors in foreign lands. Without that narrowed focus, that “us versus them” dichotomy, the bread-and-butter basis of the political left would be the natural choice for most people. The left would not have to sell out, or compromise its values, or have to fight so hard just to slightly slow the erosion of what it had earlier achieved, if we were not locked into the right’s strategic dichotomy.

No, the masses don’t have to be saved from the self-indulgent stupidity of social spending, not if the larger-than-life bogeymen of the right are mostly hype, if the entire rationale for selling off civilization to buy bombs is a tall tale. A reasonable national DEFENSE is one thing; an all-consuming national OFFENSE is the fatal flaw of short-lived empires doomed to collapse from the weight of debt and bankruptcy. The masses aren’t short-sighted and stupid and self-indulgent for striving for the continuing refinement of civilization. Surely the aim of life is to enhance life, not to destroy life. Surely the common purpose is to keep the world viable for our childrens’children. Surely an aching need for justice and fairness and optimism for the future keeps the masses striving for a humane world centered around people. This is not stupid, or life itself is stupid. The actions of the right seem to suggest that life IS stupid, and exists only to support abstractions such as corporations, or to be disposable cannon fodder. A party with such values can exist only in a simplistic “us versus them” system that defies and poisons reason.

[Greyhound]

1. "The masses" need to save themselves from their own short-sighted,

ignorance and greed. The parasites couldn't do what they've done except for those "masses" indifference.

All sheep share a common destiny.