As human beings, we have these base instincts that affect everything we do, most often completely without thinking about it. One of the things that people love is to create dichotomy. Sports rivalries are based on it – you can hardly be a fan of the Habs without simultaneously hating the Leafs (and vice versa) and that’s just one small example. Lately the larger dichotomy of Left vs. Right has ratcheted up to levels that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Granted, I’m fairly young still at (not quite) 30, but I still think things are getting out of hand in a way that they didn’t used to.
The recent U.S. election was very much a divisive one, even though in real terms there wasn’t a lot to separate the two candidates. Sure, one was a Republican, one a Democrat, but in all honesty, they didn’t differ all that much, and if Kerry had won, the U.S. wouldn’t be that much different. They differed on some key issues to be sure, but the nature of politics is rapidly becoming more like the lemonade stand location economics riddle.
If you’re not familiar with the lemonade stand location riddle, I’ll summarize it here. If you’ve got a beach that’s 100 metres long, and you want to set up a lemonade stand, plunk it right in the middle. If there’s one already in the middle, you’re best bet is to put your stand right next to it. If you put it any further away from the middle, you’re effectively cutting off your access to the customers on the other side of the beach.
Where this manifests itself in politics is in the base important policies. In Canada, the Reform party was founded on a basis of promising to balance the books, pay down the debt, and be fiscally responsible. The Liberals saw that this was a popular position (clearly more popular than the alternative, such as tax and spend) so they moved their policies right next door. End result, a lot of the Reform support was eroded. It’s smart politics, but the result is that once a policy is taken as fundamentally important, all serious contenders will support that policy. That leaves us with the only differences between candidates being on cosmetic stuff like same sex marriage rights and missile defence policies. No offence to anyone who thinks those are truly critical election issues, but honestly, when we get to the point where same sex marriage rights is the primary reason people are voting one way or another, there’s something broken with the system.
There’s an often repeated quote along the lines of “If you’re not a socialist at 20, you’ve got no heart. If you’re still a socialist at 40, you’re got no brain.” It’s interesting, but as I’ve often said, just cause someone said something doesn’t make it true. I actually went the other way. I was a pretty “Right” leaning kid in my earlier days, and now that I’m established in a career, making good money, building a family, I’m a lot more “Left” than I would have believed possible a few short years ago. The problem is that I don’t think the label of “Left” really fits me well. I don’t like big government. I’m libertarian in a lot of my thinking, and yet on the issue of social programs, I think the government has to play an important role. I like the fact that we have a government owned power company, and a government owned telephone utility. That’s pretty far right on the one hand, and pretty far left on the other.
What does that make me? Extremely confused.
Isn’t it great how people can simultaneously hold completely contradictory viewpoints? Or is it just that the labels of “Left” and “Right” aren’t sufficient to describe people? Maybe Jon Stewart had it right when he said to the Crossfire people “Stop… hurting… America.”
Simpson’s quote of the day: “For decimating our pigeon population and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you [to Bart] with this scented candle.” – Mayor Quimby