As Time Goes
By
This day and
age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension
Four dimensions?
How about more than one.
Characterizing politics as liberal and conservative is
probably TOO restrictive. It makes the assumption that politics is one
dimensional when it is probably has at least one other dimension. A political position
should be based on the type AND scale of government. We do not need bi‑partisanship.
We need pan- partisanship.
This argument should sound familiar to people who remember
the old Miller Lite beer commercial (“Less Filling/Tastes Great”) or the old
Certs commercials ( “It’s a Candy Mint! It’s a Breath Mint! Its Two, Two, Two Mints
in One.”). In the case of these commercials, people seem to accept that something
can have more than one dimension.
|
Filling |
||
Less |
More |
||
Taste |
Great |
Miller
Lite |
Not
Miller Lite |
Not
So Great |
Not
Miller Lite |
Not
Miller Lite |
In political positions, the form of the government according to the Constitution is a lower
case "r" "republic". As Benjamin Franklin famously described it ”a republic, if
you can keep it.” The Constitution does not specify the size of that government. There has always
been a healthy debate between liberal and conservative positions as to the
size and role of government.
|
Size |
||
Limited |
Big |
||
Form |
republican |
Conservative |
Liberal |
Authoritarian |
Pseudo
Conservative |
Pseudo
Liberal |
A problem is that Authoritarians masquerading as Conservatives
seem to have taken over the upper case "R", "Republican" Party. True Conservatives,
such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, must contend with Pseudo Conservatives who
appear to be Authoritarians. And those are not just limited to Trump. While Pseudo
Conservatives exist, Pseudo Liberals also exist. For example, Napoleon began as
an officer in the French revolutionary army. Modern day Authoritarians such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin are big government, Authoritarian, Pseudo Liberals.
The US Constitution describes a republican form of government.
You can not be in the government if you are an Authoritarian unless you want to
overthrow that Constitutional government. The Republican Party needs to decide
if it supports this, lower case "r", "republic". If so, so it should eliminate Pseudo
Conservative Authoritarians from the Republican
Party, even if it means in doing so they will reduce their membership. If their argument
is over the size and role, not the form of government, that needs to be clear. The problem might not be owning the libs. It might be eliminating pseudo conservatives.