Political Spectrum Revisited

The hideous spectacle that passes for public discourse these days, along with recent SCOTUS rulings, have caused me to question the way I think about the "political spectrum", ie left/right, liberal/conservative, and so on. I have for some time been thinking in terms of social/economic liberalism/conservativism and the political map that places folks in one of four quadrants based on these dimensions. I am beginning to change my mind.

Senator Durbin feels compelled to apologize for comparing the USG's policy of torture to that of certain 20th Century despots, whereas the policy that provoked the comparison apparently warrants no apology. One of my conspecifics at work characterized the torture as little more than making captives listen to Black Sabbath, but the public defense of the policy seems to be simply that "it is not as bad as Hitler", and no one bothers to deny the allegations of abuse. Meanwhile, the regime's "intelligentsia" play the "treason" card by claiming that questioning policy in Iraq and elsewhere is "unAmerican". We see the makings of an anti-war movement in Congress, but the establishment in both parties appears to be in "stay the course" mode. "We" are at "war", the most collectivist enterprise imaginable, and "we" need to support "our" troops, get behind "our" commander in chief.

Meanwhile, in the medical marijuana case, SCOTUS says the feds can regulate anything because there is nothing that does not have an impact on interstate commerce. My conspecifics' arguments about this center mainly on whether, as a political question, folks should be allowed by the state to use medical marijuana. Moreover, I interpret the New London eminent domain ruling as a sign that the state really owns your property and can take away your privilege of occupying it whenever it suits the purposes of the gang that controls the state apparatus. My conspecifics argue about whether it is fair for New London to do what it is doing.

When I argue that the state has no legitimate right to regulate either medical marijuana or to interfere with private property, I get blank stares from both the left and the right. Both the lefties and righties agree that the state can legitimately do more or less whatever it wants subject to the majority's will, and they disagree only on what it should do in particular circumstances. The same is true, I think, of the GOP and the Democrats in general, the liberals and the conservatives, and everyone in between except my fellow libertarians and anarchists (and I'm not so sure about some of them).

The important political divide is not a matter of one side's favoring economic freedom over personal freedom or vice versa; rather, the most significant political divide is a matter of the degree to which one recognizes coercive state action as legitimate. There really isn't a "dime's worth of difference" between the two major political parties. They are both firmly on the totalitarian end of the spectrum in that they agree that the state is all powerful, and that we do not yet live in an Orwellian nightmare of total control is due to our rulers' realization that it is more efficient at present to let the people believe that they have some vestige of control over their own lives and property and that "free range" sheeple are at present more productive than their caged counterparts. These totalitarians argue over what freedoms the state should allow the people, whereas the ant-statists argue over what powers, if any, the state should be allowed to exercise.

The political spectrum can meaningfully be represented by a line along one dimension with anti-statists on one end and totalitarians on the other, and we essentially live in a one party state. The task on the liberty end of the spectrum is to problematize and demystify statism and its underlying assumptions whenever we encounter them. Most people do not, I think, consciously consent to the legitimacy of the state; rather, they acquiesce in it and fail to recognize that there is an alternative.