The Political Spectrum: One Assmonkey's View

Other than being able to say without equivocation that I'm a Democrat I've never been able to self-identify politically. People who agree or disagree with me on various issues can't even agree on the appropriate tag to hang on me so how am I expected to?

If you think about it most of Europe would consider at least 80% of us "rightwing" and most of the rest of the world considers us wildly liberal if evil, capitalist tyrants. Ok, I have not a thing against Europe but let's be really honest, most of it has more issues with division by race and class than we do. We do have our good points, even when we are racist/classist most of us have enough self-awareness to be embarassed about it and not deny that it exists.

You can't even get consensus from one region of the country to another. Most of the southeast thinks Schwarzenegger is a "liberal hippie" and northeasterners figure anyone with a shotgun must be a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, redneck hillbilly.

So if believing in equal civil rights for everyone is "liberal" or "progressive" then I'm a progressive liberal....or "liberal hippie" depending on your point of view.

Not wanting to cook the planet on broil would I suppose make me a "tree-hugger". Oh, wait a minute, believing we can use the market to help effect change and expecting individuals to take personal responsibility for the impact of their own lifestyles would make me conservative though, wouldn't it? Oops.

Being opposed to invading Iraq put me in the category of so far left I was called a "terrorist enabler" but initially supporting our continued presence there in the hopes of being able to stabilize that which we had broken tossed me back upon the rightwing dung pile.

Realizing quite some years ago that we were completely failing in that mission at first labelled me a "liberal hippie" but over time has made me positively......mainstream. Go figure.

Being strongly pro "fair trade" wins me the evil, capitalist pig award in many camps and a "commie-sympathizing socialist" award from the right. Socialism is a beautiful theory, I could live with it....good luck getting all the SUV-driving, newest-toy-on-the-market buying, Mc/Mansion-owning people to agree to it.

I don't like the current senate bill for troop withdrawal for many reasons so that would make me a rightwing warpig, right? Wrong, I want us out of Iraq as much as anyone. I'm not opposing the bill either because a) it will be vetoed and b) pressure from the base forced their hands...they passed the bill that they could get passed. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it, eh? The only thing it accomplishes in reality is showing that percentage of voters smart enough to figure this one out that we have elected a lot of people who have to be bribed to do the right things and it should effectively get the hardcore protestors to leave the elected officials who are trying to further their cause alone.

Then there is the hoohaw about which candidate is best on GLBT rights and who said it best. I don't care very much what they say or how they say it....what will they DO. Fact: not one of them is going to espouse same-sex marriage, some will make more noise about not being opposed to it but they are not going to vote for it either. Not going to happen. Civil union? Pretty much all of them. Biggest question: based on track records which one(s) are most likely to make the issues a priority? Or to put it more simply...who's most afraid of the big, bad wingnuts?

Same story on immigration. No Democrat OR Republican is going to deport 12 million people, I don't care what they told you. Ain't happenin', wingnuts get over it. Only difference will be whether they get to stay as underpaid slave-labor under a rightwing sponsored "guestworker" plan or as human beings on a path to full citizenship under a leftwing "path to citizenship" plan.
Rightwing plan might seem great to the racist-pigs out there but before you jump on that bandwagon keep in mind that such a plan would affect your wage scale, plan B would probably force it higher.

Healthcare, there are pros and cons to either a single-payer system or making changes to the existing market based system. I'm either a commie-socialist or an evil, corporate-owned whore on any given day, roll the dice, just show me the money.

So what exactly does that make me politically? A person who cares about results and tries to choose the path most likely to be accepted, implemented and gain at least some if not all of the results I want. Either that or I'm a tree-hugging, liberal, progressive, communist-sympathizing, socialist, rightwing, capitalist-pig, redneck, hillbilly, who owns a shotgun but has never shot anyone or any living thing, drives an economy car and lives in a very inexpensive house but has a weakness for very expensive linens. Yeehaw.