I have had a difficult time defining people by political labels. Democrats seem to want to let you live as you want, but want to control how you spend your money- either through tax incentives or tax appropriations. They feel justified in taking money from one person and giving it to another whether for welfare, social security or Medicare.

Republicans want to control your behavior, but want to let you spend your money as your see fit. They would ban abortions and homosexual marriages but give you a tax cut.

Republicans don’t trust your morals; Democrats don’t trust your intelligence. Whenever they lose an election my Democratic friends bemoan how stupid the voters are.

I like the simplistic analogy: a Republican is a Democrat who just got a job; and a Democrat is a Republican who just got arrested.

Libertarians, theoretically, want to stay out of your personal life and out of your economic life. In theory they take the best of true liberty from both parties. The Libertarian philosophy, what is also called Classical Liberalism, has a growing group of followers; but as a political party it has failed to get off the ground.

The myth and confusion lies in foreign affairs. While Republicans are considered hawks it was in fact Democratic presidents who got us into WWI, Viet Nam, Korea, and the Balkans. I omit WWII only because of its scale and I could only fault Roosevelt for not fighting the isolationist fever that caught us so ill prepared when it happened.

Bush I successfully fought the contained but seemingly successful Desert Storm, and Bush II is fighting the most sustained conflict of any Republican president since Lincoln. While his opponents quickly dismiss his efforts by boring repetitive venom, this chapter in history is still to be written.

Libertarians tend to be isolationists and that is just not an acceptable option in a global economy. Isolationism led to WWII.

The parties struggle on two continuums:

The balance between individual liberty and the power of the state in both economic and social spheres. Inevitably large government solutions encroach on individual liberties. Seemingly large government programs never go away. If we go down the path to National Health Insurance it will become as permanent as Social Security and Medicare; there will be no turning back. Social Security and Medicare stand to eventually bust our budget and send our taxes soaring. Can you imagine how high taxes would have to be to add National Health Care to this mix?

Finding the proper place for America’s unique power on the stage of world events. We now fight an enemy with no army and no uniforms and no country with no flag. We struggle to adapt to this conflict using the international norms that no longer apply. Nation states have been replaced by tribal and religious zealots and we are figuring out how to deal with this enemy as we confront them. The controversy over the Patriot Act reflects this dilemma.

I write this to clarify my own thoughts because the campaign season sucks the intelligence out of any serious debate and limits insight and perspective to what fits on a bumper sticker.

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