My Country : Left or Right?
Everyone who thinks they know me thinks they know whether I lean left or lean right. I borrowed (stole?) the title of this essay from George Orwell, because I agree with him. The way I (and Orwell) look at it, the only mature answer as to which way it's better to lean is both. Not sitting in the middle but swinging from right to left and back, like a pendulum; dependent on the situation... of course.
If my country is threatened or attacked, right-wing nationalistic authoritarianism is the right answer. In times of peace, left-wing progressivism is the right answer. Personal liberty and quality of life are really the only things I care about. I don't pretend to be an economist. As a student of history I see that Democrats have been much better for the economy and improving our daily quality of life. That must be why they tend to win the popular vote.
In modern America the right wing of our establishment is fixated on culture wars and unfound grievances. Every week there's a new panicked talking point about who or what is coming to take what we love from us. It never comes to fruition. I'm still waiting on a caravan of immigrants to ruin my life or a trans person to make me uncomfortable in a bathroom. So far, nothing. They don't have to offer solutions when they're neck deep in outrage. When nothing comes of it they move on to the next manufactured issue. The more they push the wars they invent the more they keep their nationalistic authoritarians engaged. Meanwhile, corporate centrist democrats do less than nothing. If it doesn't line their pockets they aren't interested. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King; the moderate centrist is worse than an abhorrent racist. The racist is open about their ugliness while the centrist is more concerned with not upsetting their status quo. The support of a centrist is empty.
Ethically I agree with the existentialists. True wisdom doesn't fall down the lines of any ideology. There is no straight line to toe up to. Like Alan Watts used to say, wisdom is wiggly. It takes in new information and grows or changes direction accordingly. Party lines are devoid of wisdom, full of will and lacking intellect. Aggressive rigidity is the antithesis of intelligence. Their lack of ambiguity is unethical.
Yes, I am currently all-in on Blue No Matter Who and will vote only for Democraps in 2022-2024. Not because I agree with them most but because they seem to agree with me more. Realistically, they're the more conservative party these days. Everything on the right isn't inherently conservative and everything on the left isn't inherently liberal / Marxist. Conservatives are supposed to be focused on conserving the union because they see these united states as being more powerful together. "Unite or die," was one of America's early political slogans; back when each state was seen as an individual nation. The party obsessed with seceding from the union is inherently not conservative. The party fighting to restrict rights is not conservative. The party fighting to weaken child labor laws is not conservative. Regressiveness is not a conservative ideal. I see myself as a Progressive Conservative who agrees with Edmond Burke (a liberal-conservative); standing in the way of progress is abhorrently unstatesmanlike.