My political pholosophy

For future reference, my political philosophy is outlined here:

A fully formed philosophy must include at least three dimensions, not the usual one dimensional, left to right, or conservative to liberal model with the individual placing him/herself usually somewhere near the center.

The right to left, or let’s call it the X axis of my model, goes from limited government to big government. I think it is safe to say that conservatives are supposed to support a limited government, lower taxes, and less intrusion into individual affairs.

The so called conservative administration currently in the white house could not be called conservative by that definition, not while increasing the power and expense of the federal government.

Nor could a “social conservative” stance against gay marriage and abortion be considered rightist by the definition I’ve just given, as that idea advocates that the government, not the individual, make some basic life decisions.

None of that means that conservatives are being hypocritical, not when you add the Y and Z axes to the model. The issue of gay marriage is on the X axis, authoritarian to libertarian, and has nothing to do with the right to left continuum. The authoritarian would have the government use its authority to dictate who might marry who, while the libertarian would leave that decision to the individual. The issue of abortion is on the same axis.

The Z axis of the model is from pragmatist to ideologue. Take, for example, the issue of universal health coverage. This issue has been labeled as an extreme liberal position, but is it really?

A pragmatist would favor this syllogism:

The US is the only developed country without universal coverage,
We pay more than any other country in the world for health care,
Therefore, we should consider universal coverage.

While an ideologue would be more likely to favor this one:
Universal care is socialistic
Socialism doesn’t work,
Therefore, universal care won’t work.

That explained, my philosophy is at the smaller government side of the X axis, on the extreme libertarian edge of the Y axis, and at the pragmatist extreme of the Z axis.

Conservatives will still call me a liberal, of course, since I think Bush is an idiot, abortion should be an individual’s choice, and the war in Iraq was a mistake.

Liberals might call me a conservative, since I constantly rant about the cost and power of the federal government.

Call me what you like, as I don’t subscribe to a one dimensional philosophy. I’m a pragmatic libertarian conservative.

 

Yes, the massive debt is probably the number one issue to be addressed. It's too bad that the American people don't seem to be concerned about it, or even realize how much it is. There was a question on "Do you want to be a Millionaire" asking just how much the national debt was. The choices were pretty far apart, ranging from 3,000 to 300,000 as I recall. the contestant had no idea.

Every citizen owes $30,000 on the national credit card. That's a problem.

The other two issues I have with the feds are illegal immigration, and the seemingly endless war in Iraq. Let them solve those three biggies before debating, as they're doing now, the merits of apologizing for slavery.

After the feds get their fiscal house in order, then, maybe we can have a workable national health care insurance plan (not a government takeover of medical care, no, never, no way!)

Right now, we're stuck with that 18% of the GDP that goes to an inefficient system.

 

I see you're still stuck with the simplistic one dimensional political philosophy. Well, you're not alone, unfortunately.

 

You can find out where you stand on a two dimensional political philosophy here.

I added the third dimension myself.

There may be a fourth dimension as well, at least in foreign policy. It would be a continuum from isolationist to expansionist. I'd me somewhere in the middle of that one.

My results:

 

Hey, you were a liberal all along, and just didn't know it.

 

The results may not be totally accurate, but it does get people thinking about at least a two dimensional philosophy. I took the test a year or so ago, and came out quite a bit further right. Maybe I've been influenced by this forum.

You're squarely in the upper right quadrant, aren't you?

 

Welcome to the three dimensional world!

You will find that it also has many nuances of colors, not just black and white as so many seem to think.