Thought

The struggle for political self-definition is a long and complicated one. I took a class on political behavior once and was treated to the somewhat depressing news that by and large, we vote the way our parents do. Hence, if your parents are loyal Democrats, odd are you too will end up as a Dem and if your parents are tried and true Republicans, you'll probably end up in the warm embrace of Red State America as well.

I suppose that means that we never escape the sins of our fathers (and mothers). We can never fully move beyond their mistakes and grow politically as a country. If we're all doomed to vote the way our parents do, then what does that mean? And more to the point, if my mother was a staunch Liberal and my father is a die-hard Republican who used to have long, flowing locks, a beard and protest at CND rallies in Britain in the 80s, what the hell does that make me?

It's a question I've struggled with for some time now. I'm independent through and through, I vote whenever and wherever I can and to be frank, I have no party that represents me or speaks for what I believe and that's starting to irk me. This country is insanely large and has 300 million people and you're telling me that 2 parties are all we can come up with? Give me a break.

Maybe, maybe I'd hope onboard a major party- but they are both governing from the extreme ends of their respective sides of the political spectrum and I just can't stomach that.

I can't be a Conservative. This blind hatred of government ignores the fact that we are the government and we get the government we deserve. I'm not against government, I'm against entrenched bureaucracy, I'm in favor of state's rights and honestly believe we could do with a little less government. But that doesn't mean I want to throw out the baby, the bathwater and the whole damn bath all in one go. I see pragmatic benefits to government, provided we can clean it up a little bit.

We need an intellectual Hercules a politician worthy of myth to clean out the Aegean Stables of the muck and inefficiency... but that's another story.

So how to define myself? The quest continues, but I think this might be fairly close to the mark...