It's my party and I'll cry if I want to
What does it mean to be a Democrat or a Republican? I'm not sure that I understand anymore and now that the 2008 election is beginning in earnest, I'm a little confused.
I am and was anti-Bush because I see him as some sort of atavistic throwback who sees American statemanship as being a global panty raid where you get to wear flight suits. Call it neocon or whatever, but the evangelically fueled grim old white boy approach to diplomacy has always left me cold.
I also hated what's happened to personal privacy and basic Constitutional rights because of Ashcroft, Bush and (ugh) Cheney--the three stooges of the Apocalypse.
But in the course of promoting my new book Privacy Lost, I have discovered an amazing thing--privacy is not a right or left wing issue. It's both and neither at the same time. I used to think that it was left wing, but all too often privacy runs into the First Amendment. Then I thought that it was right wing, but it runs into neocon security problems.
Thinking about this has brought me to the realization that our party system is out of alignment with the voters. The old days where Democrats supported Unions and civil rights and Republicans supported big business and later evangelicals is over. Several of the Republican candidates are pro-choice, for instance.
The war in Iraq is a blip. Sure, it's a disastrous one, but still Iraq itself is not the issue, it's really about what will America's new foreign policy be in the new millenia? What's the new Monroe Doctrine?
The misalignment of the parties magnifies the ambiguous and distorted external image that's currently hurting the U.S. It's like having your Id (Republicans) and Ego (Democrats) perpetually fighting with one another. Where do you go from there?
Issues like privacy, national security, mid-east foreign policy, international intellectual property issues, space exploration and internet governance are all much more important than distasteful noise like the Terry Schiavo case.
These are not Democrat issues. These are not Republican issues. Perhaps it is time to realign our parties with our priorities.
Posted on February 07, 2007
