i'm having trouble with paula again, so i'm single winging it with the blog today.  it'll look a little messy, but paula's been hanging out the weird pigeons again - this time the 290 torpedo aces from the south side of town.  they're mostly a bunch of overpass pigeons, you know, off the four-lane and about as dingy as a band of pigeons can get.  this bunch is an extreme left wing outfit . . . so far off base they even occasionally bomb grade school kids at the snippy schools.  snippy schools are the private schools that are springing up, mostly so upwardly mobile whites can keep their kids out of the public schools, now dominated by mexicans.  myself, i don't care. if they've got the money for private education, more power to 'em.  the torpedo aces see them as just a bunch of rich shit kids working a hardship on a changing society.

single winging it doesn't bother me much.  i'm pretty much a left libertarian to start with, so i'm all for individual rights.  the problem with these libertarians, especially the to the right group, is that they can't see the connection between being free to live without oppressive government regulation and the rights of others in the society.  they're still just a bunch of conservatives wanting to reserve things for themselves, fuck everybody else.  you can sure get bogged down in terms here, but most folks think of left libertarians as anarchists . . . and i suppose we are.  but anyone would be terribly naive to think a society can run free of laws that in some way govern the overall group.  the argument should be about how much law, not whether or not we have law at all.  being a leftist doesn't mean one should take leave of their practical senses.  the mere observation of people in action will teach you the necessity for rules of conduct.

the word liberal carries with it all sorts of implications, attachments, and observances.  and to most americans, it's a nasty word.  in fact, less than 20 percent of americans are willing to dub themselves as liberal . . . and perhaps without knowing exactly what a liberal is, or should be.  statistics tell us that most liberals are well educated . . . and even well off financially.  some middle class americans might have liberal sympathies, but they're not likely to really be liberals.  All sorts of definitions about what liberals represent are out there, but there's one critical thing that is required to call oneself a liberal - the show of free thinking.  conservativism is a restriction of thought, and of action.

so . . . is it possible that a leftist could actually be a conservative, at least in the sense that he isn't a free thinker?  oh, yes, it's entirely possible.  his sympathies might be far to the left, but if he's ideolistic to the point of being rigid and unaccepting, and when this leads him to being unwilling or unable to accept any other philosophical proposition . . . then he's not a liberal.  this isn't likely to happen, but it can.  i've known some left wing ideologues who may at one time have allowed free thinking to take them to a particular belief . . . but once there, they regress to restricted thought.

then . . . is it possible that a right winger (conservative) can actually be a liberal, in that same sense of being a free thinker?  No . . . not one chance in hell!

Polly, 4/12/08