I've always known I had liberal tendencies. When comparing myself to people on the right, I am certainly diametrically opposed. What I learned recently though is what socialism actually means. I had never really thought much about it before, mostly just identified myself as "liberal". Growing up in a very white north-shore suburb of Chicago, "socialist" was a dirty word like "communist" (gotta love those 80s), "fascist" and "nazi". As a kid in that environment, it was easy for me to misunderstand what all these things mean and to lump them together in my mind as "bad guys". People on the right or just ignorant or apathetic people still conflate these things as adults. [continued below Mr. Squiggles]
Last weekend Armando posted a neat article called More better Democrats: The left flank in the Big Tent
It featured this cool graphic:
Now, I am and always have been near the very top of the "social freedom" axis. Where I am on the "economic freedom" axis seems to change.
Many years ago I was naive enough to think that libertarian ideas could work, my views at the time probably bordered on anarchist. As my life progressed and I got older, I realized what "economic freedom" really means. It has little to do with equality and a lot to do with dogs eating dogs and greed. The American Dream of climbing up the money ladder is exactly that - a dream. Yuck, no thanks. I'm not a rat-race kind of guy.
So through the years I slipped more and more to the left. And with OWS happening and my own seriously sad bank account, I have come to the realization that corporations cannot be trusted. At all. Period. Sure there are a few good apples in the bunch. Not all companies are evil. In fact I have even argued for capitalism on one occasion right here on Kos. But we see it again and again. Power corrupts. People who have power in general want power. That's why they have it. Newt is a stunning example of it.
So today I completely spazzed out on a lovely troll named "MuhammadSucks" on this digg.com article Obama Stings And Rebukes The GOP By Redefining American Exceptionalism (my username there is "dfletcher" too, creative, ain't I?)
In it I denounced capitalism and declared that I would henceforth do my best to make capatalism into a dirty word, just as the idiot right wing propaganda machine has done to socialism. Damnit, socialism has great ideas.
During the debacle I looked at Wikipedia's article on Political Spectrum and found that the chart here on Kos matched up with most of the ideas listed there (duh, of course, we like facts and truth around here) but more interestingly found this little gem:
Socialists (socialism) - Freedom ranked 1st, Equality ranked 2nd
Hitler (nazism) - Freedom ranked 16th, Equality ranked 17th
Goldwater (capitalism) - Freedom ranked 1st, Equality ranked 16th
Lenin (communism) - Freedom ranked 17th, Equality ranked 1st
Wow! Socialists prize freedom and equality above all else. This is a far cry from the nonsense the right spews about the ideals of socialism. Sign me up! Where do I get the weekly newsletter?
One guy in that thread tried to call the recent bailouts "socialism". I corrected him. Giving companies money is NOT socialism no matter how hard I try to turn my neck. It's plutocracy which isn't even on any of those charts. Hell it's not even an "-ism".
So capitalism can go suck an egg. Do we have like a socialist greeting like the communist "comrade"? Socialists unite! Is that it? Dang it sucks being the new guy =)
Please share your own "political path" in the comments, I'd love to hear how other peoples political ideas evolve over time.
