It has always bothered me that the Incumbrepublocrats have managed to convince most Americans that they must choose either Left or Right, and those of us in the middle are regarded as somehow wishy-washy or unprincipled.

I see the middle as being where Liberty lies, and the farther one goes toward either extreme the closer one comes to meeting the opposition as fellow serfs in a tyranny of one form or another.  I have redrawn the political spectrum as a circle instead of a straight line to illustrate this:

The Political Spectrum as a Circle not a Line

Click on the above diagram for a full page printable version of this diagram or: HERE

Freethinkers, Independents, Centrists, Moderates, Libertarians, and Swing Voters occupy the top of the circle, and the rabid left/right ideologues are precariously near the bottom.  In my view, we should be thinking UP or DOWN, not Left or Right.  Up, toward Liberty is good; Down toward Tyranny is bad, whichever foolish path one wishes to take to get there.

Up is maximum individual Freedom, Down is maximum Government control over our lives, whether by the Marxists or the Fundamentalists, whichever one talks the most of us into supporting their guys, to keep those other guys from taking the opposite path to serfdom.  I say, a pox on both their miserable houses. ◄Dave►

Edit:

I just read Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech nominating Barry Goldwater at the Republican Convention in 1964.  I was still a John F. Kennedy Democrat at the time, and stationed in Korea, so I missed its inspiration when it was delivered.  It is amazing (and depressing) how little editing it would take to make it timely today.

I was stunned by the following passage:

You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down–up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order–or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. -Ronald Reagan