Does Mr. T promote incivility? An event several months ago got me thinking about what truly drives incivility. It’s not simply calling people names or shouting at them. It’s certainly not pointing out the flaws of your opponent in the context of a political campaign; this is expected. The problem has to do with thinking the worst of people.

“’Live Free or Die’ isn’t just the official motto for a great state. As the 62nd Republican National Committee Chairman, I think it’s a mantra our party should live by.” So begins Kel Mehlman’s call for the GOP not to “strip citizens of their right to marry,” speaking of HB 437, which would repeal the recent extension of marriage to homosexual unions in New Hampshire. It is a noble sentiment to wish greater freedom for all citizens, and I whole-heartedly back that sentiment – but at the same time, to frame the debate over gay marriage as freedom versus non-freedom is to grossly misunderstand what the debate is even about, and to miss exactly why it is that so many people are against gay marriage.

Capitalists and Socialists debate over them, but which side are they really on? The labels we use don't make a lot of sense.

This is the question many are still asking. Who are they? Who founded it? What are their greivances? What are their demands? Are they negotiable? And who do we negotiate with? The first step to understanding a group is to listen to what they say. What are they saying?

It has been a busy two weeks visiting the sites on my blogroll list, and I have found much that I want to link to. I regret I won't have time to keep up on all their new postings (some of them are quite prolific writers) or even to check for responses to my comments in some cases. I have over two pages of links to interesting blogposts I need to get out - but first, about this Occupy Wall Street group...

See my next post.

The website for my recently published book, The Nutcase Across The Street, is now finished. Check it out.

People complain that our leaders in Washington can’t seem to get along well enough to get much done, but the real problem is what their rhetoric does to the rest of us.

As of late, it appears that these two groups have somehow been divided, with the centrists joining the liberals and the libertarians joining the conservatives, but I have always seen them as two sides of the same coin.

This is the time we need true compromise, but not the variety of compromise wherein nobody gets quite what they want. This only breeds contempt and merely “buys time” while perceived injustice continues, putting off conflict for another day. What we need is the sort of lasting compromise wherein everybody gets exactly what they want. To be fair, there may be some issues on which no such compromise is possible, but far too often when such compromises are presented, they are rejected because those in power cannot afford to lose the issues of division they use in their campaign platforms.

The author of this article has some of the same suspicions I’ve had for a long time; the two major parties collude on certain issues and not always in ways fair to the rest of us. Crony capitalism and the welfare state tend to go hand in hand and both major parties are guilty. Hopefully, understanding this will be the first step to overcoming partisanship. We need to stop defending our preffered parties when they screw up and remain true to our principles.

Furthermore, it shows yet another reason why labels are more trouble than they’re worth. Most people are against both crony capitalism and excessive welfare states (it seems) and so most people don’t fit the left-right paradigm. I had wanted to call both crony capitalism and welfare forms of socialism, but this would only confuse people; the word socialism means different things to different people. I had wanted to say that remaining true to our principles and rejecting both major parties was what the tea parties were all about, but the "tea party" label has become tarnished. People would assume I was endorsing violence, anarchy, big business, racism, or a mere front for the GOP to take down Obama. None of this is true.

I recently found a couple of links at the Coffee Party website you may find interesting. Why is politics so divisive? What drives it? How did we get here? One woman makes the case that it is the news media and lays out how it evolved over time.

Be sure to check out her other post on how "argument culture" hurts America.

I was recently perusing RealClearPolitics and came across this video of a man (perhaps unknowingly) setting up a new narrative to current events that opposes the one I have found personally more useful.

I was perusing RealClearPolitics.com recently and came across Jimmy Hoffa's recent "declaration of war on Republicans." There are serious problems with his statement, but probably not the ones you think.

Sorry, readers. I have been a bit lazy lately and soon will be a bit busy, but stay tuned. I already have several posts in the works for September, including one about a guy I met who thinks Mr. T promotes incivility, another guy who thinks Michelle Bachmann's husband is gay, and some of my thoughts on the blame game surrounding our recent credit downgrade.

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?” – James Madison

As you might have noticed, I have a links page list of blogs I visit. These are blogs that are more or less consistently interesting. Often, I will link to posts from these blogs that I find interesting or relevant to something I want to write about, but recently I found a blog that is so interesting on such a consistent basis that I thought it deserved to be highlighted in its own post.

At anewkindofparty you can find links and information about alternative voting methods, campaign financing, demographics, or anything else pertaining to either third parties trying to make inroads or single-issue activists trying to work within the system. There is more often than not enough commenters to make for interesting conversation as well. It does at times become slightly academic, but I like that sort of thing. Check it out.

Since you like reading my blog so much, I thought I would write a book. The Nutcase Across The Street is about how many of us withdraw from engaging those who think differently than us and why we need to reach out to them to keep our society from becoming ever more polarized.

Avaliable from LuLu.com for 13.95 (or download it for 3.99!)

Today I have compiled some of the arguments I have heard for and against the institution of term limits.

Classifying people into liberal, conservative, and moderate camps is difficult for a number of reasons. Today I wish to introduce a concept I call “ideality levels.” I suspect that I will link to this post often in the future.

I recently met a young man who calls himself a socialist, but he's really a libertarian. I'll explain.

I recently read an op-ed that Obama was a lousy leader. He was a nice guy you’d like to have at your barbeque, careful not to offend anyone, but he wasn’t a leader.

A few weeks ago I heard yet another way to classify people as either liberal or conservative. The person I was listening to said that liberals are those who worry too much what others think about their actions, whereas conservatives are those that do what needs to be done no matter how upset people get.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was once married to a woman named Cheri. In 1994, she left him and moved to California. Three years later, she came back and they remarried. They are still together. Since Mr. Daniels is a public official, and his name was once even floated as a possible presidential candidate, there have been speculations as to his character. Does this divorce-remarriage incident tell us anything?

Most people are moderates and don’t feel we live in a particularly divided country. The media, of course, frames everything in terms of left and right and has to find ways to classify people as one or the other. Whether someone is a conservative or liberal then, depends on how the issues are framed.

I just thought this was interesting...

Dave's Video