"Are You Liberal? Conservative? or Confused?"

Although I have been so overwhelmed by my internship and other jobs during that last month and have not made any time for writing on here, I have still managed to find time to read books, mainly while I was commuting or just waiting for participants of our program to arrive or to be picked up. One of the most recent books I finished was by Richard Maybury (who I've mentioned in a previous post about money.) He writes books as if he were writing letters to his nephew explaining about different topics. He signs his name "Uncle Eric." I've read several of his books including one on economics, on the World Wars, on the war in the Middle East, about justice, and most recently "Are you...Liberal? Conservative? or Confused?" He of course is neither, he calls himself a juris naturalist, like unto a libertarian. In this book Maybury explains basic platforms of the left-right political spectrum, which are of course generalizations, but hold true for most people who claim to be of one camp or the other.

Not withstanding the dominance of the left-right political spectrum in the United States,(which is really rather centralized compared to other political systems around the world, ex. communism is far left and fascism is far right,) Maybury claims that the juris naturalist is in fact not even a part of the spectrum. Here is why:

"Liberals and conservatives both agree that [government] encroachments on you is a fine and necessary thing. They disagree only over the specific details, which can be placed in two categories 'economic' and 'social.'"

He then goes on to explain that in all matters economic such as money, work, production, trade, investments etc the conservatives want freedoms and liberals willingly encroach (force, intrude, restrict, etc). In everything social such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, media, sexual practices etc, the liberals want freedom and the conservatives willingly encroach. Another way to look at it is as an issue of privacy in economics (right) verses privacy in social life (left.) Still another way is to say that the right wants to use force to stamp out immorality whereas the left wants to use it to stamp out inequality of wealth. Food for thought, why do the Republicans get the reputation of being "anti-government" when democrats are too, just in a different area of life?

For those who are moderates or centrists, even though they claim to be avoiding extremes, they want to control both economic and social conduct.

The juris naturalist, however, wants liberty in all areas of life. He does not want government encroachment anywhere. That does not mean he supports illegal business transactions or drug use, but he believes that there are other more effective means than government force by which to prevent or eradicate these problems. He therefore does not fit anywhere on the spectrum. No government encroachment.

Therefore what? There are so many angles you could take with this but I guess I would just encourage you to consider your political claim, whether you think government encroachments are necessary, if so where, and be aware of what others mean when they say they are a liberal or a conservative or a moderate, etc.