WHAT'S IN A POLITICAL NAME?

What does a person call himself these days?

I used to call myself a conservative. But whenever I say that we ought to
legalize crack cocaine, some conservatives feel they'd be justified in
introducing my hindquarters to the business end of the Second Amendment.

Besides, as I see it, conservatives don't actually stand for much these
days. Or rather, I should say, they do; conservatives stand today for
whatever liberals stood for 50 years ago. Don't believe me? Fifty years ago
conservatives hated Social Security. Now they defend it as if it were in
the Constitution right there along with motherhood, apple pie and tax
loopholes.

Then I decided to call myself libertarian. But most of my friends instantly
assumed that my secret motivation was to actually start smoking the crack
cocaine I so wanted to legalize. Too many people think of libertarian like
libertine -- so I should start having indiscriminate sex, driving too fast,
doing dope and listening to Howard Stern. No thanks.

Drugs should be legalized because the drug war is more dangerous to society
than all the coke fiends in the history of the world. And if outlawing
plants actually worked, I can think of far more annoying weeds to take care
of first -- crabgrass, for starters. Besides, what right is it of mine to
control what my neighbor wants to smoke, snort, swallow, ingest or inject?

Also, as libertarian David Boaz admits, the word is "a clunky neologism
with too many syllables. It probably wouldn't be anyone's first choice."

Briefly, very briefly, I thought about tagging myself with the liberal
label. Trouble there was that I was full of self-loathing within minutes
and had to give it up for the sake of my mental health.

To be honest, in fact, I'm not even sure that liberals should call
themselves liberal any longer. The word took enough of a beating during the
Carter years, struggled through Reagan, got a leg up with Bush Sr., but
now, after suffering eight years of Clinton, looks as if it'll die a
painful and lingering death.

Like snakes eating their own tails, people who call themselves liberals are
actively helping to destroy whatever value the word still has. Folks like
California Gov. Gray Davis are, for instance, currently doing their level
best to see that the term is listed in Roget's Thesaurus next to "political
idiocy."

There's always classical liberal, which acts as a pretty good alternative
to libertarian. Historically, like libertarians, classical liberals believe
in open markets and limited government. But most people don't know anything
about history any longer and think that a classical liberal is Ted Kennedy
abusing Brahms instead of booze.

Giving up on that front, I thought that progressive might work. After all,
I'm hip. I like things to keep moving forward. I'm all about progress. But
then I realized that most people who call themselves progressive are pretty
regressive in terms of what they want to do. They're basically just
Bolsheviks on a bad diet.

Their leaders are guys like Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader, and if you've
followed these guys, you know what a winning team they are: a linguist who
pontificates about economics and a consumer advocate too scared to ride in
a mid-engine automobile. Oy vey!

Other words are also troublesome. Take moderate. What's that supposed to
mean? The major parties and the various ideologies stuffed inside their big
tents are already tepid enough. Tell me honestly, can you get any more
moderate than Orrin Hatch? Insipid is the next step, not moderate.

People have recommended I call myself a constitutionalist, which would be
fine, except Supreme Court Justice David Souter no doubt considers himself
a constitutionalist, too -- and you know what a yutz he is.

Independent? Please. Calling yourself an independent is just not calling
yourself something else; it's nothing by itself. Sure there's a lot of
almost laudable self-righteousness attached to not being a liberal, to not
being a conservative. But what are you? Like Colombia's antigovernment
protesters during the 1960s, they're Nadaistas -- "Nothingists."

But I'm a Somethingist, at least as far as I can tell. In this
greased-label-catching contest of modern-day politics, I just can't tell
what I'm supposed to be called. So, I'm going to put it to you, the reader.

What do you call a guy who believes the government shouldn't:

tell us how to educate or raise our children; confiscate horrendous amounts
of our money; regulate what we stick in everything from our gas tanks to
our mouths; tell us who to hire and what our businesses can and can't do;
decide how we should medicate ourselves; operate agencies that abuse people
for how they decide to medicate themselves; operate bureaucracies that
usurp the role of private institutions; subsidize both activities and
companies that shouldn't exist by virtue of their lack of market value; and
decide to prosecute businesses that exist "too well" in the marketplace
(hint: think Microsoft)? In other words, what do you call a guy who
believes the government shouldn't stick its nose into every corner of our
existence, nitpick like an uppity relative and boss us around like a cross
between a drill sergeant and school principal?

But at the same time also:

considers the traditional cultural values of Christendom to be superior to
pagan culture; thinks that living the good life has more to do with having
a wife, raising a family and making a stand than making a fortune; is
convicted that if people read the Ten Commandments with half the enthusiasm
with which they scroll through John Grisham's latest, American society
would be far better off; maintains that conservatives, by focusing on
life's narrow field of politics, ceded the rest of culture to social
reactionaries; and thinks that forcing his views on others, however noble
they may be, is not the way to see others accept these ideas for their own
but, rather, thinks persuasion and building personal rapport with those who
disagree is a far better method of conversion? Obviously, the conservatives
usually respond by saying that the government should tell us what we can
consume, vis-a-vis dope, and think that grabbing my money is fine so long
as it goes to fund Republican programs. And they hate it when I insist that
the cultural brain rot of the 1960s is basically their fault (or, more
precisely, the fault of fundamentalist Christian conservatives who
retreated from the culture in the 19th and 20th centuries).

At the same time, the liberals usually say I'm too religious, snicker a bit
and then promptly disagree with most everything else. Of course the
government should tell you what to do with your life, your property, your
freedom. After all, government knows best.

Likewise, the libertarians usually say I'm too religious, snicker a bit and
then promptly agree with most everything else. And then go back to
snickering about me being too religious.

Moving from the fringe to the rigor mortis-stricken dead center, the
progressives think I'm an oppressor of the world's victims because I don't
agree with them that importing shoes made in Malaysia is the moral
equivalent of the Holocaust. The independents don't know what they think
about me because most of them don't know what they think about anything.
Meanwhile, no surprise here, the moderates say I'm an extremist -- never
mind that some of these same folks think Bob Dole is also a radical.

So, dear reader, got your label gun ready? I've got an archive going back
to April '99 if you need a little more info before choosing. But as soon
you're ready, shoot me a name -- other than one containing four-letters,
please. Above all, I'm sensitive.

Joel Miller is the commentary editor of WorldNetDaily. His publishing
company, MenschWerks,recently published "God Gave Wine" by Kenneth L. Gentry Jr.