Labels, labels, labels

I've typed this same post so many times that I'm surprised I haven't developed a Pavlovian nausea response to just thinking about it. But here I go again.

When a label or a symbol becomes more important than the thing or qualities that it is supposed to represent, there is a problem. A serious problem. Just about every lefty can give you numerous examples of the right failing on that, like making flag burning illegal in a country that is supposed to be based on freedom or calling yourself a Christian while being rabidly in favor of the death penalty. Or people trying to stop a community center being built in the land of religious freedom. But the lefties aren't immune. Especially now.

I see alot of "my party, right or wrong", from the Democrats and those who still vote for them. I want to know, really, what makes them declare themselves as liberals or progressives or Democrats. What do they think that means? I used to think that the Dems were the party of everyone else, those of us who didn't get born with possibilities but were working to make more possibilities for everyone. When I saw, perhaps a few elections too late for some and perhaps a few elections too early for others, that my party wasn't the party of possibility but the party of slightly less heinous than the other guys, I had to abandon the label. But I'm okay with that. The label no longer gave me a sense of belonging to something better. And oh do I want something better. I dream of a world that might look a bit like heaven if I believed in god. But I don't. So I am going to have to make it right here instead of suffering till judgment day.

What would I label myself now? I would say progressive, in that I believe the only way for human beings to survive is to move forward. I would say expansive, because rights should be an ever growing, adapting, evolving thing. There are abuses committed in the world on a daily basis that we don't even have a name for yet because others are so large and glaring as to absorb all the light. I would say communal, because the best things about human evolution have always involved cooperation, starting with language. We can't go forward one by one.

But none of that is in a party platform. Instead we have compromises and half truths and blatant lies and sacrifice (on our part) without reciprocation. Democracy is broken, and the elites rotate in front of us like conveyor belt sushi. Sure, they may be slightly different from each other, but it's all the same basic ingredients.

I could beg and plead, argue and debate and wait for the masses to "wise up". But they won't. They never have. People in general will tolerate a whole lot of abuse and most will never bite the hand that whips them. All changes for the better have always started with a handful of people who could imagine a better world. Imagine how very different things would be if Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin couldn't shrug off the label of "British" to forge a new American identity.

That's the fear. The loss of identity that comes with forward thinking and label changing. That's what makes Democrats whinge about how "the other guys are so much worse". They are people who cannot imagine a world that is so much better. Perhaps they deserve a wee bit of pity, but only a little. We don't actually need them. (And I have found that a little look of disdain works much better than all the logic in the universe at just getting the fear mongers to shut up.)

*I freely acknowledge that the founding fathers' idea of a new American identity were limited to white men only, and for most only land-owning white men. Doesn't mean democracy is a bad idea, just that the world should be more democratic.