Schizophrenic or Chameleon?

I’ve been thinking about political identities lately. There was a time when I always considered myself traditional old Labour. Although even then, there were doubts. I recall being about twelve years old when I started to understand about nationalisation. Even at that early age the idea that a privately owned company could be seized by the state horrified me. While as an adult I appreciate that there are more subtleties than I understood at the age of ten or twelve, I still abhor the general principle of the state taking control of those matters that should be left in private hands. Certainly if I owned a business and the state decided to seize it I would be less than happy.

Having said that I was always comfortable with the idea that health services should be free at the point of delivery, rather than based upon the patient’s ability to pay. And I always believed in the general principle of a welfare state that provided a safety net for those who through no fault of their own found themselves in need. In principle, I believed in a society that looked after those who for one reason or another were unable to look after themselves, while providing opportunities for the wealth creators to do their stuff.

While on the one hand aspects of the left wing ideology, such as a safety net provided by the welfare state, appeal, I deplore the encroaching invasion in my everyday life by the nanny state. Whether it is the odious Identity Cards bill that seeks to track every transaction over £200, every visit to my GP, where I live, where I have lived, when I move, where I bank, when I change banks, and so on, or the readiness by government (local and national) to seize on any new technology that increases their opportunity for greater surveillance of the population I resent their interference and snooping in my private life; it is none of their business and I intend to keep it that way. I also abhor the increasingly authoritarian agenda of the current administration as it puts together the building blocks of a totalitarian state.

Frequently news stories find me horrified that people unable to think for themselves, or act for themselves seek government intervention in what appears to be to be the most mundane of situations where citizens should be able to solve their own problems and get on with their own lives without overt state interference. Here I tend to agree with the libertarian ideal of a small government dealing with what it needs to deal with and keeping out of our everyday lives.

While I agree with new Labour on the general principle that students should pay for their tuition, I cannot agree with the current top-up fees arrangements that leaves them with crippling debts. I tend to prefer the Liberal Democrat approach of a graduate tax. It is after all only reasonable that those who benefit from higher education and the improved career prospects that that brings contribute back in some form financially to that education. It is merely the matter of how that is done, where I disagree with new Labour. Here I agree with Liberal Democrats and their proposals. Indeed, as far as the authoritarian agenda is concerned I also agree with Liberal Democrats.

However with age comes experience. And with that experience I realise that the left right measurement of politics just doesn’t cut it. Even using the political compass that adds the dimensions of libertarian and authoritarian still don’t quite fit. Strictly speaking, I’m a left leaning libertarian. Certainly economically I am to the left of, say, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair. I am well to libertarian of all major political parties in Britain and the USA. However, that is still not an accurate representation of where I stand. Trying to draw political maps and placing people on them lacks the subtlety necessary to fully understand where exactly each of us stands on any given subject. For example, I regularly read redbaron’s blog; this leans well to the left on the political scale. While I frequently find myself agreeing with redbaron’s comments on the political situation, I also read Patrick Crozier’s blog, and he is a self-confessed Conservative. Yet, I regularly find myself in agreement with his comments too. Indeed, while Samizdata is perhaps a little too far to the right for most of my thinking, I often find myself agreeing or at least nodding in mild agreement, at some of the comments on that blog. And therein lies the rub, I cannot agree with everyone all of the time. What I do find is that I agree with most of them some of the time.

So what am I? A political schizophrenic, or pragmatist who is prepared to agree with one political ideology on a given subject, and another on a different subject. And why not? Maybe I’m not a schizophrenic, perhaps I’m a chameleon.