From the insightful Heretical Ideas -- We challenge the orthodoxy, so you don't have to.
It seems that if you agree with issues A, B, C, then you're automatically a "liberal" or "conservative" or whatever, regardless of your feelings on issues X, Y, and Z. As a result, good ideas that comes from the mouths of someone from one of the other tribes must be immediately condemned, regardless of the merits. Somebody's political "label" becomes a useful ad hominem for two reasons. First, you can attack that person on the grounds of their label, rather than the merits of the argument. And second, if somebody from another tribe happens to agree with you, then you can say "See, even this liberal/conservative/socialist/etc. says that I'm right!"--again, without involving the merits of the argument.Posted by Vanderleun at August 11, 2003 12:36 PMI think that perhaps it's high time that intelligent persons of all political persuasions actively work to remove political labels from their tribal meaning, and get them back to what they actually should be: a useful description of someone's basical political outlook, devoid of moral approbation.
