Tuesday, July 22, 2003

What's a bleeding heart to do?

I can't tell if I'm a liberal or a conservative any more.

I'm an environmentalist. I give money to the Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, and a dozen other "left-wing" organizations. I love to hike. I own a pair of Tevas.

I support a woman's right to have an abortion. (There, I've just destroyed any policital ambitions I might have harbored by failing to use the convenient euphamism "a woman's right to choose" or the even slimier "a woman's right to make her own medical decisions." I understand why politicians use these phrases, but come on, we all know what we're talking about here.)

I support gay marriage. To me, prohibiting gays from getting married is no more defensible than prohibiting blacks from marrying whites.

I believe marijuana should be legalized. Having tobacco be legal and marijuana not makes no sense at all. We made the same mistake with alchohol back in 1918. Why haven't we learned our lesson? Is it just because the gangsters now are wearing bandanas and sweatshirts instead of fedoras and pinstripe suits?

On the other hand...

I believe in the individual right to bear arms. (See this for a more eloquent defense of this position than I can muster.)

I believe in free enterprise and small government.

I think deficit spending generally ought to be avoided.

Hm, maybe I'm a liberal after all. Whew!

1 comment:

Publius said...

Blue Dog Democrat - socially liberal but fiscally conservative. Unfortunately, the blue dogs have become a much more endangered species since you wrote this in 2003.