I get the feeling that a few of you see my posts and jump to the conclusion that I must be a liberal and a Democrat. I’m neither. Truth be told, my positions in all of my writing track with public opinion.
This makes me—in my writing at least—a centrist. Now, the center is indeed liberal. But when that word gets thrown around—or hurled at me—it means Democrat. I am in my day-to-day life, a true centrist liberal, which means my positions are in synch with two-thirds of the country. I am not nor have I ever been a Democrat. I do, however, think Kamala Harris will be a decent executive. Does this make me a Democrat? Hardly. Does disliking the guy who talks about dating his daughter make me a Democrat? Do I even have to say it?
I do agree to a large extent with classical liberal thought. I hold in high esteem the work of thinkers such as: Locke, Paine, Adam Smith, Rousseau, von Humboldt, J. S. Mill, et al. But when that term gets used in twenty-first-century America, this is probably not what folks have in mind.
As to what I truly (intellectually) am, I tend to keep schtum on the matter. Why? Because it requires too much explanation, which I don’t find particularly helpful. Bear in mind, there is no “left” in American politics; leftist thought/politics here exists only in books. (There are zero leftist politicians on Capitol Hill—despite what many assert.) And it’s in those books—ones by Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Rocker, et al.—where I actually reside. (See the footnote on page 48 in my most recent book, NPNR.)
But you see, I keep it to myself. My blog is not a pulpit from which I preach leftist thought. I work from the center—well to the right of where I truly am—and seek to address today’s problems with practical, non-theoretical solutions. Then, down the road, we can have a discussion about theory.
Photos: Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)
