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• Friday, November 21, 2008 04:58 AM

  To Label or Not to Label

  You can have the conversation be about language--or not. This is about the language--or the latest fashion when it comes to the language. Do you think if the "liberals" had dominated the political scene for the last forty years the way "conservatives" have we'd be having this discussion?

  Will folks wear their jeans this year worn with patches, or nicely stitched and pressed?

  The other conversation is what really makes one conservative vs liberal for reasons where the language doesn't matter--but what is being talked about does. Did my cousin think Obama is a "traitor" because he didn't wear his flag button because he is a conservative--and looking for anything he can to dis the guy? How much does it really have to do with "policies" and how much a way of looking at the world that is fixed, excluding, and paranoid?

  On the other side, so many "liberals" are so detached from the issues on the ground where they matter they won't take a stand, and sniff their noses at politics because they are above it all. Hence, the "conservatives" have been our rulers and thought makers and only a hero of extraordinary dimensions could get "liberals" off their high horse.

  I'm more interested in the attitudes that go with the labels than the labels themselves, and that takes one into an entirely different analysis than Mr. Lind provides--albeit a more risky, less generally agreed upon analysis, but one everybody knows exists.

  I don't have to wake up tomorrow and be on a talk show with any of these guys or dolls, so I get to tell you what I think. It's more fun this way.

  —Ben Sen Read Ben Sen's other letters
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