The Fallacy of Labels

Andrew Sullivan (bless Andrew -- I rail at him continuously, but he still manages to range far enough afield from pure politics -- especially now that he's in Clintonphobia recovery -- that he stays interesting) brings up this point, and misses:

The remarkable thing about those in Obama's past who rave about the guy is that so many are ... conservatives.

There are many, many problems with this statement, but I want to focus on one thing, and that's the labeling that goes on regularly in daily life, and especially in the blogosphere. We'll use, as an easily available example, me.

Most people would think, reading through the posts on this blog, that I'm a liberal. And in some areas, particularly social policy, that would be true, except . . . there's always that qualifier, isn't there? My position on social issues is really a very conservative one, but not in the contemporary sense of government regulation of people's private lives according to James Dobson's interpretation of scripture (and note that Dobson insists he is not a minister or theologian, so why should we listen to him about the Bible anyway?). In fact, my position, and the traditional conservative position, is just the opposite, and in keeping with the law of the land as reflected in Supreme Couirt decisions such as Griswold, Loving, Roe, and Lawrence: get the government out of our private lives and keep it out. Where I am a "liberal" is in my belief that one of the major functions of government is to provide for the welfare of its citizens. Just how much welfare to provide is open to discussion, but the basic concept is non-negotiable.

Now, back to Sullivan: I'm not notable for raving about Obama, but I think he's the best alternative we have, and maybe even a little better than that. I don't trust him, particularly, because, as the world, even including Maureen Dowd, has begun to realize, he's a politician. Politicians say what they think they need to say to get into office, and then they do what they were going to do anyway. And this is news exactly how? At any rate, Obama's big failure on social policy is the SSM issue, in which I think he is dead wrong on every level. I don't care if it's what he believes -- he's wrong. As to what he's actually going to do, who knows? By the same token, I would be very reluctant to label him as a "liberal" or a "conservative," and I figure that he's running as a Democrat because, let's face it, if you don't have to, would you want to run as a Republican right now?

So it occurs to me that, aside from a few doctrinaire movement-politics fixtures, the labels are really misleading.