A good essay. I especially like the part about "Conservative X."
I had thought for some time that the two "sides" were always shifting--particularly when viewed in terms of party labels. You had big-government Republicans in the 1920s and small-government Democrats until after 1932 election when Roosevelt went from running as a small-government guy to governing as an even bigger-government guy. The Republicans, by contrast morphed into small-government types until now when it appears that Republicans are even bigger government types than the Democrats were. (In other words, we've gone full circle.) I think we've seen the same sort of thing with other issues as well. One side gets a little bit of an advantage by scooping off part of the electorate by changing their position with one issue. The other side compensates by taking the other side of the issue to scoop off some of the electorate that has been left hanging by the other party. I almost visualize a wavy line running approximately down the center of the Nolan chart and over time the line bulges in one area and recedes in another, then flattens and bulges differently later. (Perhaps it would work better in some kind of 3-D view so you could see the individual issues in the middle as they were adopted by one side vs. the other.) The current "bulges" seem to me putting libertarians with conservatives and authoritarians with liberals. The other thing I've noticed is that the term "liberal" *USED* to mean something similar to what libertarian means now. Unfortunately, the term was hijacked by socialists (at least in the US) and has become discredited as people have figured out what the new meaning is. So now, the socialists are off to hijack the term "progressive." And while "progressive" may retain some of its original meaning for a while (whatever it was), it will eventually become synonymous with socialism as well. At which time, the socialists will be off to hijack another term (perhaps by then "liberal" will have recovered some of its old meaning and respect so they'll simply go back to it). Here's another take on what has changed among the left. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1544250,00.html Lowell C. Savage It's the freedom, stupid! Gun control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 1:01 PM > To: libnw@immosys.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: The Nolan Chart No Longer Applies > > I just added this to my occasional essays of possible interest to you: > http://users.bestweb.net/~robgood/politic/nolanolo.html . I started > writing it several years ago, just wrapped it up, and decided not to > change > the mention of Canadian developments when a relevant bill passed recently. > > In Your Sly Tribe, > Robert > _______________________________________________ > Libnw mailing list > Libnw@immosys.com > List info and subscriber options: > http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw > Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
