Sunday, November 18, 2012

On Liberals and Libertarians

Well here I am. I'm sitting in the kitchen of a complete stranger, just outside of town, preparing to learn how to make cheese.  One of the two hosts, a man, spoke about the values of goat's milk, the dangers of cow's milk, and the effect on his autistic son. He philosophizes about this dangerous food system we live by in this country and I nod along in agreement. Then the second host, a woman, speaks about the changing nature of personal farming, about government regulations and intrusions, about USDA controls and unfair taxes. I nod a little less enthusiastically because, as a Democrat, my vote probably put politicians in power who increased government reach into small farmer's lives... let's be honest.  Then one of the participants speaks, she talks about knowing where her food comes from, the value of whole foods, and the Slow Food Movement. I chime in from time to time. Then the last participant speaks, a woman who is there with her husband, who summarizes everything we've been saying with "that's why our family has chosen to homestead and homeschool our children, completely pull out of mainstream society and raise our family our own way."  If you have been imagining some sort of soothing music playing in the background, this is where you'd insert the sound of screeching breaks.

This is an observation I continue to make in my interactions with other homesteading/self-sustaining folks and is a blog concept that's been bouncing around in my mind for months now: there is a point, in my opinion, where the extreme Right and the extreme Left meet.  As if political values can be measured on a circle rather than a timeline.  I consider myself very liberal. I believe that many aspects of our system are broken and until these problems are rectified then I am okay with the government providing financial aide.  We're talking about children, after all. I would never have an abortion, but I do not consider myself in a position to tell another woman what her choice should be. I believe whole-heartedly that global warming is a thing that exists and is happening now.  I believe corporate interests have too much power in this country, but I also understand that we are currently reliant on this power to fuel our economy. I don't like it. I try and make consumer choices to change it, but I am also realistic about the current state of things. I'm not sure isolationism is a good foreign policy, but I hate war.

And as a result, I like to think that I live my life according to the following values: tolerance, sustainability, personal responsibility, compassion for others, and a focus on whole living.

So I raise chickens and bees and I can produce. I cook from scratch. We limit technology use in our household and we let our child play outside (sometimes alone) and fall down in the dirt.  We rarely medicate and barely vaccinate.  I pay my taxes, but make charitable donations to local organizations.  I plan to supplement my child's public education with concepts that we value and we have a loose idea of religion, nothing that relates too much to Jesus, but more a general concept of God.

I go to workshops about raising bees, making cheese, canning, grinding grain into flour, and self-sustainability. And when I'm at these various functions, I meet many people. And many of them are Libertarians. In many ways we couldn't be more different and yet we are living our lives so similarly.  The woman who spoke up at the cheese-making workshop did not, for example, believe in global warming, but they were working to reduce their footprint for money-saving/sustainability purposes. They homeschooled because of their own values (mostly religious), but spent a portion of the school day teaching the kids how to tend a garden.  I assumed they were pro-life. I know they were opposed to government intrusion and yet, they were living their life nearly exactly like I was.

Our motivations for why we grew our own food and were learning to make cheese were different, but nonetheless, there we were.  Our votes mostly likely canceled each other out and, yet, there we were.  Me thinking the Democrats could steer us closer to an ideal and they putting their money on the Libertarians.

Now I'm not one of these "can't we all just get along" kind of people. I like competition and I understand its value in a free world, but the more I hang out in these circles with other Carhart-wearing beekeepers, the more I find our values are nearly the same.  We agree on a general moral decline in this nation, but they cite some specifics from the Bible and I cite a more generic idea of  the Golden Rule. And so we learn from each other and work together, but never discuss politics and all fall victim to a nostalgia that probably never existed.

So as we recover from another election season and I watch/read all these stories about what the Republicans must do to win in 2016, I've never been more sure that a two party system is not working.  I'm less and less becoming 100% Democratic, but the options are so polarizing. I'd like to think that Americans, in general, are becoming more complex and having only candidate A and candidate B is not going to serve us in the future. And so my point in this was only to put down on (virtual) paper this trend that I've noticed, especially in these divisive times. I'm not interested in arguing politics or finger-pointing, but maybe am, after all proposing that "we all just get along."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think this is an interesting topic because the tea party, republicans, conseratives, whatever name you put on this group have such divided opinions. Since the election they are pointing fingers at each other and can't decide who to blame. Win at all cost, right? I don't have any answers either but the distractions worry me. We don't see the forest for the trees! By they way, I took a political test and it turned out I was green, not democratic. I'm ok with that too!