The Black Republican

We've talked recently about the cause of the Militant Moderate. Today, Rush Limbaugh makes my case with his branded tongue-in-your-face manner.

But as far as I'm concerned, you can be who you are and convert some of those independents long before two weeks before the election -- and if you don't convert them, screw 'em! It's their problem, you know, it's not ours. I just don't like this business of holding back and denying who you really are because you're living in fear; you're worried you're going to scare people. Both parties make me mad doing this stuff because you end up with total phoniness and you end up with people who aren't being who they really are and they attract people on the basis of that and that's how everything gets so screwed up. I really do believe, I think we ought to outlaw independentism. I think we ought to have a law that says, "Six months before the election every citizen ought to declare whether he's Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, conservative or liberal. No independents allowed. No moderates allowed." Make your mind up out there! Get some backbone! You're screwing up the country by being so indecisive because you're having a bunch of people pander to your indecision. That's really going to get us a lot of places.

This is a slightly different tack on the concept that ideology is a necessary tool of the politically informed. Regardless of what your own ideology is, you have to be able to make a logical case for or against any idea based on a set of core principles. It really shouldn't take you longer than a few minutes to at least know where your ideology might fit you into an argument, even if you don't know which way you will eventually decide.

But if you wait for other people to plead their case, then say, "I like to weigh the arguments of both sides, and pick and choose who I think is right on each issue," your participation in democracy doesn't inspire my confidence. Please, figure out what it is that makes you tick, then champion that cause.

(I guess I should note that I'm not talking about people opposed to labels because they don't want their ideology to be presumed. I'm talking about people who refuse to even consider that they have - or worse yet, oppose the idea they ought to have - an ideology. There's a vast world of difference there.)