comments

1. Josh Weichhand on March 8th, 2010 at 12:01 pm

   This is good stuff, Andrew.

2. Andrew Simone on March 8th, 2010 at 12:07 pm

   I liked it but, as always, I am just the messenger.

3. Daryl Scroggins on March 8th, 2010 at 2:28 pm

   Interesting. I’m always curious about the intersection of ideology and principle–and the extensive malleability of positions that allows skilled orators to locate the origin of all good things in the camp of conservatism or liberalism. Whichever camp wins, I usually find myself thinking that the usefulness of the term itself has been further diminished. Watching this, I am reminded of all the times I have seen a large group of people–conservative and liberal–get together for a pot luck meal which didn’t require religious or political views of one sort or another as a precondition for gathering and sharing.

   I think of myself as a liberal with a firm appreciation of some typically conservative principles. I also think of myself as an athiest who does not lack a sense of reverence for the majesty of what others call “creation” and who believes that love is always the best guide through life. In the C vs L debate, though, I have to say that I have met many more conservatives than liberals who grate on my nerves with their puritanical “givens”–their commitment to freedom that in an instant may narrow to a particular personal view of it that is “obviously” sufficient for all. Liberals question to the point of inaction or muddled accomodation; conservatives insist that resolute action scarcely needs thought. Each side indulges in the need to see the world as playing to their own strengths. And the extreme edges of the right and the left come round to being the same thing: faith in views that violence will best affirm.

   Here’s my liberalconservative manifesto:

   Question yourself constantly and intently, and when action is demanded, act with the thought that love should be present at every point in the process.

   Don’t assume that your understanding contains the understanding all others may have found.

   Don’t make comfort one’s gauge of rightness–lest the universe be seen as one’s personal servant.

4. Cindy Scroggins on March 8th, 2010 at 2:35 pm

   Well, damn, Daryl. That’s one fine manifesto.

   Good luck carrying that out, Chief.

5. Andrew Simone on March 8th, 2010 at 2:49 pm

   That’s pretty damn close to mine, Daryl.

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