A New Political Model

The other day I watched Glenn Beck say something that mirrored my own thoughts.  He said, "you have to stop looking left and right, and start looking up and down."  That hit me like a ton of bricks.  He casually touched on something that has been rolling around inside my head for a few years now.  The closest thing I can find to it is the Nolan Diagram, but that isn't quite what I'm expressing.

Everyone knows the Conventional Political Model.  Fascists on the far right, Communists on the far left, and in the middle is everyone else.  When you look at the two extremes, its easy to see how similar Fascists and Communists really are.  They hate each other, and justify their own evil historically by the crimes of the other.

What I have done in the New Political Model is to attach the extreme ends of the left and right wings to make a circle.  Totalitarianism is at the bottom where Communism and Fascism meet, and Freedom is at the opposite end where Libertarians and Anarchists meet.

The Center Line is where Left and Right meet in the Conventional Model.  In the New Model the Center Line represents the maximum level of Freedom and Liberty without really ceding the government to Al Capone or the Taliban.  The Center Line is not static. 

Its interesting to note that while in Canada the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party are relatively close together in the center, they are worlds apart in my model.  This is closer to the reality.  While their level of freedom is similar, their style and approach could not be more different.

Outside the circle or political continuum, are the ideological pressures that drive a party up or down towards freedom or totalitarianism. 

Libertarians believe in smaller government.  They believe that individuals and institutions alike can decide what is best for them.  In short Libertarians believe that more Liberty is the ultimate goal.

Social Conservatives in the west are like libertarians with a moral compass.  I included them here in this model because there exists a route to right wing totalitarianism that is not expressed in the west.  Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Taliban and Dark Age Europe took this route to tyranny.  Religion can never be used to fix social problems through law and the power of the state.  The state must be secular in order to treat all faiths of all peoples equally.  Any believer will tell you that God has granted us with free will that cannot be taken away by the state.  Through history Social Conservatives have learned that their faith is much safer in a free society at peace with other faiths than to dominate by force.  If you are unlucky enough to be of a different belief than the state, or your faith loses control of the state, you will be oppressed.  A conservative path to tyranny is clearly impossible due to current and historical examples of this folly.  Our Social Conservatives are an indispensable moral conscience to Conservatism as a whole.

On the left or red side we have the Anarchists.  These people are largely ignored by everyone.  This is because people with a passion for freedom but who still believe in civilization drift towards libertarianism.  All that is left over are the people who want to hunt and gather in an empty world.  There is no draw towards freedom on the left.

The answer to everything on the left is Socialism.  In some cases Socialism is the goal unto itself.  Socialists believe that its the right of government to intervene in everything.  Every last little part of a citizens life is regulated and controlled the deeper into socialism one goes.  Taxes are a favorite tool of the Socialist.  They use taxes to further whatever goal is in vogue and have little regard for property or wealth.  Once Socialism descends into Communism it has no freedom at all.  The evil brother of fascism, it commands the economy and its people are slaves to the collective.

The large orange arrow represents Government Scope Creep.  Its like gravity in that it pushes all parties and governments towards totalitarianism.  Scope Creep is a systems analysis term to describe the tendency of system planners to take on more and more responsibility and functions in their system.  Lawmakers make laws.  All of them.  Every government, no matter what its philosophy, tends to make more and more rules.  These rules accumulate over time and drag us all down in red tape.
This is where I find Progressives.  They are neither left nor right but will use government or business to further their chosen agenda.  Progressives can be thought of as post-Socialists since they simply outsource social goals to large corporations.  Large corporations are only too happy to become extensions of government.

There are so many pressures towards totalitarianism its a wonder we have any freedom at all.  Only Democracy ensures that governments stay towards the center line.  Conservatives are deeply committed to freedom and free markets.  Some regulation is always necessary along with adequate enforcement.  The key advantage that Conservatives have over Liberals is the Libertarian element.  Conservatives should not only move closer to the center but find innovative ways to move the center line upwards.  In the conventional model this would appear as though new territory was being created on the right.  The people don't change easily, but more people would find themselves amicable to Conservative ideals if we could only move that center line.   

The trick is getting as close to freedom as possible without letting the crooks out there win.  We need to be smart with our taxes, our laws, our policies.  Government should strive towards minimalism.  Only Conservatives have the ability to counter all the pressures incrementally pushing us into totalitarianism.

The more I look at this the more it makes me think.  This is why I have shared this model with you.  You should think.  There is no Utopia here, only compromises between opposing forces that allow us to live together.   Perhaps a new model is just what we need?


Note: I've inverted left and right for aesthetic reasons and labeled them according to the conventional model.  Remember that the model is just a metaphor and that left and right, blue and red, are arbitrary.