I need a new label!

Labels are used in every day life because without them we would spend an inordinate amount of time describing things and people in great detail when the details are, in many cases, unimportant to the topic at hand.

Clearly details are always important because that's where the devil lives, but in everyday conversation it is often reasonable, and indeed advantageous, to be able to express ideas in the shorthand of labels.

Pretend for a moment that you and a new friend are going to go to lunch, and you offer the simple "We can take my car". It is clearly sufficient for most applications. The make, model and serial number of your car is unimportant, that is, most of the time. It could be that your car is full of trash and other unpleasant things such that the passenger would not be comfortable, and as a new friend you might be unaware of the discomfort travel in your car would cause. Your established friends would know that when you say "my car" you mean "my car and all its junk." But the new friend will be unpleasantly surprised when he arrives with you at your car and then is faced with either suffering, or making his discomfort known. This is because the devil lives in the trash in your car! The unspoken trash. The assumed trash.

All labels carry this risk.

But some labels are even worse because, by their very definition they lead to misunderstanding.

In politics, the labels "conservative" and "progressive" are two such examples.

I shall start with "progressive". The problem with this label is that, to many, progress denotes positive change. Yet most or all of the positions put forth by "progressives" are, in fact, a return to slavery and other forms of oppression. For the most part the only thing progressive about "progressives" is that their policies help those who feel the need assuage their guilty feelings about being successful, while imposing their values on the rest of us.

Then we come to "conservative", a label I have resisted for a long time because it is often applied to me, and even sometimes by me because it was often close enough for the conversation at hand. But I believe I can no longer carry the mantle of "conservative". The problem is that I'm not interested in conserving anything! I'm an evangelist for freedom. I'm not happy with the status quo. I'm not interested in being some sort of political equivalent of the environmentalist nut jobs (another fine label).

I need a new label!

I am pushing freedom forward, not backwards. I stand for individual freedom, not collectivized oppression. I stand for individual freedom, not tradition for the sake of tradition. When traditions serve the individual, I support them.

I think the only label that makes any sense for me now is "Libertarian". I shall endeavor to correct people when they use any other label.