I was surprised to find myself agreeing with many of the points made in Jonah Goldberg's recent column about the nascent "No Labels" movement championed by NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (Goldberg's "conservatives good, liberals bad" screeds usually turn me off big time.) But one thing Goldberg wrote really stuck in my craw, whatever that is.
Politics without labels? What a silly idea(UnionLeader.com, December 10, 2010)If I tell you I'm a conservative Republican, you'll have no idea what my views are on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or beef jerky, but you'll have a good idea of what I think about taxes and foreign policy. No, partisan labels aren't perfect; both parties have ample disagreements within their ranks on pretty much every issue. But they're better than nothing. They're clarifying, not confusing. In other words, labels aren't "meaningless" as so many self-described independents claim, but meaningful. If anything, what's meaningless is the claim that you don't believe in labels when obviously anybody who speaks intelligently about anything must use them.
What no-labelers really mean is that they don't like inconvenient disagreements that hinder their agenda. And that's what is so troubling, indeed so undemocratic, about this claptrap. When they claim we need to put aside labels to do what's right, what they are really saying is you need to put aside what you believe in and do what they say.
When activists say we need to move past the partisan divide, what they mean is: Shut up and get with my program. Have you ever heard anyone say, "We need to get past all of this partisan squabbling and name-calling. That's why I'm going to abandon all my objections and agree with you"? I haven't. But isn't that
exactly what we have heard Obama say, over and over, basically driving us crazy? Are you really listening, Jonah?
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