Too Much To Dream

Yep. Intellectually, they've been dead for some time.

We're in the middle of a major political realignment. This doesn't mean the end of the two-party system--far from it---but the left abandoned logical thought and decency long ago. The war has just unveiled what they've become.

The coming real debate is between libertarian conservatism and transnational progressivism.

Dean Esmay,

Careful what you wish for. While there are many conservatives who support a robust foreign policy, there are quite a few out there who are much more paleo-con than neo-con. And, no, I'm NOT referring just to the Pat Buchanan-ites.

But neocon arguments of "empire" rub even robust foreign policy conservatives like myself the wrong way. Go after Iraq? Yes, b/c of the clear and present danger---which probably requires administering it afterwards. But places like the Philippines and Malaysia, while we should aid them, will have to take care of themselves.

Africa, to echo Andrea here, is a basket case. (BTW, here's something to chew on: In the post-industrial world, one of the most important cards Africa had to play, certain natural resources, are much less important. Copper for phone lines and wires are being rapidly replaced by fiber-optics, made of glass, made of sand, which we can get from elsewhere, thanks. What does THAT do to Africa??)

So, the "liberatarian conservatives" may well tear themselves apart. 'Course, so might the tranzi progressives, but mebbe not, especially if they are united (for the short run) in tying down the American Colossus.

You really can't describe major political parties with overly specific, modified labels; rather they go by broader, one-word descriptives. Today it's "Left" and "Right", and I think if the Dems wither away the political spectrum will swap its x axis for its y axis and be between fairly nebulous constituencies best described as "libertarian" and (I think) "conservatives" (with that word actually coming around to slightly more of its classical meaning).

I'll have to wait and see where the lines get drawn before I decide which one I'll belong to.

I agree about the labels. I don't think that it's quite that simple. It's not a this or that situation. It's a spectrum that resembles a bell curve, with the vast majority within 2 sigma of the mean. Way out of the edges, both the right and left edges, the most vociferous are in a dogfight with their counterparts, but the rest of us still consider, weigh, and modify our views in response to the discourse of the majority. What the new parties will take on as their mantras remains to be seen.

I do think though that there will be new parties or at least new platforms that completely redefine the current parties. The old leaderships are aging out of the process, and it isn't yet apparent what definition the traditional parties will atke on and whether that definition will leave them viable or not.

Last, whatever happens, I do not think that we will be able to keep from being proactive in the rest of the world's politics. Whatever happens in the next few years, whatever worldviews grab hold in this country will have to contain elements of transnational progressivism. 9/11 has taken too firm a grip on the american psyche to think otherwise.

How about "Libertarians" vs. "Authoritarians"?

I think it was Jerry Pournelle, in an article perhaps in Galaxy magazine in the 70's, who proposed a 2-dimensional set of Cartesian coordinates to replace "left" and "right."

If I remember it correctly, one axis was Authoritarian at one end, Libertarian at the other. The other axis covered taxing/spending (low at one end, high at the other).

It always made more sense to me than a single left/right axis.