In other news, My friend Rick has completely nailed my feelings on the whole Democrat/Republican – liberal/conservative thing.

I don’t bristle or object when people call me a “liberal” or a “progressive”…because I guess that’s generally the most accurate, and those are the two I resort to most often when describing myself to people because it’s probably going to take the least time and lead them into the fewest false assumptions.

Still, I was just in a discussion with a friend who called me a “liberal” and identifies himself as a “conservative”.  Yet in less than five minutes I was able to identify two areas in which I am more “conservative” than he is.

I generally prefer to call myself a “Jeffersonian Progressive”.  Mostly because “civil libertarian” and “constitutionalist” have been taken over by regressiveist reactionary wackos whose actual ideology have nothing to do with the labels they have chosen for themselves.

In the term “Jeffersonian Progressive” I see the acknowledgement that there is a balance between the public and private that should be carefully maintained such that they each continue to benefit the other with neither on having undue influence or dependence on each other.    I see the importance of community standards being balanced with individual freedom of conscience, and I see reason, knowledge and enlightened self-interest as the primary guides (necessary though not always sufficient) toward maintaining those balances.

To me, it speaks of the continuous need for honest effort to maintain our society in the delicate balance so plainly crafted into that incredible document.

I see ideology, political gamesmanship, mob rule and the propagation of ignorance and superstition to be directly opposed to the interests of a democracy under our constitution.  They are, for all intents and purposes, enemies of the State.

As long as I’m on that subject, I’d like to refer you to the book The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. 

Just buy it and read it.  It’s not a difficult book to read, and it gives an excellent overview of how we got to where we are in the current state of science as it relates to public policy and politics.  It doesn’t pull any punches, and no…there are no sacred cows.  Mooney acknowledges some “liberal” abuses of science as well, though he focuses on the current abuses going on which are, after all, the ones that need to be addressed at this time.

It is less a political book than a handbook for recognizing the hallmarks of science abuse…no matter who is doing it.  Reading it will make you a better consumer of science and public policy.

It’s important, because for a people to be free, they have to be able to make choices, and in order to make choices, they need information, and they need to be able to tell the good information from the bad, and they need to be able to take the good information and use reason and good will to forge it into good policy.

That isn’t really happening right now, and we will all suffer if we don’t make some big changes real soon.