Unprincipled Traitor!

From Rebellion -

Nothing irritates me more than the emails I get from readers who say, “I thought you were a conservative/libertarian/free-market defender/blah-blah and now you’re saying (fill in the blank).” I rail against immigration, and the left-libertarians get upset.  I lambast George W. Bush, and the Republicans forward pouty little protests that I’m undermining “our” commander-in-chief.  I condemn the Patriot Act, and “conservatives” shoot little barbs at me for not supporting the “War on Terror.” They all tell me how inconsistent the Rebellion blog is, or (here’s my favorite) how unprincipled I am.

Now that hurts.

It is always amazing how quickly "right-minded" folks can and will turn off what you have to say if you view the world through panorama instead of a microscope.  Those that try to apply philosophy of how to think are seldom tolerated long by those that believe in ideologies that tell them what to think.

Blogging exasperates this phenomenon - an ideologue may stumble upon your blog based upon one post that supports their particular ideology; they read for a few days, until you post an item that does not fit neatly into their "rules" of thinking. Invariably they either leave without ever returning of they fire off an email informing you that you are either unprincipled or confused. It indeed does hurt.

Of course most of us know the real deal about ideologies -

Here’s the bottom line, folks: It’s Ideology that’s actually inconsistent.  The notion that there can be a best-of-all-worlds political philosophy is an illusion.  Sooner or later, the ideologists end up supporting contradictory positions.  Mule-headed adherence to part of your ideology will ultimately lead you down a dead end, and maybe to a self-defeating position you’re forced to stick to just to remain consistent.  Call it Gödel’s Theorem applied to political thought.

I would only correct the statement above by stating that there probably is a "best-of-all-worlds political philosophy" - so long as the philosophy remains broad enough and provides the tools that equip "thinkers" to solve most any issue.  The only danger is when a philosophy begins to become too defined and restricted and in effect more ideological.

Perhaps it would be better if folks that pretend to navigate the world of ideas actually spent a little more time figuring things out before attempting to pin a label and move on.