Conscience of a Non-Commital Slightly-Left-of-Middle Liberal

I'm reading a book called The Conscience of a Liberal. I didn't find it on my own, it was suggested to me by my True Liberal friend, whom I love and adore, and with whom I have many great, non-stressful political discussions.

I thought, from the title, that I'd learn all about my conscience. Sort of a self-discovery process. But, no. It's not that I haven't learned anything about history or politics. In fact, I've learned a ton about FDR and his New Deal. But I've learned nothing helpful about myself.

Hold up, not true again. This is what I've learned about myself: I'm not a True Liberal. I'm not even very liberal at all. I'm sort of a slightly-left-of-middle liberal. The book touts the ideas of liberals, like every True Liberal should whole-heartedly agree with them. And maybe they do. Hence, maybe I'm not one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for equality. But the question is what KIND of equality? Racial equality? Then whole-heartedly I'm liberal. Economic equality, meaning the equal distribution of income? Umm, I can't commit to that one. It's very Robin Hood-ish, and that's romantic. But I'm not sure I'm down with it.

Here's my entire problem with politics. I'm going to quickly lay it out, even though I'm pretty sure it makes me un-American (previously I've been calling myself socialist, since that pretty well equates with un-American, in most people's view, but I'll have to give that up. Socialist is DETERMINEDLY liberal). So at the risk of losing all my true blue American friends, here it goes.

I can't decide who's right. And I can't decide what I'm fighting for. Both parties call for us to hold true to the values that this nation was founded upon, and it's pretty un-American to admit that I'm not all for that. I mean, sure, this nation had some good ideas at the start, and has had some good ideas since. But it seems to me that we have forgotten ALL of the values that our country was founded upon. Seems to me that we founded this country upon the values of, among other things: mass murder, intolerance, and slavery. I'm proud to say that I'm not fighting for a return to those values.

Okay, so you say I should forget about those values. Only remember the GOOD ones. Except, isn't that missing the point?

And there's my main problem with politics. I think, most of the time, we're missing the point by a long mile. We're always taking politics out of context in a way that makes it nearly useless to discuss politics at all. Furthermore, we talk about politics like it's a cure-all, and we expect it to fix all problems. Even those fighting for less goverment expect the government to fix things. Which means, to me, politics often feels fake, forced, and ferocious: not my thing.

So I guess I shall remain a Non-Commital Slightly-Left-of-Middle Liberal. I'll take politics one issue at a time, thank you.