I am not a Republican ...or a Democrat (Labels Part 1)

Sojourners et al. took out an ad during the election that said, "God is not a Republican, or a Democrat," and I have decided it is a fitting personal statement as well (I think I signed the petition, but I can't remember). This past election, I gave up my party affiliation, though not my sense of political identity. There were practical reasons given the kind of work I do, there were reactionary reasons related to the primary process, and then there were the reasons that weren't yet reasons when I did it, but have become more prominent now.

I have always disliked labels of any kind - having been called a number of different things in my life, some less kind than others. To assign a name to something, to place something in a category so often limits or fails to capture the whole of what it is that is being described - as if to say "you are a liberal, conservative, hippie, evangelical......whatever" and that's all the person is allowed to be. You name it, you label it, and whatever it is becomes easier to dismiss or to stereotype. Or even if you try to claim something for yourself, you end up running up against everyone else's definition of what that thing is supposed to be and it becomes a fight over semantics (hmmm...framing???) rather than an effort to understand what it means for a person to try to stake a claim in the first place.

But, I'm beginning to digress into what is to be the second and more theoretical post about labeling....

So, let me say now I'm not a Democrat nor a Republican (nor a Green, nor a Libertarian, etc...you get the idea. This, of course, tends to draw criticism from all sides because (in case you missed it) there is something of a political and cultural war going on and the intransigency of the "with us or against us" mentality leaves little space for us political wanderers. But, let me clarify - I am not a fence sitter. There are certainly things I believe and believe strongly and for which I have been dragging my ass up to capitol hill for the past few years to try to accomplish. But I am more idealistic than ideological (am I falling into the labeling trap myself?) and I don't want to spend my time defending a party name, when there are a lot better things to be fighting for.

More to come...