Believe it or not, there's actually something of a conservative cadre in my Drawing II class, and every now and then, before class starts, one of us will crack wise about some news item or other, leading the others to join in with a few good-naturedly snarky comments about the current administration. It was just after one of these situations when I found myself engaged in the following conversation:
Girl Across the Room: Why do you guys hate Obama so much? He's not doing that bad a job.
Me: I don't hate him, I just want him to not be president anymore.
GAtR: Oh, like McCain would have been so much better?
Me: No. In fact, Obama getting elected was probably the best thing to happen to this country, because now everyone's rallying back and saying no to socialism, and it's kind of awesome.
GAtR: ...You're CONSERVATIVE, aren't you?
Me: ...Why, yes, I am.
Nearby Hipster Chick: See, I'm totally all socialist-liberal. I'm so liberal I'm an anarchist.
Me: ....-spittake-
Hopefully the rest of you caught what was wrong with that statement as well, and are now struggling to hold in your laughter as the Hipster Chick glares at you from behind her long, unkempt bangs and thick mascara, oblivious as to what exactly is so funny.
The problem is that, while the linear political spectrum actually looks something like this:
For some reason, most people think it looks like this:
NOTE: I personally don't like to use the linear spectrum, as I feel it oversimplifies, and instead prefer the grid version with an axis each for social and fiscal liberalism vs. conservatism (as I myself am fiscally conservative but socially liberal.) Still, this is what we'll be using for the purpose of this discussion.
This completely floors me. The Left regularly attacks the Right for not regulating enough, and yet...they want to lay claim to anarchy? Um, what? Sorry, but liberal politics and anarchy are like, this far apart.
...-holds hands really far apart-
Yeah, like that. Now, as I've said, the linear spectrum oversimplifies, so I can see being so socially liberal that you're a social anarchist, because that's kind of where I fall as well. But Hipster Chick called herself a socialist, then immediately made the leap to anarchist. And unless that's like saying you're so uncool you're cool, or that the fabric you found at the thrift store is so ugly it's fashionably retro (or it will be once you get the cat pee and sour milk smells out of it), um, no. I can only assume this misconception came about because Socialism decided, at one point, that its buddy Facism, with whom it told everyone it only ever became friends out of pity, was not cool enough (especially after that whole Nazi thing) and that it wanted to be cool with those hip young kids and their rebelliousness, so it started going around saying "Oh yeah, me and Anarchy? Totally BFFs. We are so chilling right next to each other on the linear political spectrum all the time."
Anarchy, having no use for the organizational nature of any sort of spectrum, ignored all of this and went on defacing bathrooms and stealing preserved frogs from the biology lab.
Anyway, when I confronted Hipster Chick with this fact, she sort of stared at me for a minute and then went "Whatever, I'm an anarchist." Which is fine with me. Call yourself whatever the hell you want, vote however the hell you want, and feel free to argue with me about it, 'cause I'll be happy to argue back. But for the love of God, at least educate yourself on what you're arguing. Part of having conviction in your beliefs is knowing what the hell you're talking about.
Also, later in the class I overheard Hipster Chick and the girl who started all this ruckus blaming their parents for everything that was wrong in their lives. I'm not even going to say anything.
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