Check out the August 28, 2006 Issue of American Conservative Magazine for a wide range of views on the following questions:

1. Are the designations “liberal” and “conservative” still useful? Why or why not?

2. Does a binary Left/Right political spectrum describe the full
range of ideological options? Is it still applicable?

Most of my views on economic issues seem to echo Kevin Phillips who was a Nixon Republican 35 years ago, but is now labeled a "Populist".  On the other hand, I find that I identify with the paleo-conservative view of Pat Buchanan when he wrote: "We are old church and old right, anti-imperialist and anti-interventionist, disbelievers in Pax Americana. We love the old republic, and when we hear phrases like ‘New World Order,’ we release the safety catches on our revolvers."

Of all the commentators that TAC chose, the view on the left-right divide that comes closest to my own is that of  Michael Lind, co-author of the political essay, The Radical Center that advocates a "third way politics".  Lind believes that today's political division can be traced back to 60's era "Identity Politics".

Excerpts from Lind's commentary in TAC:  

The meanings of the terms “conservative” and “liberal” (and its synonym “progressive”) have been altered by two long-term trends in American politics. The first is the replacement of ideology by partisanship; the second is the alignment of partisanship and identity...In living memory conservatism and liberalism referred to ideological movements, not political parties...This is no longer the case. Today conservative means partisan Republican and liberal means partisan Democrat.....

The major divide between American politics is (between)....red states and blue cities. But the city-suburb divide itself is merely a surrogate for an ethnic and religious divide. Today the Republican Party is the party of the ethnic and religious majority, white Christians, and the Democratic Party is the party of ethnic and religious minorities—non-whites (blacks and Latinos) and non-Christians (Jews and post-Christian secularists). The fact that the Republicans get some non-white and Jewish and secularist votes, while the Democrats get a minority of white Christian votes, does not alter this pattern. The big cities are Democratic because that is where blacks, Latinos, Jews, and post-Christian secularists are concentrated, and the suburbs and small towns are Republican because that is where most white Christians live.

The emergence of a pan-white, pan-Christian majority party, the Republicans, shows that the melting pot worked for whites. The ethnic divisions among Anglo-Americans and European-Americans have been effaced by assimilation and intermarriage. The once deep theological divide between Protestants and Catholics in the U.S. has been replaced by an alliance of conservative Christians against moral liberalism in both its secular and religious varieties.

By contrast, the core of the Democratic Party is a coalition of ethnic and religious minorities that have little in common other than suspicion of the white Christian majority. Blacks fear white racism; Latinos fear Anglo nativism; and Jews and post-Christian secularists fear Christian triumphalism. A traditional big-city patronage machine, the Democratic Party offers each minority what it wants: affirmative action (blacks and Latinos), mass immigration from Latin America (Latinos), and strict separation of church and state and moral liberalism (Jews and secularists).

Virginia state legislators passed a law two years ago that prohibits "civil unions, partnership contracts or other arrangements between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." A proposed constitutional amendment, which will go to voters in November, excludes any "unmarried individuals" from "union, partnership or other legal status similar to marriage."

Many gay people in Virginia and some family-law attorneys say they worry that the state law and proposed amendment are more far-reaching than simple bans on gay marriage -- that the measures could threaten the legal viability of the contracts used by gay couples to share ownership of property and businesses.

Feeling Unwelcome, Some Gays Vacate Virginia / November ballot ban helps fuel migration / Washington Post / Kirstin Downey / August 7 2006

More and more states are not only banning gay marriage, but private co-habitation agreements and other legal protections that gays have enjoyed.  While I oppose gay marriage and civil unions, I believe this sort of legislation goes to far. Gays and Lesbians are still citizens. All American citizens have the right to enter into private contracts, to control of their private property and society's protection against physical violence and harassment.

The nine ambulances were parked outside the Lebanese Red Cross. They couldn't leave -- neither by the road north, which was bombed, nor the road south, which was shelled Monday. Blasts thundered across the Tyre sky, and rumors flew with almost equal vigor: No one could walk outside after 10 p.m., no one should stand in the street in groups bigger than three....For the first time since the war had started, there was no way out of Tyre. And for those left behind, there was no way to get around....Inside Tyre, besieged and desperate, Israeli missiles struck an apartment complex targeted by an Israeli commando raid last weekend, reducing four five-story buildings to rubble and igniting a fire in a building still standing. The percussion of blasts paralyzed Tyre, transforming the seaside city into a ghost town...What was supposed to serve as a staging point for relief into southern Lebanon -- the city where aid officials say thousands remain stranded and corpses have rotted in the streets for as many as 10 days -- had become too dangerous for anyone but a few motorcyclists....."The city is completely cut off from the rest of the world," said Roland Huguenin, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been prevented from sending out convoys for three days. "Tyre doesn't have a lifeline now."

Bombing Obliterates Last Route Out of Tyre Ambulances, Aid Stranded After Warplanes Strike Strip of Sand Over the Litani / Anthony Shadid Anthony / Washington Post Foreign Service / August 8 2006

Israel is making war on Lebanese civilians the same way it has been making war on the native Arab population herded into Gaza and the West Bank for years.  That strategy is to inflict maximum pain and suffering on the civilian population to demonstrate that opposition is useless.  

Israel makes war on defenseless civilians because it doesn't want to incur the casualties that would result if it did the hard work of house-to-house urban warfare that the US Military is engaged in Iraq.  The IDF is far better at facing adolescent boys throwing rocks at their heavily armored Merkavas tanks then confronting armed and motivated guerilla fighters.  

Hezbollah is a determined bunch of armed men who have bested the IDF soldiers in most every face-to-face confrontation.  Let's not forget that the IDF left Lebanon with it's tail between it's legs during the first Lebonan War in the 1980s. Obviously this time Israel finds it easier to reign terror on women, children and old men from the safety of their US provided F-16 fighter jets or Apache helicopters.

The barrage of Israeli rationalizations that the Hezbollah is to blame for the suffering by hiding among the civilian population has been replayed over and over again by the corporate media. It has run unchallenged by the political commentators. Even with the pro-Israel commentary that relentlessly accompanies the news reports, any thoughtful observer can see that this is war of attrition on the civilian population. The fact they are doing it with advanced weaponry supplied by the US taxpayer makes America culpable in the eyes of the Arab World.

How this is supposed to help the US gain Muslim allies in the "War on Terror" is the unanswered question.