“The political spectrum”

Lifted at random from Sipsey Street, apropos of nothing in the actual post:

To measure political ideology, Gallup asks Americans to say whether their political views are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal.

I consider the sentence above a prime indicator of the most pervasive and damaging myth in all Western society, to wit: You may legitimately plant your flag at any point in the spectrum between the following diametric opposites – You wish to be ruled by either an overwhelmingly strong Conservative government, or an overwhelmingly strong Liberal government. Nobody can stop you from making that choice, because that’s freedom.

It’s embarrassing to have to admit how many years it took before I discerned that those aren’t really the only choices. But listening to the news and all the gasbags on all the shows on all the media, I suppose we can be forgiven for assuming that there are only the two viewpoints.

In deference to Claire, who coined the word, I prefer to call the third way (and there may be more, but I stopped looking) “Freedomista.” I wish to be left the hell alone to rule myself.